This model of an early American train depicts the full size "De Witt Clinton", the first steam locomotive to operate in New York State on the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad in 1831. The locomotive was named after De Witt Clinton (1769-1828), the governor of New York State responsible for the Erie Canal. It was the fourth locomotive built in America and carried passengers from the canal boat pier at Schenectady to the New York steamers at Albany. The locomotive was built at the West Point Foundry in 1831, was of an 0-4-0 wheel configuration, weighed 3 tons, had wheel diameters of 4 ft 6 inches (1.4 m) and cylinders of 5½ inches x 16 inches (14 cm x 40.6 cm).
The model is interesting because it represents an early American-built locomotive. Many model makers in Britain and Australia who undertook models of early locomotives usually chose Stephenson's "Rocket" or "Locomotion" to model. The other engaging thing about the model is that it shows a primitive tender with water barrels and stacked timber ready for the wood fuelled boiler. The model also features one of the three passenger carriages which made the journey in 1831. These were the bodies of stagecoaches simply attached onto railway bogies. Paintings of the first journey even show drivers and footmen sitting up on the coaches despite their obvious redundant job. Perhaps they just opened the coach doors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeWitt_Clinton_(locomotive)
Railroads America - The De Witt Clinton and Old Ironsides in
http://www.oldandsold.com
Margaret Simpson
Curator, Science, Technology & Industry
October 2009
The train model was given to the Museum by Mrs E. Reardon, of 92 Delange Road, Ryde, NSW, in 1966. It was one of a number of objects donated by Mrs Reardon including models of other locomotives and sailing ships as well as engineering books and magazines which had belonged to her late husband, John Thomas Reardon, who had died in 1964.
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