Best Friend of Charleston
line drawing of the Best Friend of Charleston
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| Type and origin | |
|---|---|
| Power type | Steam |
| Builder | West Point Foundry |
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Configuration | 0-4-0 |
| Gauge | 5 ft (1,524 mm) |
| Career | |
|---|---|
| Locale | Charleston, South Carolina |
| Delivered | October 1830 |
| First run | December 25, 1830 |
| Disposition | Boiler exploded June 17, 1831; some parts reused to build Phoenix |
The Best Friend of Charleston was a steam-powered railroad locomotive. It is widely acclaimed as the first locomotive to be built entirely within the United States for revenue service. It also produced the first locomotive boiler explosion in the US.
The locomotive was built for the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company by the West Point Foundry of New York in 1830. Disassembled for shipment by boat to Charleston, SC, it arrived in October of that year and was unofficially named the Best Friend of Charleston. After its inaugural run on Christmas Day, the Best Friend was used in regular passenger service along a six-mile (9.7 km) demonstration route in Charleston. For the time, this locomotive was considered one of the fastest modes of transport available, taking its passengers "on the wings of wind at the speed of fifteen to twenty-five miles per hour (24 to 40 km/h)." The only mode of travel that was any faster was by an experienced horse and rider.
On June 17, 1831, the Best Friend earned a rather grisly first — it became the first locomotive in the US to suffer a boiler explosion. The blast is said to have been caused by the fireman tying down the steam pressure release valve; he had tired of listening to it whistle, so to stop the noise he closed the valve permanently (another account has the fireman placing a stout piece of lumber on the safety valve and sitting on it). Another reason may have been the fireman was trying to overpressure the boiler as the locomotive was expected to perform hard work i.e. climbing a gradient upon setting off. This was common practice and a common cause of boiler bursts until a tamper-proof safety valve was produced. The blocked valve caused the pressure within the boiler to exceed its capacity, and it exploded. The resulting blast was said to have hurled metal fragments over a wide area and killed the fireman. The locomotive's engineer Nicholas Darrell was uninjured in the explosion.
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Wikipedia