Scale Model of an American locomotive with tender

Model (scale 1:8) of an American locomotive with tender. This is said to represent a locomotive built for the Erie RR in about 1875 and was made by by William R. Lendrum, a machinist in the railway workshops of the Delaware Lackawanna & Western RR in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The tintype photograph on the clack-box is thought to be of Ledrum: the photo on the smokebox is of Ulysses S. Grant, US President 1869-1877.

This is a model of an American 4-4-0 steam locomotive. In the last half of the nineteenth century, the typical American steam locomotive was of this general design. The four-coupled driving wheels and leading bogie enabled it to negotiate quite sharp curves, and the bar frames provided flexibility for running over unevenly-laid track. The model, made to scale 1:8, is of a design of passenger locomotive built for the Erie Railroad in about 1875, though with detail differences.

The model was made in the 1870s by William R. Lendrum, a machinist for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad at their workshops in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The workman in the medallion photograph on the boiler side is believed to be Lendrum. It is quite unusual for a model-builder to be portrayed on his own model in this way. The portrait on the smokebox door is of General Ulysses S. Grant, who was US President between 1869 and 1877. It is not known how the model reached Britain, but in 1880, Mr J. Montague Livesey of Lincolnshire who owned the model at this time, placed it on loan to the Patent Office Museum (a predecessor of the Science Museum). The model was purchased by the Science Museum at an auction in 1892.