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Size isn't everything...
The honour of bringing the fastest locomotive in the world to the Exposition fell to me too. Another coup to make the endeavours of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company stand out. A New York Express No.999 that was timed at an unbelievable 100 miles per hour. At 50 tons weight and with driving wheels more than 7ft in diameter, it was nearer to the practical world and experience of Timothy Young.
I made sure it was carefully placed alongside one of the earliest American locomotives.That way visitors could get a clear impression of how far America had come in firing its way forward as a new country - how we were at the front of locomotive development.
Among the rest of the original locomotives I made sure were on display there was the diminutive 'Tom Thumb'. It looked the part of a pioneering locomotive - a boiler set up on its end making the steam power. And it ran fast enough for all that it was a midget.
Just like the replica I had of 'Novelty', which was one of the locomotives that competed for the prize at the Rainhill Trials in England at the very start of the age of steam. There were things about science that were not understood then. It too was a lightweight, but showed a turn of speed that surprised.