_John H. White_
The "PIONEER": LIGHT PASSENGER LOCOMOTIVE of 1851
_In the Museum of History and Technology_
[Illustration: Figure 1.--THE "PIONEER," BUILT IN 1851, shown here as
renovated and exhibited in the Museum of History and Technology, 1964.
In 1960 the locomotive was given to the Smithsonian Institution by the
Pennsylvania Railroad through John S. Fair, Jr. (Smithsonian photo
63344B.)]
_In the mid-nineteenth century there was a renewed interest in
the light, single-axle locomotives which were proving so very
successful for passenger traffic. These engines were built in
limited number by nearly every well-known maker, and among the
few remaining is the 6-wheel "Pioneer," on display in the Museum
of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution. This
locomotive is a true representation of a light passenger
locomotive of 1851 and a historic relic of the mid-nineteenth
century._
THE AUTHOR: _John H. White is associate curator of
transportation in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of
History and Technology._
The "PIONEER" is an unusual locomotive and on first inspection would
seem to be imperfect for service on an American railroad of the 1850's.
This locomotive has only one pair of driving wheels and no truck, an
arrangement which marks it as very different from the highly successful
standard 8-wheel engine of this period. All six wheels of the _Pioneer_
are rigidly attached to the frame. It is only half the size of an
8-wheel engine of 1851 and about the same size of the 4--2--0 so common
in this country some 20 years earlier. Its general arrangement is that
of the rigid English locomotive which had, years earlier, proven
unsuitable for use on U.S. railroads.
These objections are more apparent than real, for the _Pioneer_, and
other engines of the same design, proved eminently successful when used
in the service for which they were built, that of light passenger
traffic. The _Pioneer's_ rigid wheelbase is no problem, for when it is
compared to that of an 8-wheel engine it is found to be about four feet
less; and its small size is no problem when we realize it was not
intended for heavy service. Figure 2, a diagram, is a comparison of the
_Pioneer_ and a standard 8-wheel locomotive.
Since the service life of the _Pioneer_ was spent on the Cumberland
Valley Railroad, a brief account of that line is necessary to an
understanding of the service history of this locomotive.
_Exhibits of the "Pioneer"_
The _Pioneer_ has been a historic relic since 1901. In the fall
of that year minor repairs were made to the locomotive so that
it might be used in the sesquicentennial celebration at
Carlisle, Pennsylvania. On October 22, 1901, the engine was
ready for service, but as it neared Carlisle a copper flue
burst. The fire was extinguished and the _Pioneer_ was pushed
into town by another engine. In the twentieth century, the
_Pioneer_ was displayed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,
St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904, and at the Wheeling, West
Virginia, semicentennial in 1913. In 1927 it joined many other
historic locomotives at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's "Fair
of the Iron Horse" which commemorated the first one hundred
years of that company. From about 1913 to 1925 the _Pioneer_
also appeared a number of times at the Apple-blossom Festival
at Winchester, Virginia. In 1933-1934 it was displayed at the
World's Fair in Chicago, and in 1948 at the Railroad Fair in the
same city. Between 1934 and March 1947 it was exhibited at the
Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.