Figure 56.—Controversial Peoples’ Railway No. 3, built in the 1840’s, as it appeared in 1923.
The second Lion, now preserved in the Crosby Mechanical Laboratory at the University of Maine at Orono, Maine, was built for the Machiasport Railroad (later called the Whitneyville and Machiasport Railroad) running between the towns of Whitneyville and Machiasport in Maine. Strictly a lumber road about 7½ miles long, it was abandoned in the early 1890’s when lumber became scarce in that region. The Lion and a similar but slightly older Hinkley locomotive, the Tiger, fell into disuse, and were subsequently sold as junk to Thomas Towle of Portland. What happened to the Tiger is today not known, but quite probably it was broken up for scrap.
Alderman E. E. Rounds of Portland succeeded in raising funds to acquire the Lion for exhibition in the Fourth of July parade held in Portland in 1898. It then remained in Portland on city property until 1905 when, through the efforts of Alderman Rounds, the President and alumni of the University of Maine, and friends of the University, it was shipped to the University to be preserved as a museum piece. Once on the campus it was stored in various places and received little attention, until it was moved in 1929 to the then newly completed Crosby Mechanical Laboratory.
Figure 57.—Lion, built in 1846 by Holmes Hinkley of Boston, as it appeared in what is probably the Portland, Maine, junkyard from which it was rescued in 1898.
As the result of a study made in the fall of 1929, some missing parts of the Lion were replaced, and it was restored to the point where it can now be operated on compressed air. Today the locomotive, jacked up so that its four wheels can be made to operate, is a valued relic at the University of Maine ([figure 58]).
Figure 58.—Lion as now exhibited at University of Maine.
It has been stated that the Lion cost $2,700, exclusive of the tender. The bore and stroke of its cylinders are 9¼ inches and 17 inches, respectively, and the diameter of the four wheels is approximately 42½ inches. The gauge is standard, 56½ inches. The locomotive alone weighs 9 tons.
The final survivor of this group of early locomotives is the Memnon ([figure 59]), built for the Baltimore and Ohio in 1848 by the New Castle Manufacturing Co., New Castle, Del., under subcontract to Matthias W. Baldwin. It is one of a small group of similar freight engines built by Baldwin, who won the contract as a result of his bid in reply to a B & O advertisement in the “American Railroad Journal” of October 1847.