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The Best Friend was the first engine to draw a train of cars in
America. It was built at the West Point Foundry Shops, New York
City, for E. L. Miller and was put on the Charleston and Hamburgh Rail road in 1830.
It was a four wheeled engine, all four wheels being drivers. Two
inclined cylinders at an angle working down on a double crank
inside of the frame, the wheels connected on the outside by side
rods. The wheels were made with iron hubs, wooden spokes and
felloes with iron tires and iron webs and pins in the wheels to
connect the outside rods to. The boiler was a vertical one, the
boiler set in the centre of the four wheels with connecting
rods, running by it to the crank shaft. The cyls. were 6"
dia. by 16" stroke, the wheels 4½ ft. dia. Engine weighed
about 4½ tons. The boiler of the engine exploded and was caused
by the negro fireman putting his weight on the safety valve to
prevent the steam escaping and is the first locomotive boiler
explosion on record in America.
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