1st—The number of passengers to go in each Car should be limited. Huddling numbers on the top is extremely hazardous.
2nd—Unless a wire sieve is fastened over the top of the chimney of the engine we shall soon have some dwelling house, barn or other building near the road burnt down or the Cars themselves set on fire.
In conclusion we hope that the feeling of our citizens will not be again excited by the occurrence of such a painful and heart-rending accident as the one over which a number have been called to mourn, as we are confident that by proper management and strict attention it may be easily avoided."
Now let us consider this first locomotive engine ever used on the Lexington and Ohio Railroad. This locomotive was invented by Thomas Harris Barlow (who afterward became world-famous as the inventor of the Planetarium) and was constructed by Joseph Bruen at his machine shops which stood near the corner of Water and Spring Streets.
That wonderful little locomotive is described by one who saw it with his own eyes, who rode behind it often, and who knew the men who invented and constructed it quite intimately. The old gentleman I refer to was Samuel D. McCullough, who was born in 1803 and who wrote his diary, which is now in the Lexington Public Library, in 1871.
"Mr. Thomas Harris Barlow was born in Nicholas County, Kentucky, (says his son, Milton, in a letter to me) August 5th, 1789, and resided in the State of his birth till the last year or two of his life and died in Cincinnati June, 1865."
I shall condense Mr. Milton Barlow's short biography of his father, which states that he had but a common school education. He was an industrious and even a hard working student of mechanism for which he had a wonderful natural gift, and which induced Col. R. M. Johnson to appoint him principal Military Artificer in his Regiment. He was under fire in the Battle of the Thames (1812) where he distinguished himself for coolness and bravery. After his intermarriage with Miss Lizzie West he turned his attention to erecting flour, saw and other mills and building and overseeing their steam motive power. In 1825 he removed to Lexington and opened a machine shop.
"I remember myself all which followed and give my own recollections.
Believing that Locomotives could be propelled at a greater velocity Mr. Barlow and Mr. Joseph Bruen, another mechanical genius, built an engine to run on the new Rail Road, just started from this place towards Frankfort, the finished portion of the road extending then but five miles from this City, and on which Sunday pleasure Cars were running drawn by two horses.