Twenty-nine Novembers ago, I wrote a story for The Sun about New York tinkerer Peter Cooper and the circumstances surrounding his building of the Tom Thumb, the nation’s first steam locomotive ...

It was the first practical steam railroad locomotive in the world ... he finished his project, calling it the Tom Thumb “because it was so insignificant.” A major test would be to run the ...

Baltimore County Public Library/Wikimedia Commons On or about this day in 1830, the Tom Thumb, the first American-built steam locomotive, sought to demonstrate the superiority of steam power by ...

The smallest locomotive in the B&0 is not an original, but a replica of the first steam engine. Peter Cooper built this famous machine–known as the Tom Thumb–in 1827, using scrap metal ...

Locomotive steam engines that could move along a track ... could build a locomotive that would impress the B&O barons. His Tom Thumb was basically a miniature locomotive. The boiler was no bigger ...

1830 gave us Tom Thumb, the first U.S. steam locomotive, in Baltimore. And from there these machines took off. But before we could build the transcontinental railroad, the Civil War broke out ...

It boasted a steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb, that was a stimulant for the budding rail industry. Inventor Peter Cooper built the Tom Thumb in 1830 to demonstrate the possibilities of steam ...

Locomotive steam engines that could move along a track ... could build a locomotive that would impress the B&O barons. His Tom Thumb was basically a miniature locomotive. The boiler was no bigger ...