C&NW in the Steam Era

This era on the C&NW is not currently available. We have elected to begin developing work orders for the Modern Era.

The Steam Era begins with the invention of the very first locomotives and continues through some point in 1960 when tha last steam locos were removed from shortline service.

One of the earliest locomotives was the Best Friend of Charleston. In October 1830, the engine arrived by packet ship from the West Point Foundry in New York. It was assembled and tested. Dubbed "Best Friend of Charleston'' by eager merchants, the train made its premier trip on Christmas Day, 1830, becoming the first steam locomotive in the US to establish regularly scheduled passenger service. It ran along six miles of wood and metal rails terminating near the junction of State and Dorchester Roads. This first trip was described by the ''Charleston Courier" on December 29:

"The one hundred and forty-one persons flew on the wings of wind at the speed of fifteen to twenty-five miles per hour, annihilating time and space...leaving all the world behind. On the return we reached Sans-Souci in quick and double quick time, stopped to take up a recruiting party-darted forth like a live rocket, scattering sparks and flames on either side-passed over three salt creeks hop, step and jump, and landed us all safe at the Lines before any of us had time to determine whether or not it was prudent to be scared."

With this auspicious begining rail travel was launched in the United States. During the one hundred years from 1830 until 1930 track was laid from one end of the US to the other. Locomotive design came of age and the modern steam locomotive was born. Passenger travel and freight shipments continued to grow.

During the remaining thirty years from 1930 until 1960 steam locomotives would see their finest and last hour. Yet, in a mere thirty years, the steam locomotive would reach the pinnacle of it's existance and then pass, almost completely from the scene. These fire breathing monsters would answer the call of a world and nation at war moving more passengers and freight than ever before but their fate was sealed.

The deisel locomotive arrived on the scene much earlier but suffered growing pains for some time. These problems were mostly overcome and diesel locomotives began to arrive in numbers during the last thirty years of steam. It might take as many as three or four diesels to do the work of one steam locomotive but what would seem a shortcoming also provided the railroads with flexibility and interchangeability. They ran cleaner and were cheaper to operate and maintain.

For this reason the C&NW has chosen to depict the time from 1930 to 1950. When diesels were on the scene but just coming into their own. A time when Steam Was King!