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The “Best Friend”

The “Best Friend” was built by the West Point Foundry at New York, in 1830, and put into operation on the Charleston & Hamburg R.R., where it hauled the first train of cars in America. It had a vertical boiler and the cylinders, set obliquely, were six inch diameter by six inch stroke. The wheels, all of which were drivers, were made of wood, with iron hubs and tires. In terms of present day computations, the tractive force, with 50 pounds boiler pressure, was about 400 pounds. It weighed four-and-a-half tons. When its boiler exploded, due to the negro fireman placing his weight on the safety valve to prevent the steam escaping, the first locomotive boiler explosion in America was recorded.

(From “The Development of the Locomotive” published by The Central Steel Company, Massillon, Ohio, U.S.A.).