Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 15, 2008

The John Bull is an English-built railroad steam locomotive, operated for the first time on September 15, 1831; it became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world (150 years) when the Smithsonian Institution operated it in 1981. Built by Robert Stephenson and Company, the John Bull was initially purchased by and operated for the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the first railroad built in New Jersey. The railroad gave John Bull the number 1 and its first name, "Stevens". The first woman to ride a steam-powered train in America, Catherine Willis Gray, traveled on a train pulled by the locomotive on November 12 1831. The C&A used the locomotive heavily from 1833 until 1866, when it was removed from active service and placed in storage. After the C&A's assets were acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1871, the PRR refurbished and operated the locomotive a few times for public displays: it was steamed up for the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and again for the National Railway Appliance Exhibition in 1883. A replica was constructed in 1939 to prevent unnecessary wear on the original. Today, the original John Bull is on static display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, and the replica John Bull is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. (more...)

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