CAMPBELL'S "EIGHT WHEELER", 1836

     In 1836, Henry R. Campbell, Chief Engineer of the Philadelphia Germantown and Norristown Ry., patented the combination of the ordinary truck or bogie with two pairs of coupled drivers, one pair being in front and one back of the firebox as in the ordinary coupled passenger engine of today. This engine was contracted for by Jas. Brooks of Phila. and began on May 16th 1836 and finished May 8th 1837.

     This was the first eight wheel engine of this type and from it the standard American locomotive of today takes its origin.

     This engine lacked the essential feature of the equalizing beam between the drivers as it had nothing but the ordinary elliptic springs over each journal and had no good means of equalizing the weight on the driving wheels so as to meet the various undulations of the track.