[4]The correct name of the builder of the Rocket, according to Dendy Marshall, was Braithwaite, Milner and Co. The two brass maker’s plates on the opposite sides of the front of the locomotive’s boiler read “Braithwaite & Co./ London./ March 1838.” However, as they are of the same size and shape as the shop plates of the Philadelphia and Reading in the early 1890’s, and as there was no plate on the locomotive in the late 1880’s (see [figure 51]), it is quite likely that these plates are not original with the locomotive. They were probably made and installed at the time it was refurbished for exhibition at Chicago in 1893.

[5]Railroads are known not to have existed in Mexico prior to 1850, and although locomotives of the 1825-1849 period could possibly have found their way into that country at some later date, none are to be found there today, according to advice from the Mexican National Railways (Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico). Central America falls outside the scope of this work, as do the Islands of the Caribbean. However, a railroad was opened in Cuba in 1837, and another was started across the Isthmus of Panama in 1849 and completed in 1855 (its first locomotive was received soon after the midcentury mark had been passed), so there is the remote possibility that somewhere in this area the remains of a pre-1850 locomotive could exist.

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office
Washington 25, D. C. - Price $1.00

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1956 O-F—353689

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE