Sandusky (locomotive)

Sandusky was a steam locomotive of the 4-2-0 wheel arrangement, completed in 1837 by Rogers, Ketchum and Grosvenor of Paterson, New Jersey, as the first locomotive the firm built. Thomas Rogers designed it, and it carried features not used before in locomotive construction: counterweights in the driving wheels to offset the force of the piston stroke and the weight of the axle, wheels and rod on the rail, which Rogers patented on 12 July 1837, and hollow oval spokes in the driving wheels. It was built for the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company, which never bought it, and it was sold instead to the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad in October 1837. In Ohio it became the first locomotive to operate in the state and pulled the first train on that line, from Sandusky to Bellevue, beginning with a first run there on 2 December 1837. Its journey west also made it the first locomotive to cross the Allegheny Mountains, although that crossing was by river ferry and not by rail. Sources differ on whether its first trial runs were on 3 or 6 October 1837, and some references wrongly call it the first locomotive built in the United States.