BALTIMORE — With his legs pushing hard against railroad ties, Ed Williams turns the 60-foot (18-meter) wide turntable, slowly rotating the steam locomotive inside the great stable of the iron horse, according to the Associated Press.
“This is why we don’t belong to athletic clubs,” the deputy director of the B&O Railroad Museum joked, after moving the 62,000-pound (27,900-kilogram) William Mason about 90 degrees.
The 1856 locomotive, the oldest in operation in the country, was transferred last month from its open bay in B&O’s historic roundhouse to ready it for this summer’s Fair of the Iron Horse, a celebration of 175 years of American railroading. Tests will show if the old gauges and boiler pressure points are up to federal standards to operate during the six-day festival.
“This is sort of the world’s fair of railroading,” said Courtney Wilson, executive director of the museum.
The festival will run from June 28 to July 3 and display what organizers say is the most impressive collection of locomotives in the Western Hemisphere.
At the museum, an area will be set aside for model trains to keep toddlers interested. Children will learn about safety rules around train tracks. Adults will be able to track the development of railroad technology — from horse power to steam and diesel power to magnetic levitation, which can push trains at speeds upward of 240 mph (390 kph).
“We have locomotives coming from all over the country, and we believe even the Rocket is coming from England — the very first locomotive in the world — to participate in this fair,” Williams said.
The Rocket, the first successful steam locomotive in the world, won a competition in 1829 as the fastest locomotive — an event that helped spark worldwide railway interest.
“It was probably the fastest machine on earth in its time,” Wilson said.
Rail companies in France, Canada, Germany and Spain have been invited to participate in this year’s event.
“This will probably be the last time in this century that this many locomotives will be assembled in one spot, and it’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Wilson said.
The B&O Railroad was the host of a similar event in 1927 in nearby Halethorpe that attracted more than 1.25 million visitors over three weeks. The railroad held the event for its 100th anniversary.
Libby Younglove of Towson, a visitor who watched a tractor pull the William Mason onto the turntable, said she wouldn’t have missed it. Her family has worked in the railroad industry for generations.
“It’s such a piece of history that I said, ‘We have to go see it,'” Younglove said, as 2-year-old grandson Joshua Conlon clambered onto a red caboose.
Museum officials hope the event gives people a better appreciation of trains.
“It’s such an intricate part of our whole social fabric, but we don’t pay any attention to it until there’s an accident or derailment of some kind,” Williams said.
“It’s just an incredible engine, excuse the pun, for the country.”
The museum’s 22-sided roundhouse will be a focal point in the months leading up to the festival. Completed in 1884, the building rises 135 feet (40.5 meters) into a huge cupola and covers nearly an acre (a half hectare) of ground. The roundhouse was designed as a passenger car shop and has been in continuous use since its construction.
Inside is the most significant collection of railroad artifacts in the nation, including a replica built in 1926 of the Tom Thumb — the first American-built locomotive (constructed in 1830) — and the St. Elizabeth — one of the last steam engines built in the United States (1950).
In the middle is the turntable. Wilson describes the wooden circle as being a lot like “a plate on a stick.” A single center pin supports it. When a locomotive is properly balanced on the turntable, one person can move more than 30 tons by simply pushing up against the turntable.
The museum, which sits on about 40 acres (16 hectares) in west Baltimore, holds locomotives, freight and passenger cars and other rolling stock — including cars from the nation’s first trains, which were pulled by horses.
The grounds contain cavernous buildings with special tools for restoring old locomotives.
“It’s a really remarkable resource to have here to bring these engines back to life,” said Jeff Truemen, director of marketing for the museum.
When the B&O introduced the concept of railroading in the United States in 1827, it was a foreign idea. No one imagined traveling up to 13 miles an hour.
“This was a technology that had not been seen,” Williams said.
The first 50 years of railroading are illustrated in the museum, thanks to B&O’s preservation of early locomotives. The museum, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution (news – web sites), has nearly 250 full-size pieces in its collection.
You may have seen them occasionally in movies, where some of the museum’s pieces have been popping up since the 1937 film “Wells Fargo.”
The William Mason still sports a pair of elk antlers from its appearance in the 1999 Will Smith film “Wild, Wild West.” That was one of the rare occasions in which a locomotive was allowed to leave Baltimore for a film.
Museum officials describe the grounds as the birthplace of American railroading. The first stone of the nation’s first commercial, long-distance railroad was laid July 4, 1828, by Charles Carroll of Baltimore, at the time the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence.
When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, Baltimore merchants looked for ways to remain competitive in trade with the West. They decided to borrow the English railroading concept, and the Maryland General Assembly issued the first government charter for a railroad on Feb. 27, 1827.
It was the beginning of the nation’s railroad system, which would fuel the Industrial Revolution. As the technology caught on, the network that started with the B&O reached 13 states, all the way to St. Louis.
A complex of shops, yards and laboratories were built around the site where the museum now stands. The railroad opened a transportation museum 50 years ago in the roundhouse to reach out to the public.
“Nobody puts an airport under their Christmas tree,” Williams said. “They put trains under it. There is this love affair with trains. America grew up on trains, and it’s a real special part of our social fabric.”