ADDRESS
TO THE
PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS
OF THE
COM PAN'Y,
ON THE SUBJECT OF
LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES,
AND THE ERRORS IN RELATION THERETO, CONTAINED
IN A PAMPHLET RECENTLY PUBLISHED BY
AUTHORITY OF THE COMPANY.
BY ROSS WINANS.
BALTIMORE:
PRINTED BY JOHN D. TOY.
1857.




NOTE.-The First Edition of this Pamphlet having been exhausted by an
unexpected demand, it has been found necessary to reprint it.




ADDRESS.
TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS OF THE
BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAIL ROAD CO.
Gentlemen: —A pamphlet of fifty-seven pages has recently
been published by the authority of your Board, and very
widely circulated, for the manifest purpose of satisfying all
who may feel interest in the subject, that the Engines which
I have built for you, and those which you have yourselves
built, after my pattern, possess inherent defects, which
unfit them for use upon your Road.
I am not at liberty to regard this publication as merely
the act of Mr. Henry Tyson, your Master of Machinery,
though it is obviously the result of his attempts to impart
the weight of your influence and authority to his endeavors
to injure, and, if possible, to ruin the reputation of my
machinery.  I would have been content to regard Mr.
Tyson as my adversary, and would have preferred a controversy with him, to one with the Company, with which I
have for so many years had relations mutually advantageous, and in whose welfare it is impossible I can cease
to feel the liveliest interest. But, you, gentlemen, have
chosen to give this pamphlet to the world. It is published
at your expense, and that there may be no doubt of the
sanction you give to all its allegations, however libellous in
fact or in law, you have affixed to it a certified copy of a
resolution of the Board directing its publication.
It is, therefore, to be treated as your publication, and, if,
in the review of it which my duty to myself, and to the
interest of your Road requires at my hands, I may seem to
refer to it as the work of Mr. Tyson, it is not to be inferred,




4
that I have lost sight of the fact, that, upon the face of it,
it is the attempt of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, probably at the instance of Mr. Tyson or others, to
lessen the force of publications heretofore made by me, in
vindication of the efficiency of the machinery for so many
years used on your Road.
The pamphlet commences with a note from thepresident
of the Company to Mr. Tyson, asking him to state in
writing, for the information of the Board of Directors, what
had been his action in reference to the recent contracts for
motive power, and especially what had been his official
intercourse with Mr. Ross Winans in that connection. To
this communication Mr. Tyson replied with great promptness on the following day.
If you will take the trouble to examine this part of Mr.
Tyson's statement, (from pages 3 to 10,) you will, I think,
not fail to discover, that it furnishes the most conclusive
internal evidences of disingenuousness, if not of some thing
which deserves a harsher name. It is due to myself, that
I should examine it with some minuteness.
On the 13th of September, 1856, I received from 3Mr.
Tyson the following communication:
OFFICE MACHINERY DEPARTMENT, BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAIL ROAD,
Baltimore, September 13, 1856.
Dear Sir,-This Company propose to contract for the building of five
first class Ten-Wheel Freight Locomotive Engines, according to designs to
be furnished by them. They are to weigh thirty tons with water in boiler
and fuel, to have cylinders 18 inches diameter and 24 inches stroke, 50 inch
drivers, 30 inch truck wheels, with link motion and variable exhaust.
Inform me at an early day if you desire to make a bid for the whole or a
portion of the contract, and at what time the machines could be delivered.
Specifications will then be sent you.
Yours, &c.
HENRY TYSON,
Master of Machinery.
To Ross WINANS, ESQ.
According to Mr. Tyson's statement, this letter produced
an interview between us, "a few days" after the 13th of
September. (See page 4.) In this interview, according to




5
his version of it, we discussed, with much temper, the relative merits of the Eight and Ten-Wheel Engines, Mr.
Tyson all the time maintaining a calm dignity, whilst I
gave way to irritation, charged him with being capable of
making a false report of the working of the Camel Engine
with a view to the injury of its reputation, threatened to
put him down and crush him, and emphatically declared,
that I "would not build a Ten-Wheel Engine."  All this
occurred, be it remembered, about the 13th of September. A
few days afterwards, according to his statement, (page 5,)
I followed him into the street, threatened again to "put
him  down," and finding him  proof against all threats,
suddenly changed my entire manner, and with a peculiarly
patronizing smile, sought to persuade him how easy it would
be for him to think with me in the matter, and that it would
be much better-much better for him to do so. And, lest Mr.
Tyson might infer that I meant that it would be better for
his pocket,-that I meant, indeed, to offer lhim the indignity
of a bribe, or some other unconscientious inducement-he
adds, that, as I was turning to leave him, I tapped him on
the shoulder, and assured him that it was his reputation
which would be improved by trying to think with me — "as
concerns your reputation, I mean, of course."  He then proceeds to say that I informed him I had concluded to send in
a bid for building the Ten-Wheel Engines after my own
mode.
Now I beg you to observe, that it was after all thisafter I had threatened him, cajoled him, emphatically
refused to build a Ten-Wheel Engine —then informed him
I would bid for one, but only after my own mode-that he
sends me the following letter:
OFFICE MACHINERY DEPARTMENT BALTImoRE AND OHIO RAIL ROAD,
BALTIMORE, September 27th, 1856.
Ross WVINANS, ESQ., Baltimore, Md.
Dear Sir, —The Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company desire you to
bid for the building of five first class Locomotive Freight Engines, to be
constructed according to the dimensions and design shown in the enclosed
specification.




6
Should you receive the award, a detailed specification and all necessary
drawings will be furnished at once.
Your bid will be for thoroughly first class machinery, both as regards mat.rial and finish, and will state the time of delivery.
Very truly yours,
HENRY TYSON,
Master of Machinery.
And this is not all.  So placable was he-that, not
receiving any bid for several days, he addresses to a person
who had thus not only treated him with such indignity, but
who had declared he would only build for him on terms to
be prescribed by the builder himself, another communication in the following words:
MACHINERY OFFICE, B. & O. R. R Co.
BALTIMORE, October 2d, 1856.
Ross WINANS, ESQ.
Dear Sir, —If it is convienient, I would like to receive your bid for building the five Locomotive Engines (for which we sent you specifications) this
evening.                Very truly, yours,
HENRY TYSON,
Master of Machinery.
I might ask if these are the terms in which a high
spirited, sensitive man, such as Mr. Tyson would have us
believe himself to be, would address one who had impeached
his official integrity before his clerk, threatened to put him
down and crush him, and then patronized him with insincere and disgusting blandishments.
But these letters of September 27, and October 2, shew,
beyond the possibility of doubt or question, that I could
not have said to him "a few days after" the 13th of
September, that I would not build a Ten-Wheel Engine;
and that I had not, as he alleges, (on page 9,)'repeatedly
avowed" my determination to build none but my Camel
Engines, or if Ten-Wheels, only upon my own plan. On
the contrary, these letters shew that Mr. Tyson, long after
the 13th of September, and certainly up to the 2d of
October, considered me as a candidate for contracts upon
his terms and specifications-for he invited my bids and
sent me his specifications —the specifications ignoring all




7
the peculiarities of my Engines and insisting upon his own
plans. If Mr. Tyson knew, as he says, beforehand, that I
would not build any Engine except upon my own plans,
and vet invited my bid, why did he, after receiving my
bid of October 4, in which I merely asked to be allowed to
make certain deviations with a view to despatch, summarily
reject my bid, when it was as favorable as others with
regard to price, and much more favorable in regard to
time? Was he trifling with me, when, as he says, he
knew my determination; or was he contriving, by a seeming acquiescence in my wishes, to extract from me a bid
which would afford him a plausible excuse for passing me
by, and gratifying his desire to give the contract to others,
at the expense of delay and inconvenience to the Company?
Nine months have already passed and not one of these Engines is yet out, and, as I am informed, no prospect of all
of them being out for some months to come. As it is not
to be supposed that Messrs. Denmead have not fulfilled
their contracts as to time, the contract must have allowed
seven or eight months for its fulfillment, whilst I was
willing to engage to furnish the five Engines on an average
of three and a half months.
But, the truth is no such conversation as Mr. Tyson
recites on the sixth page of his statement ever took place
between us. I never told him that I would build the
Engines after my own mode. All that passed between us
on that subject was contained in my bid of October 4. I
there proposed certain deviations solely with a view to the
saving of time. My language was "by being allowed to
make these alterations I can furnish the Engines some two
months earlier than I otherwise could." Mr. Tyson says
this bid furnishes no intimation by which he could be led to
suppose that I was willing to build any description of Engine but that "dictated" by myself. Now, gentlemen, I
ask you to read the bid for yourselves and decide whether
the language I have quoted from my letter was not a distinct intimation that I was willing to build exactly the
Engines he required, if'allowed two months longer time;
and the Engines I myself thought most advisable if allowed




8
two months less time. The following is my bid of the 4th
of October:
HENRY TYSON, ESQ.
Master of Machinery, B. & 0. B. B. Co.
Dear Sir,-Yours of the 27th of last month, expressing a desire of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company that I should bid for the building of
five first class Locomotive Freight Engines, to be constructed according to the
dimensions and design shown in the specifications enclosed in your letter to
me, is received.
I will furnish the Five Engines and Tenders required by said Company
during the month of January next for the sum of $10,000 per Engine and
Tender, provided you will allow me to deviate from the specifications in the
following particular, to wit: The size of the wheels (forty-three inches,) and
the valve-gear and frame of the Engine, to be similar to the Eight-Wheel
Engines I heretofore furnished the Company; the boiler to be on the general
plan of the boilers of the Eight-Wheel Engines.
I will conform to the specifications in all other particulars that may be
consistent with the above proposed alterations. This, I feel quite sure,
will make as good if not better, Ten-Wheel Engines than can be had by
following the specifications strictly, and by being allowed to make these alterations, I can furnish the Engines some two months earlier than I otherwise could.                   Respectfully, &c.
ROSS WINANS.
Nor did I ever coax, or threaten, or patronize Mr. Tyson
as he alleges. It is true that I have discussed with hinm
the merits of the two plans of Engines; and to that extent
may have endeavored to persuade him to adopt my views.
And it is undoubtedly true, also, that from the time when
he and I took issue upon this point, I have proclaimed to
him and to others, what I have avowed in my pamphlet
addressed to your Board, that I intended to spare no proper
efforts to establish and maintain the truth and soundness
of my own views upon the matter in controversy. If, in
this controversy, Mr. Tyson falls or is crushed, it is not my
weight but the weight of truth and reason that bears him
down. And if, as one of the consequences of my efforts,
it shall appear that I not only vindicate scientific truth
but maintain the true interests of the Baltimore and Ohio
Rail Road Company, will it be said that I ought to have
refrained because a collateral result may follow in the




demonstration that Mr. Tyson is unfit for his present responsible position in your service?
It has doubtless, gentlemen, more than once occurred to
you, as a circumstance requiring explanation, that Mr.
Tyson should have evinced, from an early period after his
employment by your Company, a spirit of hostility towards
my machinery and a disposition to supersede it by others.
Although aware, myself, of the cause of this unfriendly
disposition, I have heretofore refrained from any allusion
to it, because the circumstance might appear to be too trivial in itself, and of too little significance to justify jealousy
and ill-will so determined as Mr. Tyson has exhibited
towards me. But, when it is recollected, that Mr. Tyson
is new in his position, without previous reputation or experience, the incident I am about to relate will suffice, with
sagacious judges of human nature, to account for a large
portion of the unfriendliness which I have experienced at
his hands.
Several months ago Mr. Tyson was availing himself of
an Engine at the Mount Clare Shop, to explain to me how
he proposed to manage the coupling or draw-bar between the
Engine and Tender of his plan of Ten-Wheel Engine, for
which he invited my bid. He said he intended to attach
the draw-bar to the Engine above the centre' of the axles of
the driving-wheels, which position (above the centrd of the
axle) would, when the Engine was drawing, transfer weight
from the truck of the Engine to the driving-wheels, and
thereby increase the adhesion of the Engine: whereas, the
present Ten-Wheel Engine of the Company had the drawbar- attached below the centre of the axles, in consequence
of which attachment, (below the centre of the drivingaxles) the weight was transferred from the driving-wheels
to the truck of the Engine, when the Engine was in the
act of drawing its load. I enquired whether he meant to
say that such transfer of weight from the driving-wheels
to the truck took place when the line of the draw-bar
between the Engine and Tender was horizontal and some
12 or 15 inches above the rails of the Road, as in the Company's Ten-Wheel Engines.
2




10
He replied that he did so mean. I stated that I differed
with him as to transferring weight from the drivers to the
truck under that arrangement of draw-bar and consequent
action of the Engine: and we argued the question with
much animation for some time,-and this before two gentlemen, Mr. Milholland, and another who, I believe, is connected with the Express Office in this City, but whose name
I have not the pleasure of knowing.  At length I succeeded, as I think, by experimenting and illustrating with
a carpenter's saw-bench (which was at hand) in making my
side of the case so apparent and incontrovertible in the
presence of these gentlemen, that Mr. Tyson, to escape (as
I conceive, for I can account for it in no other way) from
the mortification that he felt in having taken a false position in mechanical science, and been driven from it just at
the very time when he was most anxious to impress every
one with his profound science, suddenly turned and said,
that his view on the subject was the same as mine, and had
been from the first. I enquired why he took and argued
the opposite side, when he believed with me on the subject?
He said he had not done so, and that I had mistaken his
meaning if I thought he had done so. This declaration
astonished me exceedingly. I felt that it was quite impossible that I- could have misunderstood him, from the
plainness of the proposition, and from arguments used by
him in the early part of the discussion to support his view
of the subject. I therefore could not help declaring to him
that in all my intercourse with mankind, I had never been
so astonished as at his declaration that he had not, a short
time before, asserted and argued that the Company's TenWheel Engines, with a horizontal draw-bar, situated below
the axles and some 12 or 15 inches above the rail, transferred weight from the drivers to the truck when in the
act of drawing, as a consequence of the coupling bar being
below the axle, instead of above it.
After some further conversation, Mr. Tyson seemed suddenly to have gotten some new views upon the mechanical
subject we had just been discussing, and repeated his original proposition. I then said, with much earnestness, now,




Mr. Tyson, it is impossible that we can misunderstand each
other upon the subject. To which he assented. I then set
about demonstrating my view of the subject, with increased
earnestness, and made it so plain, as I conceive, in presence
of the two gentlemen before mentioned, that Mr. Tyson
was again constrained to do what astonished me so much a
short time before, that is, to deny that he had differed from
my view of the subject.
I here found it impossible to refrain from showing my
surptrise at this renewed denial of any difference between us
upon a point which we had spent so much time in discussing, and my feelings, I confess, were expressed in the most
emphatic terms. All this occurred in the presence of persons who could scarcely have failed to observe and appreciate the want of mechanical science which Mr. Tyson exhibited in this singular interview, and he has found it impossible to forget the mortification it occasioned him. And
notwithstanding his forced concession to my views, or rather
his denial that we had differed, I find, from his pamphlet,
(page 28) that he has gone back to his original error in relation to the transfer of weight from the back drivers to the
front of the Engine, having got the endorsement of Mr. E.
R. Addison, in favor of his views. Although it may appear, at first view, unreasonable to suppose that an incident
such as I have related could have exercised so important
an influence upon Mr. Tyson's official conduct, yet when
we consider the circumstances under which it occurred, we
shall be at no loss to account for it. Mr. Tyson had just
entered upon his present office. He found himself almost
overburthened with mechanical science, which up to that
period had had little, if any, practical vent or application.
His new situation afforded him  a splendid field for the
boldest experiments. Failure would involve no loss to him,
and in the operations of so vast a Company as that with
which he was now connected, the loss of thousands of dollars in experiments would scarcely be noticed. Hence we
find him soon engaged in establishing new systems and
revising the practice of all his predecessors —building passenger and freight cars, and car trucks upon new plans



12
putting wheels loose upon the axles under passenger carsand sending out of the city for large quantities of wheels,
without excuse or necessity, a measure so indefensible that
he has not attempted to vindicate it, even in the pamphlet
which professes to have been occasioned by the publication
in which I challenged him to furnish a reason for such an
abandonment of his own city.
But the crowning piece of machinery connected with the
Rail Road is the Locomotive. But for this great conception,
the Rail Road must have remained comparatively on a level
with those imperfect modes of transportation with which
mankind for so many centuries had been obliged to be content. The man whose inventive genius can impart new
powers to this great agent, or usefully improve or modify
the discoveries of others, undoubtedly deserves applause and
encouragement, and I should be the last man in the world
to withhold my approval from any plan of improvement
which, founded upon sound mechanical principles, promises
to give increased efficiency to this right arm of all Rail
Road operations. But, there is a vast difference between
the pretensions of the real mechanic, who surveys, with the
eye of science and experience, the works of others, marks
their defects and seeks to amend them, and the rash innovator who, at the expense of others, puts his own science,
skill and ingenuity in competition with the whole world,
and regardless of results, and indifferent to the interests of
his employers, places every thing at hazard for the chance
of realising, out of his crude conceptions, a reputation for
himself. It was under the influence of this spirit, and of his
wounded self-love, that when the Board last fall authorized
the procuring of five first class freight Engines for transporting Coal, Mr. Tyson, without the sanction (as I understand) of either the President or the Board, took the responsibility of rejecting the kind of Engine which for so
many years had done ninety-nine hundredths of the Coal
transportation on the Road, and devised a new plan of Engines, which I predict must and will, when compared with
the machinery they are intended to supersede, prove unfit
for that kind of transportation. The Eight-Wheel Engines




13
were tried and approved machines-the experience of the
Company, for a series of years, had fully established their
superiority for this description of business. They had been
fully matured by a long course of trials, and presented no
temptations for experiment, and their inventor was at hand
to take care that attempts to improve them did not impair
their usefulness. But the Ten-Wheel Engine was common
property, and open to experiment without objection or complaint. Hence Mr. Tyson, in addition to the other motives
which I have referred to, found the Ten-Wheel Engine
better adapted for his purposes, however less fitted it might
be to answer the great objects of the Road. But I appeal,
gentlemen, from his decision, and I challenge a full and fair
trial between his Engines and mine, to commence the moment any of his new machines are on the Road.
I have felt it to be due to myself to declare to you.my opinion of the motives which governed Mr. Tyson in rejecting
my Engines, using all his official influence to banish them
from the Road, and then attempting to justify his conduct by
an elaborate enumeration of their newly discovered defects,
put forth under the sanction of your Company and fortified
by the opinions of persons employed in his own department
and in other departments of the Road. These opinions come
from twenty-seven persons, and occupy forty-two out of fiftyseven pages of his pamphlet. It must be admitted that these
opinions, considering that they proceed from so many different persons, widely separated from each other, and spread
over nearly four hundred miles of Road, are singularly harmonious. Here are twenty-seven persons, most of whom
have been, for years, employed upon the Camel Engines
without complaint and without the discovery of any extraordinary defects-who, suddenly, when appealed to for information, unite in ascribing to one hundred and nine Engines
which, according to your official reports, have done more
work with less cost of repairs in proportion to the work
done, and considering the character of the Road, than any
other Engines in the world, inherent defects, which, if they
really exist, have, from the first, rendered these Engines the
most costly, the most dangerous, and the most illy adapted




14
machinery that could well have been devised for the work to
which they were devoted. Each witness, in his turn, enumerates the same kind of defects with a degree of agreement
which it is impossible to account for, except upon one or the
other of two theories-either these defects, although undiscovered till now, are so apparent that every Engineer, Supervisor of Machinery or Supervisor of the Road, however little
qualified to judge in such matters, must long since have
known of them-or the recitals of them now, in this pamphlet
are substantially the suggestions of a single mind. But,
whether they are to be considered as the independent, voluntary and unbiassed testimony of the several persons who
have signed them, or as the work of a single individual bent 
upon making out his case, matters not to me. I hold myself
pledged to disprove them, in whatever light they are to be
regarded. The material question, I admit, is not what are
the motives for this assault upon the reputation of my Engines, although those motives, of course, are calculated to
excite suspicion and distrust-but are the Eight-Wheel Engines, as compared with the Ten-Wheel Engines, as machines for the transportation of Coal on the Baltimore and
Ohio Rail Road, liable to the mass of objections which Mr.
Tyson has arrayed against them in the pamphlet now under
review? this is the material question for me and for you,
and to the examination of that question I now propose to
address myself.
The defects which Mr. Tyson and the persons who unite
with him ascribe to the Eight-Wheel Engines, may be
summed up to be as follows:
The extreme liability of almost every one of the parts of
the Camel Engine to get out of repair.
Their extreme liability to run off the track.
Their constant tendency to cause the flanges of the drivers to wear from continual pressure against the rail.
Their constant breakage of the flanges.
Their constant spreading of the track and tearing the
rails from their fastenings.
Their uncertainty in making their trips.
The constant leakage of tubes and in the fire-boxes.




15
The vastly increased expense of repairs, and the time lost
by detention for repairs in the shops.
The necessity of constantly drawing them into sidings,
and the employment of other Engines to take them to the
shops.
The killing of men employed about them by their tendency to run off the track-and, in a word,
Their general want of safety, reliability and adaptability
to the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road.
These defects and many others are, with remarkable
agreement, summed up by Mr. Tyson and his Assistant
Master of Machinery, and ascribed to the Camel Engines,,and the opposite qualities are, with the like accord, granted
to the Ten-Wheel Engines. Indeed, it would be difficult
to find a prominent defect which is not inherent, according
to these testimonials, in the one plan, or a pre-eminent
excellence which does not happily distinguish the other.
It is impossible, in this paper, to deal with all these objections-but I trust that those who may feel sufficient interest
in the subject to examine what follows, will be satisfied that
they are wholly untenable.
If all or any considerable part of what is set forth in Mr.
Tyson's Pamphlet be true, and from the fact that one-third
of all the performances of the Ten-Wheel Engines on your
Road have been with passenger trains, while the Camel
Engines worked almost exclusively with heavy freight
trains, much heavier than the freight trains of the TenWheel Engines, it follows that the Ten-Wheel Engines
should have run a very much greater number of miles per
Engine, per year, than the Camel Engines, and for a very
much less cost of repairs per mile run, embracing the
ENTIRE EXPERIENCE Of the respective kinds of Engines. Now
is this true? According to the facts recorded in the Reports
of the Company, the average number of miles run per Engine, per year, and the average cost of repairs per mile run,
is as follows:




16
109 CAMEL ENGINES.
Whole distance run by all of the Camel
Engines on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail
Road, (109 in number,) from their first
introduction on the Road, to October 1st,
1856, the date of the Company's last
Report,-                   - -       7.437.896 miles.
Cost of repairs for the above number of
miles run by the Camel Engines, - -    $738,962N1%
Average distance run per Engine per year
by the 109 Camel Engines,  - - - -   17.483 miles.
Average cost of repairs per mile run by the
109 Camel Engines,,  -  - -               9e  cents.
17 TEN-WHEEL ENGINES.
Whole distance run with Freight and Passenger Cars by all the Ten-Wheel Engines on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail
Road, (17 in number,) from their first
introduction on the Road, to the 1st
October, 1856.
Miles run with Freight trains, - - - -  616.826 miles.
Miles run with Passenger trains,  - - -  259.011 miles.
Total number of miles run with Freight
and Passenger trains, by the 17 TenWheel Engines, - - - - - - - -  875.837 miles.
Cost of repairs for the above number of
miles run with the Ten-Wheel Engines,     $90,2T72 J
Average distance run per Engine per year
by the 17 Ten-Wheel Engines, - - -   16,937 miles.
Average cost of repairs per mile run by the
above Ten-Wheel Engines,  - - - -    10,% cents.




17
It will be seen by the above that the Camel Engines have
averaged more miles per Engine per year than the TenWheel Engines, and have averaged less cost of repairs per
mile run, notwithstanding that the average trains of the
Camel Engines over the entire Road, and during the entire
performance of the respective Engines as above, were nearly
double those of the Ten-Wheel Engines. (See pages 6, 7,
8 and 9 of my first pamphlet communication to the Board.)
It thus appears that the views and opinions (so decidedly
against the Camel, and in favor of the Ten-Wheel Engines,)
spreading over the forty-two pages of Mr. Tyson's pamphlet, are at direct variance with what is recorded in the
Reports of the Company. Mr. Tyson, in preparing his
pamphlet, must have seen that such contradiction existed,
as his attention was called to the fact by my communication
to the Board, (see pages 29 and 30,) that the Company's
Reports showed the results above set forth in favor of the
Camel Engines, and therefore he must have seen how very
important it was to his justification to show, if practicable,
that the Company's Reports did not bear witness to the
superiority of the Camel Engines as above exemplified.
This he has not done, and the inference is irresistible that
he found it impossible to do so.
And this is the more apparent from the means resorted
to by Mr. Tyson to mystify the results. That is, by taking
but a small portion of the whole experience on the Road,
and less than half the experience on the Road with Engines
of the same age, while the whole experience of the Road
with Engines of the same age, and its entire experience with
all the Engines would have worked no injustice to the TenWheel Engines. The following shows the true comparison
between the 17 Ten-Wheel Engines and the 53 Camel Engines on your Road, which are of the same age, and for the
entire distance run by both kinds of Engines, from their
first introduction on the Road to the 1st October, 1856.
Average distance run per Engine per year,
by the 17 Ten-Wheel Engines,  - - -  16.937 miles.
3




18
Average cost of repairs per mile run by
Ten-Wheel Engine,'-  - -                 10,y3 cents.
Average distance run per Engine per year
by 53 Camel Engines, - - - - - -   17.338 miles.
Average cost of repairs per mile run by 53
Camel Engines, - -                       10%yV cents.
This full and fair comparison shows the superiority of
the Camel Engine, both in distance run and in cost of repairs, to about the same extent as hereinbefore given for
the whole number of Engines. Was it fair in Mr. Tyson
to take a small portion of the experience on your Road
with the different Engines, or less than all the experience
with all the Engines of similar ages, to produce an apparent result in his favor, wheri a full and fair comparison
showed a result against him? Is a small portion of the
experience on your Road with different Engines, more
reliable for obtaining true results than the entire experience, unless there was some peculiar reason for its
being so? Has Mr. Tyson shown any such reason?
In my pamphlet communication to the Board, (page 6,)
I say, in comparing the. costs of the repairs and useful
effect of the Camel Engines with those of the Ten-Wheel
Engine, "the only true practical result is had by taking
into account the distance run, and the load taken by the
respective Engines." While it is impossible for Mr. Tyson
to refute the justice and propriety of this, he has (after
being challenged to do so) failed to apply this, the only
true standard of comparison of useful effect and cost of
repairs. Does this failure or actual refusal to make the
comparison, according to the only true standard, evince a
fair, sincere and earnest desire to arrive at the practical
truths in this matter which are of most interest to the Company?
The following is the result of the comparison according
to the true test:




19
Taking the average loads of the Camel Engine at sixteen
Cars; and the average load of the Ten-Wheel Engine at
fourteen Cars, which is in the ratio of seven Cars for the
Ten-Wheel Engine, and eight for the Camel Engine, which
is the ratio which Mr. Tyson gives on the 18th page of his
pamphlet as the true one. Upon the assumption that the
ratio of the loads of the respective Engines is as Mr. Tyson
asserts, fourteen Cars for the Ten-Wheel Engine, and sixteen for the Camel Engine; and according to the Reports
of the Company in relation to the whole distance run and
the whole amount of repairs of the respective Engines, the
following is the result:
Useful effect produced per Engine per year equal to the
following number of long Cars hauled one mile.
By the Ten-Wheel Engine,   - - -            237,118
By the Camel Engine, -                      279,728
This is in the proportion of 1 to 1TW'g or 18
per cent. in favor of the Camel Engines.
Average cost of repairs done to the hauling
of each long car 100 miles.
By the Ten-Wheel Engine, -73 - - -            cents.
By the Camel Engine, - - - - - - -   62   cets.
This is in the proportion of 1 to 1Tw'~ or 19
per cent. in favor of the Camel Engine.
Which saving in repairs by the Camel Engine in proportion to the work done amounted, at the date of the
Company's last Report, to the sum of $140,402; when applied to the whole amount of miles run, 7,437,896 by, and
the whole cost of repairs ($738,962) to the Camel Engines
on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road.




20
In addition to the foregoing, and upon the data just
mentioned, further additional expense would have resulted to the Company at the date of their last Report, by
their having done with Ten-Wheel Engines all the work
which has been done on the Road by the Camel Engines.
Nineteen additional Engines would have been required,
costing $190,000. Interest on this sum for four years,
which is the average age of the Camel Engine, is $45,600;
the nineteen Engines agreeably to the above data must run
1,287,212 miles to have compensated for the greater amount
of work done by the Camel Engines-therefore, the cost of
Enginemen, Firemen and train hands, which is at least 6
cents per mile, would amount to $77,233, which, together
with the several sums above mentioned as saving due to
the use of the Camel Engines on your Road, amounts to
$452,833.
This is according to Mr. Tyson's admissions as to the
greater load taken by the Camel Engine, and the greater
distance run per year, and less cost of repairs per mile run
as shown by the Company's Reports.
But this is very short of showing the true amount of
saving to the Company by the use of the Camel Engines
as compared with the Ten-Wheel Engines, when the comparison is based upon the ratio of the loads that have
actually been taken by the respective Engines in every day
practice on the various parts of the road. This is the only
true and fair mode of determining the cost of repairs of the
respective Engines in proportion to the work actually done
or in proportion to the aggregate amount of stress put upon
the Engines, by the whole amount of loads drawn by
them.
Agreeably to this mode of determining the relative loads
of the Engines, I insist that full justice will not be done to
the Camel Engines when the comparison between the Engines is based upon 20 Cars as the average load of the Camel
Engines, and 15 Cars as the average load of the Ten-Wheel
Engine: Agreeably to the foregoing, the comparison results
s"fOllwirs:




21
Useful effect produced, per Engine per year,
equal to the following number of long
cars hauled one mile:
By the 17 Ten-Wheel Engines, - - - -          254.055
By the 109 Camel Engines,  - - - - -          349.660
This is in the proportion of 1 to 1lsw, or 38 per cent. in
favor of the Camel Engine; or three Camel Engines would
do more work than 4 Ten-Wheel Engines.
Average cost of repairs due to the hav4ing
of each long Car 100 miles.
By the 17 Ten-Wheel Engines, -            68Ne cents.
By the 109 Camel Engines, -               49~,5 cents.
This is in the proportion of 1 to 1Tll, or 38 per cent. in
favor of the Camel Engines.
This result is based upon the entire number (7.437.896)
of miles run by the Camel Engines collectively from their
first introduction on the Road to the first of October, 1856,
and upon the entire cost of repairs ($738.962) occasioned by
such running, and upon the entire running and repairs of
the Ten-Wheel Engines on the Road. Agreeably to which
result, the Company has already saved, up to the first of
October, 1856, by the use of the Camel Engines, as compared
with doing the same amount of work with the Ten-Wheel
Engines, $280.805, in repairs and the purchase money for
forty-one additional Engines, amounting to $410.000. The
interest on this sum for four years (the average age of the
Camel Engines) amounts to $98.400, and the wages of the
men to fire, run and conduct the trains, made necessary by the
use of the Ten-Wheel Engines, amounts to $166. 660, amounting in all to at least $955.865. This would compensate for
a considerable additional adjustment of the track in curves of
the Road, -(supposing it to be more disturbed by the Camel




22
Engine, which I deny,) and yet leave a large balance in
favor of the Camel Engines. But large as is the saving to
the Company here shown, I am persuaded it is materially
short of what really has taken place; inasmuch as the loads
of the Camel Engines have in practice been nearly double
those of the Ten-Wheel Engines, to wit: 13 Cars for the
Ten-Wheel Engines and 24 for the Camel Engines. (See
pages 6, 7, 8, 9 and 31 in my first pamphlet communication
to the Board.) When the comparison is based upon the
data before given and the size of the trains last mentioned
for the respective Engines, the result is as follows:
Average useful effect produced, per Engine
per year, equal to the following number
of long cars hauled one mile:
By the 17 Ten-Wheel Engines, - - - -         220.181
By the 109 Camel Engines,  - - - - -         419.592
This is nearly in the proportion of 1 to 2, or 100 per cent.
in favor of the Camel Engines, or 1 Camel Engine has done
nearly as much work, per year, as two Ten-Wheel Engines.
Average cost of repairs due to the hauling
of each long car 100 miles, by each kind
of Engine.
By the 17 Ten-Wheel Engines, - - - -   79    cents.
By the 109 Camel Engines, -  -41T', cents.
This is nearly in proportion of one to two, or 100 per
cent. in favor of the Camel Engine.
In comparing cost of repairs of Engines in proportion to
the work done, a ready and strictly true mode is to express
the whole amount of work done by each kind of Engine on
the different portions of the Road in the number of cars or
tons hauled equal to one mile. When this mode of com



23
paring the work done by the Camel and Ten-Wheel Engines
respectively is applied, is it possible that Mr. Tyson can
believe otherwise than that for every six cars or tons taken
by the Ten-Wheel Engines, the Camel Engines have taken
eight or more cars or tons? If the facts within his knowledge force him to believe this, as I think they must do,
how could he feel justified in representing to you, as he
does in his pamphlet, that the comparative quantity of
work done by the respective Engines has been in the proportion of seven for the Ten-Wheel Engines to eight for the
Camel Engines?
The records in the Company's Reports in relation to the
repairs and distance run by Engines are now not subject to
be denied or altered, and being in favor of the Camel
Engine, Mr. Tyson, in attempting to vindicate his course
in relation to Engines, is obliged, as I think is shewn by
his pamphlet, to stretch means originally slender to such
an extent as to become so transparent as to weaken the side
he is endeavoring to strengthen. Mr. Sindall testifies, as
recorded in the pamphlet, that I said I could not expect a
correct report and a true report from Mr. Tyson about the
Camel Engines, as Mr. Tyson would make it to suit himself.  The original and prominent objection, which Mr.
Tyson made to me in relation to the Camel Engines, was
that they cost more for repairs in proportion to work done
than the Ten-Wheel Engine. I was persuaded this could
not be the fact, and, with a view to arriving at the truth,
set'about examining the Company's former Reports. And
as Mr. Sindall had prepared in Mr. Tyson's office a rough
manuscript original copy of the table, giving in figures
the cost of repairs and distance run by Engines for the last
year, which was to be embodied in the report which Mr.
Tyson was about to make, I wished to examine and get
the facts contained in said rough draft, so as to compare the
-cost of repairs of the Camel and the Ten-Wheel Engines up
to the latest time practicable. I examined the rough draft
on Mr. Sindall's desk, and applied to Mr. Tyson for a copy
of it, which he promised to have prepared for me. I went
to Mr. Tyson's office several times, and on one or two




24
occasions ran my eye over the said Table, and felt satisfied
that it was as favorable to the Camel Engines as the previous reports of the Company, which I had in the interval
examined.
And Mr. Sindall expressed the same view to me on the
subject, but cautioned me not to mention his views to Mr.
Tyson, as it might deprive him of his place as clerk in the
office. On failing to get the copy of the table as I had
expected, I applied to Mr. Tyson again on the subject. I
informed him that I had completed the examination of the
former Reports of the Company, and that the result was
decidedly in favor of the Camel Engines. Upon which he
said his report would show that the Camel Engine had
been much more expensive in repairs than the Ten-Wheel
Engines. He did not pretend that he had ascertained this
from the table in preparation by Mr. Sindall; but, on the
other hand, contended it must be that the Camel Engines
cost more for repairs, from the greater number of them he
daily saw in the shops undergoing repairs, forgetting that
the Company had of the Camel Engines 109, and 17 only of
the Ten-Wheel Engines; and that it was impossible that he
could keep in his mind the proportion that was due to
equal repairs.
I informed him that I had run my eye carefully over the
table prepared by Mr. Sindall, after having practiced it
over the former Reports of the Company, and felt quite
sure that it would prove the superiority of the Camel Engine; and that I was most anxious to get the exact result
from it, and add it to that of the former reports. He then
informed me that he had made up his mind not to let me
have the copy, or examine the said table farther, and
assigned, as a reason for withholding from me the result of
the figures contained in the table, that he wished to go
over them carefully himself, with a view to making himself
sure that it was all right; and that it was improper for me
to have the facts I sought for before they were published and
given to the Board.
I thought it strange that he should make these objections
now for the first time, and assured him that I desired the




25
information for the use of the Board before the Report could
be published; and that none but the Board, or members of
it, should receive it from or through me. But he became
more and more peremptory in his. refusal.  This refusal
and Mr. Tyson's manner on the occasion,-his excitement
upon my insisting that all the former Reports of the Company proved the Camel Engines to cost less for repairs than
the Ten-Wheel Engine,-and his assertions (when so excited) that his Report would prove the reverse, and his indicating that he was not going to trust to Mr. Sindall's
making out the table, but that he was going to examine it
himself to see that it was all right-all these things combined, together with the circumstance before mentioned,
having very materially lessened my opinion of his veracity,
caused me to entertain the idea, that the table in question
(prepared by Mr. Sindall in the rough, and which was
much defaced by erasures and insertions) would not come
from under Mr. Tyson's personal examination and revision,
as favorable to the Camel Engine as when left by Mr.
Sindall: and I in substance so expressed myself to Mr.
Tyson. But, upon further reflection, I thought there were
reasons which did not at first occur to me, and which I
thought would operate against the figures being altered:
and I therefore said to him, that, upon further reflection,
I thought he would not alter the table from what it then
was. My reasons for thinking so were, that it was known
to Mr. Tyson that I had examined the table with considerable care; and yet, probably, not with so much care but
that alterations might have been made without my having
been able to detect them, by seeing the printed table only
many weeks after, and having made no memorandum.
The statement taken by Mr. Tyson from his own Report
and published, represents the Camel Engine as costing over
twenty per cent. more for repairs than the Ten-Wheel
Engine. All the other reports which record the doings of
these Engines (seven or eight in number) when not garbled,
show (separately and collectively) the cost of repairs upon
the Camel Engine in proportion to work done, to be less
than.that of the Ten-Wheel Engine,-to such extent, that,
4




26
when Mr. Tyson's Report is taken in connection with the
former Reports of the Company, and the relative cost of repairs of the respective Engines, in proportion to work done,
ascertained upon principles and data which it is impossible
to reject without violating right and justice, the result is
thirty-eight per cent. in favor of the Camel Engine. This
shows a difference of fifty-eight per cent. between Mr.
Tyson's showing from his own Report and the results of
all the Reports as above. And all this without there having
been any change in the system or manner of working the
Road and Engines, Mr. Tyson having come into power too
late for that,-but only a change in the person who made
the final examination of and vouched the correctness of the
table in question. This difference in repairs against the
Camel Engines, shown by Mr. Tyson in his Report, as compared with the other Reports, is the more surprising we*n
considered in connection with the fact shown by Mr. Tyson's
Report, that the 109 Camel Engines during the last year,
have run an average of 18,670 miles per Engine per year,
which is equal to an average of sixty miles for each of the
312 working days in a year for each of the 109 Engines.
When the number of Engines and the number of miles run
is taken into account, and the large amount of adhesions
(which is due to twenty-six tons weight) which is availed
of for the purpose of taking large loads, the last year's work
of the Camel Engines, (which average four years old) on your
Road, furnishes an example of efficiency and usefulness
never equalled in this or any other country. It is, therefore,
difficult to see how the Camel Engines should, during the
last year, show large cost of repairs in proportion to
work done-since the amount of work done was so great
and the constancy with which the Engines must have been
on the Road, left so little time for them to be in the shop
for repairs, and this large amount of running seems inconsistent with the wholesale breakage, running off the track,
failure to take loads, &c. enumerated in Mr. Tyson's
pamphlet.
Very much is said in Mr. Tyson's pamphlet in relation
to the increased repairs of Road consequent on the Camel




27
Engines. With a view to a better understanding of this
subject, I present the following facts and views:
In a curve of 500 feet radius, a 26 ton Engine, (which is
about the weight of the Camel and Ten-Wheel Engines,)
when moving at a speed of 10 miles per hour, exerts a
force, laterally across the Road and in the direction of the
outer rails of the curve, of -3% or one-third of a ton, resulting from centrifugal action. The following shows the centrifugal force exerted in the direction of the outer rail by
a 26 ton Engine, in a 500 feet curve at different speeds.
At a speed of 10 miles per hour, equal to A3-q of a ton.
Do.   do.  15    do.   do.   do.  T-8  do.
Do.   do.  20    do.   do.   do. 1T3, tons.
Do.   do.  25    do.   do.   do. 2-17u-w do.
Do.   do.  30    do.   do.   do. 3T~  do.
Do.   do.  35    do.   do.   do. 4-t22w do.
Do.   do.  40    do.   do.   do. 5 42  do.
The following shows the centrifugal force exerted in the
direction of an outer rail of a curve of 500 feet radius, by
a passenger Car weighing with its load 16 tons, at different
speeds.
At a speed of 25 miles per hour, equal to 1lTa  tons.
Do.    do. 30    do.        do.   do. 1?S  do.
Do.    do. 35    do.        do.   do. 2-%6  do.
Agreeably to the foregoing, and agreeably to science and
the laws of motion, a passenger train moving in a curve at
a speed of 30 miles per hour, exerts fourfold more centrifugal force in the direction of the outer rail, than would be
the case with the same train in the same curve moving at
a speed of 15 miles per hour. This being the case, shall
Rail Road Companies therefore disregard the demands of
the public for the higher instead of the lower speed here
named?  No; there is an object to be accomplished-the
Company have constructed their Road in the curves so as to
meet and resist the fourfold stress put upon it by the double




28
speed, by giving increased elevation to the outer rail, and
making the fastenings more secure. This having been done
on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road for the purpose of
making your passenger trains safe at a speed of thirty or
forty miles per hour-the Road has four or five times the
strength necessary to meet the lateral stress put upon it in
curves by the Camel or other Engines, moving at freight
speed; consequently, your Road does well to avail itself of
the economy and efficiency of the Camel Engines. I admit
that there is a disadvantage in placing axles that are to
remain parallel to each other on a Rail Road far apartall other things being equal, they are better to be as near
as the ordinary diameter of car wheels will permit; but the
important object gained. by placing the axles as they are
in the Camel Engines, much more than compensates for
the disadvantage.
When this question was agitated some time since, the
Company called in the assistance of a number of gentlemen
whom, from their acquirements and character, they deemed
highly calculated to settle definitely, and to ensure the
acquiescence of all in the decision they might arrive at,
and from the great pains taken by these gentlemen and the
accurate mode of demonstration adopted by them, I deem
it exceedingly unfair and out of place to reject their decision, until that decision shall have been reversed by a more
reliable mode of testing the question by competent persons.
But since Mr. Tyson insists on going behind the settlement
of this question by the competent persons who examined
the subject, I will furnish each one of you, gentlemen,
with a mode of testing this matter of comparative injury
done to the Road by the Camel Engines, which, I think,
you will deem much more reliable than the evidence furnished to you on this subject in Mr. Tyson's pamphlet, and
a mode of testing it which Mr. Tyson will probably relish
as little as he does the mode adopted on the Locust Point
Road.
There are, under the Cars, Engines, trucks, tenders, &c.,
on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, about 28,600 car
wheels of small diameter, and 1,400 driving-wheels under




29
Engines, 218 of which driving-wheels are front or guidingwheels, under Camel Engines, constituting about a one
hundred and fiftieth part of all the wheels on the Road.
The comparative or proportionate injury done to the track
by Car wheels, and by Engine wheels, may be pretty accurately ascertained by the comparative injury done to the
wheels themselves by the track. The probable average
durability of Car wheels, on your Road, is three years; and
of Engine driving-wheels, one and a half years. As Engine wheels, from their greater diameter, present about
double the material on their tread and flange for wear, as
compared with Car wheels, and wear out Behalf the time,
it follows that each Engine driving-wheel auses four fold
more wear to the rails in a giwen time than each Car wheel.
The total cost of repairs of track has been for the last two
or three years about $380,000 per year, according to your
reports. If this sum be apportioned among the number of
wheels running upon the Road, allowing four fold more for
an Engine driving-wheel than for a Car wheel, the result is
as follows:
28,600 Car wheels at $11 12 each, gives - - - $318,032
1,182 Engine driving-wheels, not front or guiding driving-wheels, at $44 48 each,  - - -    52,358
218 Driving-wheels under Camel Engines, which
guide the Engines along the track, at $44 48  9,674
Total repairs of Road per year, -  -        $380,054
The action of all of the above wheels upon the Road is
the occasion of all the repairs, and I have endeavored to
apportion the cost of repairs fairly between the different
wheels, leaving out that due to the guiding flanges of the
Camels.
The testimony given by Mr. Tyson in his pamphlet, shows
that the greater injury which he alleges has been done to the
Road by the Camel Engines, as compared with the TenWheel Engines, is entirely owing to the fact that their front
driving-wheels have flanges upon them, and are guiding



30
wheels, as well as driving-wheels, instead of being without
flanges, and the Engine being guided by a truck. It is not
pretended that the four driving-wheels of the Camel Engines,
which are without flanges, and the two after wheels with
flanges, act differently or do more injury to the Road than
the driving-wheels of the Ten-Wheel Engines, nor can it be
so pretended with truth. In fact the reverse is the case,
inasmuch as the weight is more equally divided between the
driving-wheels of the Camel, than between the driving-wheels
of the Ten-Wheel Engines. From the foregoing it is apparent that, apart from the injury done to the track by the flanges
of the front pi of driving-wheels of the Camel Engines
impinging against the rails, the legitimate proportion of repairs of track due to these 218 *ont wheels per year, would be
$9,674 out of the $380,000 total repairs per year. But Mr.
Tyson has furnished you in his pamphlet, (page 54,) with
the following proof on this subject-which proof Mr. Tyson
must believe is true, since otherwise it would be a fraud
on you, and all connected, for him to furnish it as he has
done.
OAKLAND, January 23d, 1857.
W. BOLLMAN, Master of Road,
Dear Sir,-,I think that the Road might be kept up with two-thirds the
expense, if they were all Ten-Wheel Engines, instead of Eight-Wheel Engines
connected, and when the Eight-Wheel Engines exceeds eighteen miles per
hour, I think the track could be kept up with one-half the expense, if they
were all Ten-Wheel Engines, at the same speed.
Respectfully,
JOHN ADAIR,
Road Supervisor, Twe7fth Division.
This testimony attributes one-third of the expense of
keeping up the Road to the use of the Camel Engines, as
compared with the Ten-Wheel Engines. In other portions
of Mr. Tyson's pamphlet, he has taken great pains to shew
to you that this great wear and tear and destruction is done
to the Road by the comparative energy of the lateral impingement or shearing of the flanges of the front drivers of
the Camel Engines against the rails of the Road. And on
page 16 of his pamphlet, he says that this injury done to the




31
Road causes great wear to the flanges of the wheels, which
do this injury to the Road. He does not pretend that the
wear is any greater to the six after wheels of the Camel
Engines than to the six after wheels of the Ten-Wheel Engines. It has been shown that the repairs of the Road per
year due to the two hundred and eighteen front drivers of
the Camel Engines, apart from impingement of flanges
against the rails, is $9.674-but Mr. Tyson shews that
with the impingement, or shearing action, and consequent
wear by the flanges of these 218 guiding drivers of the
Camel Engines, the cost of keeping up the track is increased
one-third, or $126.666 per year. I have before shown, upon
principles which will be found to accord with practice and
science, that each one of the Engine drivirig-wheels on your
Road, not a guiding wheel, represents $44.48 of the amount
of repairs of track per year. According to Mr. Tyson's
shewing, each one of the two hundred and eighteen guiding
drivers of the Camel Engines must represent $581 of the
repairs of the Road per year, or thirteen-fold more than the
driving wheels on the Road which do not guide the Engine.
It must be true, beyond question, that these guiding wheels,
to do this comparative increased injury to the Road, must
produce a corresponding comparative injury to the wheels
themselves, as compared with the non-guiding driving
wheels. The result of this must be that the renewal of the
front or guiding wheels of the Camel Engines must be thirteen-fold that of the non-guiding wheels of the Ten-Wheel
Engines, or of the ordinary driving wheels, which do not
guide the Engine, whether such wheels be on the Camel or
other Engines.' Gentlemen, this furnishes you with a sure
and reliable mode of determining this vexed question by
occular and unmistakeable demonstration. Go to the Mount
Clare Depot and examine the Engines for yourselves. See
whether you can find in the one hundred and nine Camel
Engines a single pair of front driving wheels which shows
this great wear of flange which Mr. Tyson tells you (page
16 of his pamphlet) has taken place as a consequence of the
great wear of rails, which he attributes to the Camel Engines. Examine the guiding and driving-wheels of the




32
Ten-Wheel Engines, and compare them with the wheels of
the Camel Engines, and see whether you can, by such examination and comparison, discover the slightest evidence
that the Camel Engines do any more injury to the Road
than the Ten-Wheel Engines.
If you cannot, as I feel sure you will not, you will have
no difficulty in seeing that a great wrong to yourselves, to
the interests of the Road, and other interests, is attempted
to be practised upon you. And especially, when you shall
take into consideration that there are on your Road seven
hundred and seventy-eight Eight-Wheel Coal Cars, the
axles of which remain parallel, the same as the Camel Engines, and the distance between the extreme axles are within
a few inches as great as that of the Camel Engines, and
consequently produce the same kind of shearing, or rubbing
of the flange of the wheels against the rails of the Road, as
Mr. Tyson attributes to the Camel Engines, and although
each Car is not so heavy as a Camel Engine, yet from their
being seven-fold in number, must do at least twice as much
injury and cause twice as much repairs to the Road, from
not being guided by a truck, as the Camel Engines, of which
I presume Mr. Tyson has made no complaint to you, as to
their causing excessive repairs to the Road.
From the above, and from the evidence furnished you by
Mr. Tyson in relation to increased repairs of Road consequent on the use of the Camel Engine, we are conducted to
the conclusion that if the Camel Engines and these seven
hundred and seventy-eight objectionable Coal Cars were put
out of use by the Company, the cost of repairs of track
would be nothing, instead of $380.000, as at present.
Science and theory point to the Passenger Engine and
Passenger Car as having, from the effect of their much
greater centrifugal force, had much more to do with wearing the inner edge of the outer rail of the curves, and displacing the rails from their legitimate position, than the
action of the Freight Engines and Cars on the Road at their
appropriate speed. An examination of the flanges of the
Passenger Cars and Passenger Engines, and a comparison
of their wear with that of the flanges of the Freight Cars




33
and Engines, will show conclusively that experience has
verified what science dictated. I think, when you thus see
how very unreliable is the evidence which Mr. Tyson has
furnished you in relation to the injury of track occasioned
by the Camel Engines, that you will have less difficulty in
determining that your Reports, with regard to the repairs
and amount of work done per year of the respective Engines,
are more reliable than the opinions which Mr. Tyson had
given you in his pamphlet. What would you think of a
merchant, who kept a regular set of books, sueing a customer
on an account which had been running for seven or eight
years, and, refusing to go by his books, which showed a
balance in favor of the customer, and insisting upon giving
the opinion of a host of his salesmen (not the book-keeper)
to make out the heavy indebtedness of the customer, and without denying the correctness of his books, but attempting by
the number of witnesses and decided one-sideness of the testimony, to smother and bury up the evidence furnished by
his books. And even to appeal to such parts of his books
as were written out after his' disagreement with his customer, and endeavor to show therefrom that his customer
was largely indebted to him, while precisely the reverse was
shewn by his entire books, including that made out after his
disagreement with his customer. Would you think this a
fair, honest and legitimate course, and more especially if
the proceedings of the merchant were such as to shew extreme anxiety on his part to have it understood that the
opinions of his salesmen were procured without consultation
with himself or with each other, or any person in his behaf,
and without leading questions being put to them, and these
salesmen should send in from different quarters separate
opinions, but all agreeing, even to the nicest fraction, upon
the sum which they found to be due by the customer to the
merchant.  This, I think, you would say proved too
much, and you would all agree that it was more just to go
to the books of the merchant for the true settlement of the
account. How it is possible that any person, willing and
anxious to get at the truth of the question at issue, can refuse to be governed by all of your Reports as to the relative
5




34
cost of repairs and amount of work done by the Camel and
Ten-Wheel Engines, as compared with the mere opinions
which Mr. Tyson has furnished in his pamphlet on this
subject.
Mr. Tyson, on pages 16 and 17 of his pamphlet, makes
the following assertion. "If the Engine (the Camel Engine) is propelled at a fast speed through curves, switches,
or irregularities, it is certain to displace the rail or break
the flange and leave the track. Scarcely a week passes in
which casualties of this kind do not occur; two having
taken place during the past week, the damage in each case
will not be less than $1000." No one can read the above
without seeing that Mr. Tyson's design is to make it
apparent that the repairs to the Camel Engine are, and
must be from $50,000 to $100,000 per year, from this one
kind of accident alone: to wit, running off the track on
account of displacement of the rail or breaking of the
flange of the wheel. I will test Mr. Tyson by himself.
On page 22 of his pamphlet, he shews that the repairs
caused by accidents to 16 Ten-Wheel Engines during the
year 1856 were $8,200; and also that the repairs caused by
accidents to 30 Camel Engines during the year 1856 were
$1,250. But the views which Mr. Tyson here designed to
illustrate were best accomplished by a correct statement as
to the cost of repairs to the respective kinds of Engines
from  accidents.  Again, to further compare statements
made by Mr. Tyson at one time with those made by him at
another, I will call attention to the following facts and
information, furnished and proved by Mr. Tyson's portion
of your Report of October; 1856.
It is there shewn that the collisions and accidents of all
kinds to the Camel Engines, during the year, are in number only one-seventh those occurring to the Ten-Wheel Engines, in proportion to the whole number of miles run by
the respective Engines, and the damage or cost of repairs
occasioned by these accidents to the Camel Engines, is only
one twenty-second part of the amount of the damage or
cost of repairs occasioned by accidents to the Ten-Wheel
Engines, in proportion to the whole number of miles run




35
by the respective kinds of Engines.  In running  two
millions and thirty-five thousand miles by the Camel Engines, during the year ending October, 1856, three accidents only occurred to said Engines, and the cost of repairs
occasioned by accidents to all the Camel Engines, during
the year, was $2,550, which is at the average rate of
twelve and a half cents per one hundred miles run. Now,
if Mr. Tyson's report on this subject be true, it must
be evident to all that this very remarkable, and almost
total exemption from accident or damage to the Camel
Engines, during the running of over two millions of miles,
is not accidental, but the extent of the experience shows it
to be uniform, and it is unquestionably the result of the
peculiar properties of the Engines; their superior ability to
conform to the requirements of the time table, to keep out
of each other's way and keep out of the way of other Engines that are on time, and even to use their surplus power
to assist Engines that are out of time. This proves conclusively that the steam generating power of these Engines
should not be diminished as has been proposed.
As regards the breaking of the fire box from the cylindrical part of the boiler, it is a thing I have heard of for
the first time in Mr. Tyson's pamphlet. If this defect is
sd palpable as Mr. Tyson has indicated, it should have
shewn itself years before, when the easy remedy of applying additional thickness of iron at the part liable to break,
would have been had in building the subsequent lot of
Engines, as now can be done if the evil really exists.
With regard to the overhanging weight beyond the rear or
the back axle of the Camel Engines, I assert that the TenWheel Engines, now building under Mr. Tyson's direction,
will have as much or more overhanging weight, and the
centre of gravity of which overhanging weight will be as
far back of the axle as in the Camel Engines.
In regard to the want of proportion and strength in the
very numerous parts of the Camel Engine, which is so much
insisted upon in Mr. Tyson's pamphlet, it is sufficient to
ask that if all this be true, and it be true at the same
time, that, notwithstanding such disproportion and want of




36
strength, your Reports show the repairs of the Camel Engines to be less and their work more than those of the TenWheel Engines, what would be the result if that disproportion were corrected, and the needful strength supplied to
those weak parts? All will agree that such defects, if they
exist, can be easily remedied, and the inherent superiority
of the plan of the Eight-Wheel Engines, must then become
more conspicuous and irresistible.
If it be true, as Mr. Tyson insists, that the Camel Engines
are constantly getting out of order, and the others exempt
from that liability, how does it happen that the Ten-Wheel
Engines cost more for repairs, even per mile run, than the
Camel, and thirty-eight per cent. more in proportion to the
load carried?
I commend this problem, with others, for his solution,
whenever he can unbend himself so far as to enter into an
argument with builders of Rail Road machinery, upon the
comparative merits of their machinery. 
He intimates, in his pamphlet, that it would be easy to
detect and expose the errors of my statistics. But I trust,
you, gentlemen, will rather conclude, that, if he felt the
confidence he professes, he would not lose an opportunity
which he says he might easily enjoy, of proving the correctness of his own conclusions in opposition to mine. If
the task be easy, let him undertake it. It is worthy of
a nian of powers even greater, and of a position more
exalted, than his.
It is deeply to be regretted, and certainly must be occasion for great surprise, that the former Superintendents of
Machinery on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road had not the
sagacity, in their long experience, to discover those defects
which Mr. Tyson ascertained, as it were, by intuition; and
that through their ignorance or neglect of duty, the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company was led into the fatal
and expensive error of buying or building 135 Eight-Wheel
Engines and 800 Coal Cars. It is also greatly to be deplored, that, not only your own Road, but the Reading, the
Pennsylvania Central, the Delaware and Lacawana, the
Northern Central, and several other Companies, whose




37
Machinery Departments have been presided over by men of
science and practical experience, should, from time to time
and at periods considerably distant from each other, have
bought over 200 Eight-Wheel Engines, and should have
continued to use them without a thought or suspicion that
they were inherently liable to run off the track, to get out
of repair, and, in a word, that they were sub'ect to the endless list of objections which Mr. Tyson's superior sagacity
enabled him to detect at a glance.
And I have confidence, gentlemen, that a consideration
of this fact will induce you to pause, before you ignore all
the past experience of your Road at the bidding of a man
who, when challenged to support his theories in the only
forum where they can be fairly examined, shrinks from
every enquiry and refuses every explanation.
In the letter which I had the honor to address to you,
when I applied to the Board for liberty to make certain examinations of the machinery alleged by Mr. Tyson to be
defective, I adverted to the obvious fact, that if Mr. Tyson's
theory of the effect upon your Road of the use of Cars or
Engines acting with four axles parallel to each other, and
as far apart as those of the 109 Camel Engines and 780
Coal Cars, be true, the Road must, by an inevitable necessity, become the most unsafe one in the world. By that
theory, the spreading of the track and the displacement of
the rails at the curves, is a necessity growing out of the
construction of these Engines and Cars themselves.
Now, gentlemen, it is far from my purpose to say any
thing that can militate against the character or reputation
of your Road. For many years, with hundreds of Engines
and Cars of this description passing over it daily, it enjoyed
a reputation for being the safest Road on the Continent.
For many years no passenger, although millions passed
over it, had met with a fatal accident. It was reserved for
your Master of Machinery and his Assistant, to discover that
the machinery by which its great business had been done
for years, rendered every curve a point around which the
passenger could only pass at the risk of his life —and not,
content with the circulation given to this theory by his




38
pamphlet, the publication of this ruinous and appalling
theory is repeated in Holley's Rail Road Advocate, and circulated throughout the country. It is my object, gentlemen, to redeem and rescue your Road from the consequences
of such a misrepresentation by your Master of Machinery.
I ask the privilege of demonstrating that these 109 Camel
Engines and 800 Coal Cars, may still be safely used upon your
Road as before Mr. Tyson's administration, and that their
use does not involve danger to passengers and destruction to
the Road itself, as Mr. Tyson insists is the inevitable result.
I propose to show to you that it is not necessary that these
Engines and Cars, costing two millions of dollars, shall be
abandoned and thrown aside to gratify the crude theories
or the resentments of a Master of Machinery advanced to
the direction of that important department on so vast a
work as that of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, without
ever having enjoyed a day's experience in the building or
practical working of Rail Road Machinery, and whose jealousy and sensibility in regard to his mechanical reputation
has led him, in a few months after his appointment, not
only to broach the most untenable theories, but to contradict his own official reports. In proof of this, it is only
necessary to call your attention to the Annual Report of
October, 1856, in which, referring to the very machinery
which he declares cannot be safely worked, and: to the Road
which he insists that machinery cannot fail to wear out, you
state that from "recent inspection of the Road and Machinery (of course by the Master of Machinery) the Board
are fully justified in saying that both are in excellent
condition."
The Proposition which you will find on a succeeding page,
will, if it shall be adopted by your Board, afford the amplest
opportunity for the widest examination of this whole subject. It will furnish Mr. Tyson the means of vindicating
his official conduct, and justifying his departure from the
practices of his predecessors, and submit to an impartial
and enlightened arbitration those questions whose settlement is not less important to your Company than to me.
ROSS WINANS.




PROPOSAL FOR A SCIENTIFIC  COMMISSION.
TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS OF THE
BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAIL ROAD CO.
THE position which Mr. Tyson, your Master of Machinery,
has now taken by his communication to the Board on the
subject of Engines for Freight Transportation on your
Road, induces me respectfully, but earnestly to solicit that
you will join me in taking such measures as shall be deemed
best calculated to arrive at a reliable solution of the questions now at issue, not so much between Mr. Tyson and
myself as between him and the former very extensive experience, policy and practice of the Company in relation to
the kind of Engines best calculated for the transportation of
freight on your Road. All who have before directed this
branch of the Company's business have so completely harmonized in their experience, judgment and action, that the
Company now have 134 of the Camel kind of Engine, that
is, having eight driving-wheels and no guiding truck,
costing one and a third millions of dollars. Many of these
Engines have been built by tfe Company under the direction and advice of different persons heretofore possessed of
the Company's confidence in such matters, which Camel
Engines have done fifteen-sixteenths of the freight business
of the Road. From this it will be seen that the Company
is extensively and expensively committed to a policy and
course at direct variance with that now insisted upon by
Mr. Tyson. It is, therefore, as I conceive, of the first importance to the Company's interests that they should possess themselves of the fullest and most reliable information




40
on this subject before they undo what has been so extensively done under the advice of a number of different persons of known science and long experience in the practical
working of Railway Machinery, and the soundness of whose
views on this very question has been confirmed from time
to time and made doubly sure up to the last moment by the
Reports of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, recorded for
a series of years by different persons with one never varying
result, each and every year, showing the superiority of the
Camel Engines to all others on your Road, and I may say,
on all other Roads for the purpose of transporting freight.
Under these circumstances I cannot conceive it possible that
you will, at the suggestion of one who has had but a very
few months experience in the practical working of Rail Road
Machinery of any kind, go against all the advice and experience and doings of all those whom the Company has heretofore deemed judicious and safe advisers and guides in this
department of their interests; without a full and thorough
investigation of the subject. I would urge that this is due
to a number of interests and considerations involved, and
especially to the Company's interests. With this view, I
suggest and propose that a Commission be appointed, composed of three competent persons to investigate and report
upon the questions at issue; that in selecting this Conmmission no pains shall be spared to obtain those who shall scientifically and practically be deemed most eminently qualified for the undertaking, and whose reputation is such as to
give their opinions and judgment the greatest weight: that
they shall be authorized and requested to visit and examine
such Roads and Engines, and take the testimony of such
persons as they shall think may throw light on the subject.
If this Commission be selected and appointed as followsone of the persons to be selected by the President of your
Company and one by -myself, which two persons so selected
shall jointly select a third, the three to constitute the Commission,-in such case, I will be at one-half of all the expense consequent on the Commission, let their decision be
what it may. Or if the Company shall determine that they
have such unshaken confidence in Mr. Tyson's opinions and




41
views on the matter at issue, as not to warrant them in
paying any part of the expense of the investigation, then, if
they will participate in appointing the Commission as above
proposed, and afford such facility as they may in their investigation, and the Commission, or a majority of them, do
not determine that the Engines on the Company's Road
having eight propelling wheels, are better suited to transporting Coal and other heavy freights, than the Ten-Wheel
Engines now on your Road, including the Ten-Wheel Engines now building for the Company, then, and in such case,
I will pay the.entire expense of the Commission. If, on
the other hand, the Commission, or a majority of them, shall
make such report as to save the Company from being misled by Mr. Tyson in so important a matter to the Company, then I will submit it to the sense of justice of the
Company, to say how much, if any, of the expense of Commission should be paid by me.
If the suggestions and propositions I have here made for
the appointment of a Commission, be not acceptable, I
would respectfully solicit that the Company would propose
a moae of appointing and paying the Commission; or if the
Company shall decline to participate in any way in the investigation by Commission, I would earnestly ask that a
Committee of the Board be appointed, before which myself
as well as Mr. Tyson may be allowed to appear in person
and present to the Committee our views and proofs on the
subject, and participate in the manipulation of models, if
any be used. And I most respectfully and earnestly urge
that this is a question, the determining of which rightly,
and in such a way and by such persons as to give the
greatest possible confidence in its truthful solution, is of
great importance and due to the interests involved. By
way of showing the Company that the appointment of this
Commission may be important to their interests, I would
call attention to the fact that Mr. Tyson has commenced
putting wheels loose on their axles under Cars for carrying Passengers, and that there are now at the Mount Clare
shops a large number of wheels, say from seventy to one
hundred of the peculiar kind used by Mr. Tyson for this




42
purpose, ready to be fitted up and axles adapted to them
have been procured. The loose wheels and their axles are
more expensive to fit up, more expensive to keep in repair,
require more power to move the Cars both over the curved
and straight parts of the Road, produce greater wear on the
flanges of the wheels and on the rails, and are so universally condemned by all experienced Rail Road Civil Engineers, Superintendents and Masters of Machinery, on account
of their great liability to cause accident, that it is highly
probable that any Company using them at this late date,
when their danger is so well established and known to practical men, would be subjected to very heavy exemplary
damages for any injury to persons or property, occurring in
connection with the use of them.
If Mr. Tyson can commit and lead the Company into an
error so palpable to persons of science and experience in the
working of Rail Roads, and so dangerous, ought not the
Company, when he persists in going contrary to the judgment, experience and doings of those who have observed
with diligence and care the practical workings of your.Road
for years, be willing to investigate this subject, at the earnest
solicitation of one who has a large pecuniary and professional interest at stake, and who feels he is not without
some claim to consideration by the Company, and especially
upon the terms as to the cost of the investigation above
proposed?
I am also informed, that Mr. Tyson has procured large
numbers of driving wheel tires for the Camel Engines, with
the flanges cast upwards in the mould, a mode of casting
well known by men of experience to be decidedly inferior
to that of casting the tire with the flanges downward.
This increases the liability of the flanges to break, and
tends to verify the predictions of Mr. Tyson and to cause
the very disasters, by running off the track, which he has
dwelt upon in his pamphlet.
In addition to this, I observe that the tire procured by'Mr. Tyson for the Camel Engines, have flanges less in
depth by about one-fourth of an inch, and about one-fourth
of an inch more flare in the depth of the flange, than the




43
wheels originally put under the Engines by me; both of
which alterations are also calculated to cause the Engines
to run off the track, under circumstances in which they
would be perfectly safe with the flanges of the original
depth and flare. In fact it is conclusively proved in the
following pages fr6m the records of the Company, and by
years of experience, that the Camel Engines, with their
appropriate wheels, have run off the track far less frequently
in proportion to distance run and work done than the present Ten-Wheel Engines of the Company. This will no
doubt surprise you after all that Mr. Tyson has said to lead
to the contrary opinion.
This greater liability of the Ten-Wheel Engines to run off
the track, as compared with the Camel Engines, will probably be changed for the worse instead of the better, by
Mr. Tyson's plan of Ten-Wheel Engines, one of which
built in the Company's shop has, within a few days, been
put upon your Road. This Engine appears to me to have
too much weight upon the driving wheels in proportion to
the weight on the truck or guiding wheels, to run as safely
on your Road as your former plan of Ten-Wheel Engine.
I understand this Engine has already run off the track several
times, and that the wheels originally put in the truck have
been replaced by others with a view, I presume, to remedy
or lessen the difficulty. The difficulty, I think, lies in the
large overhanging weight behind the drivers, an objection
very much dwelt upon and denounced in Mr. Tyson's pamphlet in relation to the Camel Engines, which property in
the Camel Engines works no practical difficulty, but will,
I think, be found a very serious one in Mr. Tyson's plan of
Ten-Wheel Engines, especially with the draw-bar as high
up as it now is, and with the description of flange on the
truck wheels employed by Mr. Tyson. The present TenWheel Engines of the Company have several features which
are important to their safety on the Road, as compared with
Mr. Tyson's plan of Engine. These features are-I-st. The
house for the Engineman on the forward end of the boiler.
2d. The sloping or light plan of construction of fire-place.
3d. The position of the draw-bar between the Engine and




44
Tender being only twelve or fifteen inches above the rail.
These features are copied from the Camel Engines, and
make your present Ten-Wheel Engines more nearly in accordance with the Ten-Wheel Engines which I asked to be
allowed to build for the Company. The result of the embodiment of these features in your present Ten-Wheel Engines is a much more equal distribution and preservation of
their weight on their respective wheels when in action, and
hence greater protection against running off, and less oppression or injury to the Roads; both important properties,
but unheeded or not understood by Mr. Tyson, or sacrificed
to other considerations, as is shewn by his refusal to entertain my suggestion for the modification of his plan of TenWheel Engines, by the introduction of these features and
properties, and by his omission to adopt them himself in
the Engine he has built. Whether he has done well in this,
future experience will show. Experience thus far is certainly against him.
I am quite sensible, gentlemen, that it is scarcely to be
expected that the Directors of your Company, either as a
body or as individuals, will enter upon an analytical examination of those statistical details, which make up a
large portion of this pamphlet, and upon the accuracy of
which mainly depend the merits of the difference between
Mr. Tyson and myself. Few men have the requisite leisure,
and fewer, perhaps, relish for such investigations. But, it
is precisely for this reason that the reference of the whole
subject to a scientific commission is desirable. Not only
your Rail Road Company —but all the Rail Road Companies
in the country interested in the transportation of Coal and
heavy freights are deeply concerned-and, I may be pardoned, I hope, for adding that, if the investigation should
result as I am persuaded it must, in establishing the
superiority of the Camel Engines, I shall again have the
opportunity, by the orders I may receive from yourselves
and others at home and abroad, of giving employment to
that large number of deserving persons, whose interests are
now suffering from the consequences of Mr. Tyson's course
quite as much as my own.




45
I take it for granted that Mr. Tyson will offer no objection to the proposed Commission. If he has just confidence
in his own theories, they must only become better known and
more firmly established by the investigation and the judgment of men of science and experience.
If, however, as he has intimated in his pamphlet, his
official engagements are such as to prevent him from giving
personal attention to the subject, I am content that he shall
appoint a competent person to represent him before the
Commission, and if the Commission, upon a full review of
the points at issue between Mr. Tyson and myself, as disclosed by the pamphlets that have been published, shall
decide that Mr. Tyson's positions are right and mine wrong,
then I will pay a fair compensation to the person whom Mr.
Tyson may appoint to represent and advocate his views.
ROSS WINANS.




APPENDIX.
THE reader of the foregoing pages will not have failed
to discover, that amongst the many radical defects of the
Camel Engines which Mr. Tyson has discovered, he assigns
the pre-eminence to the inherent liability of that machine
to displace the rail, break the flange and leave the track in
passing curves.
The following extract from his pamphlet (pages 16 and
17) will show his estimate of these'serious objections to the
Camel Engines:
"The forcing or impingement of the flange of the front wheel (the axle of
which is kept rigidly at right angles to the frame of the Engine) against
the outer rail in passing curves, causes a great wear upon the rail and flange;
and if a slight defect exists in the Road, or if the Engine is propelled at a
fast speed through curves, switches or irregularities, it is certain to displace
the rail, or break the flange, and leave the track. Scarcely a week passes in
which casualties of this kind do not occur. Two have taken place during
the past week; the damage in each case will not be less than $1,000. This
peculiarity, which is also common to all Eight-Wheel connected Engines,
renders them unsafe and more liable to leave the track, than Engines furnished with a vibrating truck, which serves to guide them smoothly round
the curves."
Since the main portion of the present publication was
prepared, and with a view to test the accuracy of the above
statement, I have, upon application to the President of the
Company procured a statement from the Company's Books of
the runs off by the two kinds of Engines. This was prepared under the, direction of Mr. Tyson and furnished me.
This statement gives the runs off by the respective Engines
from  the 1st of January, 1853, to May 18th, 1857.   The
following are the facts furnished thereby in relation to
runs off by the respective Engines.




71e abore dtniram  rerepresents the outianes of a cross section of the
parts designatrd and rfterred to b, ltteit7   as follow/s...4, Rim and flanye otf aoconM. oti  En niule whe7ele or ttie.,
D, Rail of the Road.
Line EB,E represents the tbrim and depthl of the flange of the
T7Teels oriqinldly put under di7e (amel Engines.
(t,B 7repres7ats the fbrmt and deptt. of the flange of the
t7?eels or' lre pFrocured. b! i Mr.t lson. at dimingtort (and pitt
7rnd(e tthe ( el fEr, qll  ins'  plaEfr of the former'.
It,ill be obsrrred b' inspecrtn of thtis (1q1ram that the part
ot'f the tlantqe of.Yvr Ivson:. Ji7els whnihh imnptges against the rail 
ithen quifdiig the _Engzne in the hIume of the Road, has much mor'e
flare or be vil and is' of 7nmurt less depth. than the flanges of the
oriinalZ T7eels put under the (Came Engihnes. _ The et/'ct of
these ditfirerwes here shown it is apparent to the e ye must be of
the elmlost, lnportanee to the saftetv of the,tEngines  hile traversln'q  
the 7i1merOIus sho7t curv17es (fi the Bal7timore   Ohio Road andu\.xperience hlus d7emonst7ratd such to be the fatct                                                                                                                        C'
- %.B








47
Between the above dates, the 17 Ten-Wheel Engines in
question, agreeably to the Company's Reports, have collectively been upon the Road a time equal to 60-%-?  years for
one Engine, —during which time said Engines had collectively fifteen runs off: this averages equal to one run off for
each Engine every 4Tof years.
The 109 Camel Engines in question have, during the
same time, been upon the Road, collectively, a time equal
to 444-'% years for one Engine, during which time, said
Engines, collectively, had 104 runs off. This averages equal
to one run off for each Engine every 4 2 7 years. The above
shows the runs off by the Ten-Wheel Engines to be more
frequent, in proportion to their number and time upon the
Road, than those of the Camel Engines by five per cent.
or one-twentieth.
I have before called the attention of the Board to the
fact, that Mr. Tyson commenced some months since to put
wheels under the Camel and the other Eight-Wheel connected Engines on your Road, with flanges of such shape
and dimensions as materially to increase the liability of the
Engines using them to run off the track, as compared with
the wheels originally put under the Camel Engines by me.
The flanges of the wheels procured by Mr. Tyson at Wilmington for the Engines, are about one-fourth of an inch
less in depth, and about one-fourth of an inch more bevel
or flare, as compared with the original wheels put under
the Camel Engines. (See diagram hereto annexed.) And
each of these differences increases the liability of the Engines to run off the track, and their influence, collectively,
is such as to be of very serious importance, as has been fully
-demonstrated by the practical experience of the Company,
and shown by what here follows:
From the statement of runs off furnished by Mr. Tyson
and the Annual Reports of the Company, it is shown that
between the 1st of January, 1853, and the 1st of October,
1856, the 109 Camel Engines were collectively upon the
Road a time equal to 375N-~w years for one Engine,-during
which time, these Engines had seventy-six runs off. This
averages equal to one run off for each Engine every 4%19




48
years. Between the 1st of October, 1856, and the 18th of
May, 1857, the runs off by the Camel Engines have
averaged equal to one run off for each Engine every 2Tb
years.
This shows the runs o' by these Engines during the last
seven or eight months, to be more than twice as frequent
as before that time. That this increased running off results
from the defect in the flanges of the wheels before mentioned, is further proved by Mr. Tyson's statement of runs
off, showing that the twenty-four Eight-Wheel geared
Engines, built by the Company and others than myself, and
which are dependent on the same principles for their safety
on the track as the Camel Engines, have since the 1st of
October last, and since this new form of flange has commenced to be put under them, averaged equal to one run
off for each Engine every 14 years: while with the same
Engines, before October last, the average was equal to one
run off for each Engine every 4-43 years. This shows more
than two-and-a-half times more runs off since October last
than before that time, which increase of runs off has
caused a fearfully increased destruction of life and property. To show more fully the gross injustice done to the
Camel Engines by the above extract from Mr. Tyson's
pamphlet, it is proper, in comparing the frequency of the
runs off by the respective Engines here in question, to take
the experience with the Camel Engines before their runs off
were so materially increased, as shown above, by Mr. Tyson's
injudicious shape and depth of flange.
When this is done the comparison is as follows: the TenWheel Engines average equal to one run off for each Engine
every 49T years. The Camel Engines average equal to one
run off for each Engine every 4?4 years. This is about
equal to five runs off of the Ten-Wheel Engines to four of
the Camel Engines, or twenty-five per cent. in favor of the
Camel Engines. But to show fairly the true practical advantage of the Camel Engines, and their freedom from runs
off, as compared with the Ten-Wheel Engines, the amount
of work done by the respective kinds of Engines during the
time embraced by the comparison, must be taken into ac



49
count. When this is done, and the experience with the
Camel Engines sinceithe 1st of October last is left out as
unfair, because of the defective wheels placed under a portion of them by Mr. Tyson, the result is sixty-eight per
cent. in favor of the Camel Engines; or, in other words,
for an equal amount of work done or useful effect produced
by the respective Engines, there are five runs off by the
Ten-Wheel Engines for three of the Camel Engines.
The statements in Mr. Tyson's pamphlet are calculated
and evidently intended to produce the belief that the running off the track by the Camel Engines from the breakage
of the flanges of the wheels was of such frequent occurrence
as to be most serious and alarming. From the record in
relation to this matter, furnished by himself, it turns out
that the runs off happening to the Camel Engines on your
Road between the 1st of January, 1853, and the 1st of October, 1856, from the breaking of a flange, average equal to
one run off for each Engine every fifty-three years. In
arriving at this result I have not'embodied the experience
on your Road since the first of October last, for the reason
that about that time the Camel En gines began to experience
the dangerous effects resulting from the placing under them
the tires or rims of the wheels procured by him out of our
State-the flanges of which tire are not only defective in
shape and depth, but are also defective in point of soundness and strength, from their flange being situated at the
top of the mould, when the tires are being cast, instead of
at the bottom of the mould, as is the case with all the
wheels which I put under the Camel Engines, the casting the flange down the better insuring soundness and
strength. With a view to verify this, I procured of the
President of your Company one of the tires procured by
Mr. Tyson for the Camel Enginesj which was cast with
the flange uppermost in the mould, and found, by accurate trial, the iron immediately under the flange to be
less sound and 25 per cent. inferior in point of strength,
than the iron taken from the same relative position in
my make of wheel, which was cast with the flange down.
Since the 1st of October last the number of runs off from




50
the breaking of flanges by the Camel Engines has been
increased in proportion to distance rin by them: in fact,
since the wheels procured by Mr. Tyson have been in use
in any considerable number under the Camel and other
Eight-Wheel connected Engines, and since Mr. Tyson
commenced decrying these Engines, the proportion of runs
off has been more than double what they were before that
time.
The foregoing results are derived from the records of the
operations of your Road, and cannot be refuted, if these
records are correct. But they are still further corroborated
by the testimony of numerous persons who have been for
years employed about these Engines, and whose testimony
must be received and appreciated as that of men who can
have no possible motive or inducement to misrepresent.
The following table shows the result of inquiries addressed
to thirty-five persons, seeking the results of their experience
in running or firing Camel and other Eight-Wheel connected Engines on the Btltimore and Ohio, Northern Central and other Rail Roads. Opposite to the name of each
is the number of years during which they have respectively
run or fired the Camel Engines, and the number of runs off
which they have each experienced:
John J. C. Church,  5 years-Two Runs off.
Theodore Addison,   5  "   one
A. J. Ogden,           "   no
Charles Cruse,     3           
W. G. Randall,         "    "
Amos Reid,          2  "    " 
George Clay,       4  "   one
Walter Flaxcomb,   51 "   two
Lewis Mitchell,     3  "   one
Zachary McAleese,   5        " "'
Robert Davis,       2  "   no
Joseph Toney,       31 cc   c 
William Hackathorn, - "    "
G. D. Blatchford,      "   one
Edward Robinson,   2  "    " 




51
Joseph Minnick,     4 years-Two Runs off.
Adam Meek,          4  "    one 
Samuel Pearl,       22  "   no 
William Covell,     11 "    "
Lewis Crawford,     2  "    " 
Mark Reisinger,     1  "    "
Charles Johnson,    5"    one
Joseph Barrett,     8C  "
Daniel Jett,        3  "   no        C
John Eckert,        2  "    "
Thomas Lynch,       4  C     C       CC
Horace Mobley,      5  "    "
John Scotti,        3        " C
Thomas Zepp,        9  "    "
David B. Price,     5  "'
Jacob Waltemyer,   3   c  cc
Stephen Wooden,    2  "         
C. C. Fifer,        8  "  C
William Hitchcock,  6  " c   C 
Joseph McAbee,      6  "    "
The time of running or running and firing Camel and
other Eight-Wheel connected Engines by the above named
persons collectively is 138k years, during which time 15
runs-off occurred, which averages equal to one run-off for
each 91 years running.
I leave to Mr. Tyson the task of reconciling these results
with his statement that, under certain circumstances, some
of which must have occurred in the experience of the persons
whose testimony is summed up above, the Camel Engine,
from its peculiarity, is "certain" to displace the rail, break
the flange, and leave the track.
"Scarcely a week passes," says Mr. Tyson, without these
"casualties." Here are numerous men running the Engines, some of them as many as 9 years, who never experienced a single casualty. It would be a waste of your time
to enlarge upon such contradictions.
In giving the results of my inquiries, I have felt it to be
due to fairness to furnish the information derived from every




52
man to whom I addressed myself, and have not considered
myself at liberty to select the evidence most favorable to my
Engines, and suppress that which was least so. And I make
this remark, because I have learned, from -a source upon
which I rely, that Mr. Tyson, although acting officially and
called upon by his official superior to report all the information he had gained, did not consider it inconsistent with
his duty to his employers, and with the plain obligations of
fair dealing, to exclude from his publication the answers of
someqof the persons addressed by him, who returned replies
favorable to the Camel Engines.
If this be true, I ask you, gentlemen, whether it is not
manifest that Mr. Tyson's object is not to furnish a fair and
unbiassed report of the relative merits of the two kinds of
Engines, but to raise the reputation of one by every species
of exaggerated eulogy, whilst he exerts his official influence
to procure disparaging certificates to depreciate the other,
and when the witnesses to whom he appeals do not respond
to his liking, boldly misrepresents the whole case by suppressing their testimony altogether. I insist that, in this
investigation he has no right to be a partisan, and I confidently appeal to your sense of justice to determine whether
yonuwill allow your Master of Machinery to abuse his official position in order to gratify his feelings of revenge
against me, because, in the exercise of my own judgment, I
addressed to your Board two communications, in which his
judgment was incidentally called in question.
In the dignified positions which you hold, as Directors of
a great Corporation, you will not, I am sure, allow yourselves to be made the unconscious instruments of so much
injustice., If, upon enquiry, you shall find it to be true
that Mr. Tyson suppressed a line that was favorable to my
Engines, or that he exercised the slightest sway over the
judgment or opinion of any of those to whom he appealed
for information, it is your manifest duty to hold him to a
strict account for such an attempt to pervert the functions
which he held by your appointment, to the gratification of
his own private resentments.
With the records of the Company before him, Mr. Tyson




53
must have known when he published his pamphlet% under
the sanction of the vote of your Board, that he was sending
forth into the world a publication utterly at variance with
the records and the experience of your Road.  And he
must have foreseen and designed that such a publication,
with your endorsement, would utterly destroy3 as it has
done, the peculiar business which I have, by long patience
and perseverance, built up in the midst of the City and
citizens of Baltimore. I say a peculiar business, because I
have, unaided, led the way and perfected, to a degree no
where else found, the Eight-Wheel Freight Coal burning
Locomotive Engine. Most of the peculiarities which distinguish those Engines from others, and which constitute
their ekcellence, have been invented and patented by myself
and introduced into use with that great labor, perseverance
and pains, inseparable from the introduction of all new
improvements, however valuable they ihay be. After this
long -struggle, I felt myself in a way of getting in some
measure repaid for my pains, and of bringing from other
States and distributing among the merchants, artizans and
others of our citizens considerable sums of money, that
would not be brought and -distributed here by my manufactory except by reason of the peculiarity and excellence
of my Engines.
No Rail Road Comfpany, under proper:government, will
go abroad for Engines which it'can procure upon as good
terms at home. Rail Road Companies out of Maryland,
wanting coal burning Freight Engines cannot, I must be
permitted to insist, procure elsewhere such profitable ana
efficient machines as they can obtain in Baltimore, without
infringing some of my patent rights —-which rights I propose to defend to the best of my ability.
After much pains I had succeeded in impressing persons
out of our State, who had occasion for Freight Engines,
with the truth of the above statements to such an extent a0
to justify the expectation of largely increased orders from
abroad for those'machines, whose superiority was acknowledged, and which could not be obtained elsewhere 4n
account of my exclusive right'to build them.




54
It was at this moment that the Master of Machinery of
the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, under the
shield of a resolution of your Board, spreads broadcast over
the land a publication, fortified by the concurrent statements of various of his subordinates, in which the peculiar
properties of my Engines, those properties which heretofore
had been admitted to constitute their great excellence for the
uses to which they had especially been applied, are represented as rendering them the means of destroying the Roads
upon which they may be used, and as constituting them
nuisances to be avoided by every Company having regard
for the lives of passengers entrusted to its care. And, that
the object of this assault might be more securely and certainly attained, your Master of Machinery refuses to allow
a single testimonial in favor of my.plan of Engines to
appear in his' book.  Every disparaging certificate finds
ready welcome and prompt publication. At least one, if
not more, of responses to his enquiries, in which the merits
of the Camel Engines were maintained and insisted upon,
was suppressed and cast aside.
Now, gentlemen, it is known to you that the effect which
Mr. Tyson expected and desired has been produced. My
heretofore prosperous business, in the prosecution of which
so many hundred of persons have been supported, has been
so prostrated as to render it not sufficiently encouraging to
pursue it further-unless I can counteract the ill effects of
Mr. Tyson's abuse of your name and influence, and by a
proceeding to which you are parties, establish the injustice to which I have been subjected, and vindicate the
reputation of those machines, to whose peculiar properties,
I have the authority of the very founder of your Road for
saying, you owe the largest measure of your prosperity.
And this result has been brought about at a time when,
I find myself with a large amount of capital invested in
the means of carrying on my business, and a large investment in Camel Engines, finished and unfinished, without
orders or a prospect of sale for them; or the means of turning the large capital invested in my business to account
without great loss and sacrifice.




55
I claim, therefore, that your acquiescence and co-operation in the appointment of the Commission I have asked
for is a simple act of justice, to which, I trust, you will
feel the more strongly impelled, as, without your name and
influence, Mr. Henry Tyson would have been as impotent
to do me harm as he is incapable of offering me reparation.
ROSS WINANS.
EVIDENCE OF PRACTICAL EXPERTS.
Although, for the convenience of the reader and in order
that the results of the testimony I have gathered upon the
tendency of the Camel Engines to run off may be seen at
a glance, I have presented their evidence in a tabular form,
yet, as my object is merely to uphold the character of my
own machinery by fair and full proof, and not to deny to
other Engines any excellencies they may possess, I consider
it just and fair to give, in'as much detail as possible, the
testimony of the Engineers, Firemen and others who have
been applied to by me, or at my instance, for their opinions
upon the subject. It will be seen that a large number of
the persons who testify to the exemption of the Camel
Engines from liability to run off or break -flanges, are in the
service of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company.
Others have had experience on other Roads.  But their
testimony in its general effect is the same, and establishes,
beyond all controversy, the great fact for which I contend.




56
TESTIMONY OF EMPLOYEES ON BALTIMORE
AND OHIO RAIL ROAD.
JOHN J. C. CHURCH testifies that he has been in the employ of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company for five years, in the capacity of Fireman and Engineer of the "Camel" Engines. During that period he had but
twice been thrown off the track. The first misfortune he attributes to the
switch being turned wrong, and the second to a rail having been removed
from its proper position to the extent of two or three inches.
THEODORE ADDISON says that he is Engineer of Company's built EightWheeled Engine, No. 76; that he has been running it for five or six months,
and has never been off the track; as near as he can recollect, has been running for five years on Eight-Wheeled Engines, geared (Camel) and was never
off the track but once, which was occasioned by the rail turning over, but
not by the breaking of a flange; he has run Ten-Wheeled Engines, and has
not been off the track.
A. J. OGDEN says that he has been running the Camel Engines between
seven and eight years, and was never off the track; never knew, from his
experience, of a Camel Engine breaking a flange.
WILLIAM MARSH asserts that he has been running the "Camel" Engine
for over two years and four months, and had never ran off the track but
once or twice at a switch, which he thinks was wrongly placed.
GEORGE CLAY had been running "Camel" Engines for three and a half
years. He had fired for the Company a year on those Engines. He had
never been off the track except at a ball switch, where the switch was wrong,
and had no recollection of a flange breaking on an Engine, so as to endanger
its running off.
CHARLES CRUSE had run twelve months and fired two years before that.
His experience had been mostly in relation to "Camel" Engines, which had
never run off, and of course no flange had been broken.
WALTER FLAXCOMB avers that he has been acting as Engineer of this line
for eighteen years, about five and a half years running the "Camel" Engines,
and about two and a half the Ten-Wheel Engines. The Engine "Seventysix" once ran off from the breaking of a tire, but not of a flange, and the
"Iris" once ran off, but he does not recollect the reason. He thinks however
that it was not because a flange had been broken.
W. G. RANDALL has been in the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company's employ six years; for 20 months he acted as Fireman, and for two




57
years as runner of "Camel" Engines, and had never had them off the track.
Had run Ten-Wheel Engines for three months with the same result.
AMos REID said that he had been running nearly five months; had fired
on the Road before running, for two years and a half; had fired mostly on
Ten-Wheeled Engines and Passenger Engines, for better than a year; had
fired and run on " Camel" Engines nearly two years, but they nor the TenWheeled Engines ever ran off the track.
ROBERT DAVIS had been running trains for about two years, which were
connected with the Camel Engines, until within the last week or two; but
they had never gone off the track, nor had the Ten-Wheel Engines.
LEWIS MITCHELL had been running and firing for three years, nearly all'
the time on Camel Engines; he had never been off the track until within
three weeks ago; this was on a straight track, and he could assign no reason
for the accident.
[NOTE.-This is since the Wilmington Wheels have been in use under Camel
Engines.]
ZACH. MACKILVIE states that he had been principally running "Camel"
Engines for the last five years; had only been off the track once, which occurred in January, and, he attributed the accident to a switch giving way;
the tire of the wheel was broken in two; he never had a flange broken.
[NOTE.-This accident is since the Wilmington Wheels have been in use under
Camel Engines.]
JOSEPH TONEY had fired over three years, and ran five months, mostly on
Camel Engines, but had never run off the Road with them, or with TenWheeled Engines.
SAMUEL PEARL had fired about twenty-five months and ran for eight or
nine months, mostly on Camel Engines, but had never run off the track; he
had once an axle break.
WILLIAM COVELL says that he has run Camel Engines about eighteen
months, and believes that he has never run off the track.
LEWIS CRAWFORD has run the Company's Eight-Wheeled Engines for
about two years, and has never been thrown off the track.
MARK REISINGER testifies that he has run about a year with Camel Engines, and has never left the track.
G. D. BLATCHFORD states, that he has run about nine months on Camel
Engines; ran off the track once, but does not know the cause of it; this was
in February; he thinks the cause was that they had been repairing the track,
and neglecting to ballast it up as it should be, a rail was broken, but whether
the rail was broken before the Engine's going on or after he cannot tell; ran
off on the outside.
[NOTE.-This was since the Wilmington Wheels have been in use under Camel
Engines. Whether in this or the other similar cases, the accident was in consequence of the use of the Wilmington Wheels, I have no means of knowing.]
8




58
HORACE MOBLEY testifies that he has run Camel Engines about three years
on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road; during that time he has never had one
to run off the track, has never broken a flange, nor has he ever had an accident
of any kind whilst running them that caused him to lose a trip or make bad
time on the Road. He has run one of the Company's Eight-Wheel Geared
Engines, (No. 63,) which has no truck, about two years, without either breaking a flange or running off the track, thus making five years in all during
which he has run the Camel kind of Engine, without a run off or breaking
a flange. That he has also run the Ten-Wheel Engine (No. 167) about one
year on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, and from a comparison between
the two kinds of Engine, from his experience, believes that the Camel Engine
passes through switches with more facility and with less liability to run off
than the Ten-Wheel Engine.
JOHN SCOTTI testifies that he has been employed at the Piedmont Shops
on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, as night foreman for the last nineteen
months, and never knew, during that whole time, a wheel flange of a Camel
Engine to break, except the one broken about the 1st of March, 1857, when
two men were killed, which tire as he believes was of Bush & Lobdell's
make, and procured at Wilmington. That he has run Camel Engines three
years, and has never had one to run off the track nor the flange of a wheel
to break. Two years of this time he ran them on the New York and Erie
Rail Road, where the speed of the Engines was daily from twenty to twentyfive miles per hour, and often as much as thirty miles per hour. Ran a
Camel Engine for seven months without losing a day on account of the
Engine not being in order, and only a few days from any cause.
JOSEPH BARRETT testifies, that he has run Camel Engines for about eight
years and a half, and during that time has had none to run off the main track.
On one occasion, at a ball switch, at Ellicott's Mills, his Engine ran off, in
consequence of the. switch not being secured in its proper place-the pin
having been jarred out by the Engine ahead, and the switch bar being left
loose at one end. Has never had a flange broken.
That he ran a Ten-Wheel Engine one round trip, on the Washington Road,
and during that day had the Engine off the track at switches four timesthree times in the depot yards and once on the main road, at the top of Jessup's Cut-that there, though the track and switch were in good order, the
Engine refused to take the switch. That after this, he and the Conductor of
the train, Mr. Thomas Kenney, managed to get Cars out of the sidings along
the Road without going through the switches-that they were induced to do
this in consequence of the liability of the Engine to leave the track whilst
attempting to go into the sidings. That his experience from running the
Camel Engines on the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road and the Dauphin and
-Susquehanna, and on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, enables him to say,
that in his opinion the Camel Engines would undoubtedly have passed safely
and without running off, each and all the switches where the Ten-Wheel
Engine ran off as above mentioned.
Mr. Barrett also testifies that on or about the 14th of April, 1857, whilst




59
on his downward trip from Martinsburg, a Ten-Wheel Engine was in advance of the other trains, picking up the way freight-that said Engine, in
backing into a siding to get Cars, ran off the track, the switch and track being in good order, but the Engine refusing to take the switch —that he is
satisfied that a Camel Engine would have backed into said siding without any
difficulty and without running off the track.
Charles Flaxcomb was the Engineer who ran said Ten-Wheel Engine.
JACOB WALTEMEYER testifies, that he has run Camel Engines two and a
half years on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, and six months on the
Northern Central Road, making in all three years —never had a run-off or
broke a flange with a Camel Engine. From observation and experience is
enabled to say that the Camel Engines go through short and difficult switches
with more facility and less liability to get off the rails than the Truck Engines; he has frequently ran the Camel Engines with burthen trains twenty
miles and over per hour.
EDWIN ROBINSON asserts that he has run a Camel Engine on the Baltimore
and Ohio Rail Road for two years. He once ran off the track coming down
Nine Mile Grade, and broke the front axle in the box, which axle had been
cracked for some time previous to the run-off.
DANIEL JETT testifies that he has run Camel Engines about three yearshas never had a run-off-never broke a flange.
JOHN ECHERT testifies that he has run Camel Engines on the Baltimore
and Ohio Rail Road over two years —never had a run-off; and never broke a
flange with said Engines.
THOMAS LYNCH testifies that he has fired Camel Engines on the Baltimore
and Ohio Rail Road three years and run them one year, making in all four
years on Camel Engines. During.that time never had a run-off or a flange
of a wheel to break.
DAVID B. PRICE states that he has been in the employ of the Baltimore
and Ohio Rail Road Company from fifteen to sixteen years; that for about
five years he has been running Camel Engines, or Company's Eight-Wheel
connected Engines, upon that Road. He never run off the track in his life
with the exception of once, at a switch. That he does not call a run-off.
WILLIAM HECKATHORN says that he has been engaged on the Baltimore
and Ohio Rail Road for ten years; has been running Camel Engines about two
months, and has not run off the track.
MR. PERRY, employed at the Engine houses of the Baltimore and Ohio
Rail Road, stated, that with the Camel long fire-place Engines, it was no
uncommon occurrence for the fire to remain in a week without drawing;
which practice was continued some three years, until within the last eight
months back. He further said that the fire in the short fire boxes of the
Camel and Ten-Wheel Engines could not be kept in so long, from the want
of space and the great accumulation of dirt, &c. He was certain that each
time drawing the fire was avoided, the Company would be a gainer of from
three to four dollars, taking into account the coal thrown out, and the wood
necessary to re-kindle the fire.




60
TESTIMONY OF EMPLOYEES ON THE NORTHERN
CENTRAL RAIL ROAD.
Where 13 Camel Engines are at work, most of them since 1851.
MR. DAvIs, Master of Machinery of this Road, testifies that he has been
in the service of the Company four years and four months. A year ago last
winter the weather was unusually cold, and the track in some places was
raised up. But none of the Camel Engines went off the track at the points
where the road had received injury in consequence of the severity of the
weather.
This remark, however, would not apply to the Truck Engines, for they
had very often been thrown off.  During all his experience he does not
remember a single instance where a Camel Engine has broken a flange.
From his extensive observation, he asserts, that through the switches situated
in the yard, where the track is very bad, Camel Engines wind through with
infinitely more facility than Truck Engines. He had remarked no difference
with reference to the relative durability of the front and hind drivers of
Camel Engines. He believed, as a general thing, that the flanges of the hind
drivers wore as fast as the front drivers. Having tried both the long and
the short fire box, he had a decided preference for the former. He says that
at York there is a Y, which when it was necessary to pass Truck Engines
over they were obliged to put on guard rails to keep them on the track, but
when Camel Engines traversed the Y, no such precaution was necessary, as
they always kept their proper position. He has never taken out a wheel
from a Camel Engine in consequence of the wearing of the flange, but has
invariably done so by reason of the wearing of the tread.
Mr. Davis, the Master of Machinery of the Road, adds in addition to his
former testimony, that in the Camel Engines he has perceived no sign of the
fire boxes breaking off from the cylindrical part of the boilers; that no leaks
had occurred there except where the wrought iron braces were rivetted on to
the fire box, and set on to the end of the frame.
ANTHONY DEBLING has been employed on the Northern Central Road for
nineteen years. The Camel Engines pull a greater load than any other, burn
coal to perfection, and require but little repair. He asserts that the Camel
Engines have from his experience never run off the track except from some
obstacle which would have been sufficient to throw any Engine off. He has
never heard any objection made to them on account of their leaving the
track. More truck Engines run off than Camel Engines. Is of opinion
that as a burthen Engine the Camel is far preferable to any other now in use.
STEPHEN WOODEN has been engaged in the Company's service for sixteen
years; for two years and a half has run Camel Engines, but has never gone
off the track, or had a flange broken, so that it would be dangerous to run.




61
C. FIFER testifies that he has been running Camel Engines for eight years,
has never run off the track, or seen or heard of a flange breaking in such a
manner that danger might be apprehended from it.
ADAM MEEK, has run Camel Engines on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail
Road for two years, and has run off once, which accident he attributes to the
bad and rotten state of the Road.; It was an old string piece track where he
ran off. On this Road (Northern Central) he has run and fired on Camel Engines for two years, and has never run off the track, or known a flange to
break.
JOSEPH MINNICK testifies that he has been in the service of this Company
for about fifteen years, for four years of which period he has run Gamel Engines. He has been off the track twice; in one instance, owing to the heavy
rain, a large quantity of dirt and stone had accumulated on the line, which
had throwvn the Engine off, and in the other, the Engine mounted the track
in consequence of a defective rail. He had never known of a flange to
break so as to throw the.Engine off the road.
WILLIAM T. HITCHCOCK, states that he has been running and firing Camel
Engines for about six years, and has never ran off during that time; he has
fired some Camel Engines on the New York and Erie Road for five months,
and has been equally fortunate. He never knew a flange to break under the
Camel Engines.
JESSE MCABEE avers that he has fired and run Camel Engines for six
years, and has never run off or known a flange to break.
CHARLES JOHNSON says that he has run and fired Camel Engines for five
years on this and the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road. When he fired a runoff occurred, which he attributes to the recklessness of the Engineer. The
Road was bad-a switch out of repair —and the Engineer had been warned
of the fact, but entirely disregarded it, and did not in the least slacken his
speed when he approached the defective spot-hence the accident. He had
never known a flange of the Camel Engines to break.
THOMAS ASKEW has been employed on this Road since its commencement,
and is familiar with the operations of its various Engines. He ran Engine
115 (Camel) upon the Baltimore and Ohio Road for two months, and has
made two trips over this Road. He is of opinion that at a speed of fourteen
miles an hour, Camel Engines are as secure upon the track as any others.
Has never known a flange of the Camel Engines to break. Is certain that
more Truck Engines run off than Camel Engines. Camel Engines pass
through switches infinitely easier than Truck E'ngines.
THOMAS ZEPP testifies that he has run Camel Engines for about nine years;
a part of the time on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, and a part on the
Northern Central Rail Road-that he never had his Engine to run off, and
never broke a flange. That he has been running Engine No. 11, on the
Northern Central Rail Road for the last four and a half years-during this
time he never lost a trip from leakage of boiler, flues or other defect, or




62
want of repairs on the Engine-the only general repairs required by said
Engine were a new set of wheels, and a renewal of some of the journal
boxes-the fire-place was not renewed, nor were any of the tubes corked except two which on one occasion leaked slightly and were corked by himself.
The first pair of wheels under said Engine which were of Ross Winans' make,
lasted for three years. That this Engine works as a helping Engine on the
grade of sixty to eighty feet per mile, and runs upon an average seventy-four
miles per day-that it rarely ever loses a day, and then only because its services are not required. That from all his experience, he believes that the
Camel Engine passes through switches and over bad places in the track with
as much facility and with as little liability to leave the track as the Truck
Engine.
OFFICE MASTER MACHINERY P. & C. R. R.
Connellsville, March 1st, 1857. 1
Ross WINANs, Esq., Baltimore, Md.
Dear Sir,-In reply to yours of February 13th,'I will say, I have been
engaged by the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road for a number of years, in different capacities, up to 1854. While I was engaged by that Company I had
charge of and run the Camel Engine, both on Passenger and Freight Trains.
I never had any difficulty with any of the Camel Engines. I always found
them to be equal, if not superior to any other Engine for Freight Trains-in
fact they were the only reliable Engines the Company had, and at that time
the officers placed more confidence in the Camel Engine than any other.
My candid opinion is, that if the Company would put the same men on
the Camels to run that they put on their other Freight Engines to run, that
they have no Engines on their Road to compete with them as Freight Engines, both for repairs and coal. I am satisfied they will haul a much larger
load, and not use any more coal than any other Engines the Baltimore and
Ohio Rail Road Company have on their Road-and, as I said before, they can
be run with as little expense as any Engine.
But, sir, it is impossible for any Engine to get along well with the kind of
men that some of the Camel Engines have on them-they are no Enginemen,
nor would the officers of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road put them on any
other Engine but a Camel, for they well know they could not get along.
This is an advantage that the Camel Engine has over all others-they are so
simple that almost any man, with but little experience, can run them.
Give the Camel Engine a fair, impartial chance, and she will compete with
any Engine. On the Pennsylvania Rail Road —the officers will have no other
Engine run over the Mountain Division, and they say, in the most positive
terms, that they are decidedly the cheapest Engine the Company have-their
principal reliance is on the Camel Engines. They never had a single Camel
but one off the track, and they run at the rate of twenty miles to the hour.
There is no Engine that stands so high in the estimation of the Officers and
Engineers on the Pennsylvania Rail Road as your build of Engines.
Respectfully, &c.        LOU. W. McALEER,
Master of Machinery P. & C. B. R.




63
ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE, HUDSON RIVER R. R. 
New York, April 30, 1857.
Ross WINANS, ESQ., Baltimore.
Dear Sir, —Various engagements having prevented an earlier compliance
with your request, that I should furnish you with my views of the relative
merits of the Freight Engines of your construction, at present used by the
Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, as compared with the Ten-Wheel
Engines designed and used by the same Company, I now beg leave to
submit the following remarks:
My observations on the practical working of your Engines' on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road extended over a period4  nearly four years; and
as a great portion of this time was spent upon the heavier portions of the
line, including the mountain grades of 1 in 45~, and the temporary grades of
1 in 17 and even 1 in 10, I have had every facility for observing the power
and reliability of the Engines.
The grand distinctive features between your own and the Ten-Wheel
Engines, the connection of all the Eight Wheels as drivers, in the one
machine; and the substitution of a flexible truck for the leading pair of
drivers of the other, in the second machine, had been the theme of much
discussion among the employees of the Road ever since the latter form of
construction was introduced; but I have never been convinced that the
grounds of dissatisfaction to your Engines were well founded, as I have
certainly never recognized the objectionable results said to ensue from their
use.
The first recollection that I have of allusion to the rigidity of the Camel
Engines, as those of your build are called, carries me back to a period soon
after the opening of the Road to Wheeling; when with a new road-bed, the
curves were frequently out of adjustment, the rails being thrown into angles
at the joints; this difficulty was, however, generally remedied by wedging
the ends of the ties from the side of the cut, where such arrangement was
feasible.
It has been proverbial on the Road that a Camel Engine would pass with
ease through any curve passable by the truck Engines; and when the TenWheel Engines were first introduced they were frequently off the track at
switches and curves, which the Camel Engines were accustomed to pass with
facility.
I have always found your Engines most reliable in their general use upon
the Road, and while hauling their nine Cars up the mountain grades they
have frequently pushed other trains, thereby increasing their load to perhaps
eleven cars.
The instances in which they failed to make their trips were few, and were
generally traceable to causes, which might operate with equal if not greater
force againt Engines of less simple construction.  With their very large
furnaces it was almost impossible for steam to fail, even with the least
expert fireman, for the fires being thin the variable exhaust enabled the




64
engineman at will to increase rapidly the draft on his fire; and even when
the furnaces were overcharged, he was still enabled to do the same thing,
though not so efficiently as in the former case.
Whatever trouble and want of economy I have ever observed in the
machines was generally to be accounted for by their mismanagement. The
overloading the furnaces with coal has caused no little inconvenience. The
fuel, instead of being carried at a depth of about ten inches, would, in some
cases, be piled up almost to the lower row of flues, and sometimes even into
them, causing them to choke and impede the draft, at the same time diminishing the room in the furnace for the thorough admixture and combustion
of the gases, so necessary to the prevention of smoke. The result of this
is a great waste of fuel, and an injury to the Engines and road-bed; though
a great convenience to tlWfireman, who is thereby enabled to ride for miles
without touching the fire.
Similar mismanagement was the cause of the leakage of the flues in the
same Engines, which was complained of some years since, and which was
remedied by an improved system of working them, of which a report was
made to the Master of Machinery of the Company in September, 1854.
From what I have seen of your Engines I am satisfied that when worked
within the limits of speed originally contemplated in their construction, they
are far superior, for a Road of heavy gradients to machines having only a
portion of their weight available for adhesion.
Very respectfully yours,
MENDES COHEN.