Zerah Colburn (locomotive designer)
| Zerah Colburn | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
January 13, 1832 Saratoga, New York |
| Died | April 26, 1870 (aged 38) Belmont, Massachusetts |
| Occupation | mechanical engineer, journalist |
Zerah Colburn (January 13, 1832 – April 26, 1870) was an American engineer specialising in steam locomotive design, technical journalist and publisher.
Without any formal schooling, Colburn was a teenage prodigy. Barely in his teens at the start of the railroad boom, he found work in Lowell, Massachusetts as an apprentice in the ‘drafting room’ of the Lowell Machine Shops where America’s first steam locomotives were taking shape.
While working among the locomotives Colburn also began to write and before long compiled his first regular newssheet – Monthly Mechanical Tracts.
As he moved about the locomotive works of New England gathering experience and an eye for engineering detail, he also produced his first book, The Throttle Lever. Designed as an introduction to the steam locomotive, this became the standard U.S. textbook on building locomotives. It not only took Colburn, then not 20, deeper into the world of publishing, but also earned him wider respect amongst railroad men across America – locomotive builders and train operators.
Colburn worked or was associated with a number of locomotive works between 1854 and 1858, including: Baldwin Locomotive Works, Tredegar Locomotive Works - part of Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, Virginia, Rogers Locomotive Works, and the New Jersey Locomotive and Machine Company.
In 1853 he joined the American Railroad Journal, the leading American railroad newspaper. Colburn, who had a fiery temper, parted from this publication after a dispute with the editor and launched his own weekly paper – the Railroad Advocate.
The Advocate increased his sphere of influence and paved the way for a partnership with a young man, of similar age – Alexander Lyman Holley. Together they developed the paper but Colburn, ever restless, sold half to Holley, then took off West to start a venture with a sawmill and then tried his hand at selling railroad tires.
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