Best Friend of Charleston in Huntingburg Indiana 1976 8mm super edited One month later, the rail line reached Woodstock, a point between Charleston and Summerville. It was built in 1830 by the South Carolina Rail Road Company by the West Point Foundry of New York. Unfortunately, the Best Friend's boiler exploded after just a few months of service. A careless fireman unwittingly caused an explosion. History. The Best Friend Of Charleston (or simply "Best Friend") is a type of vertical boiler, 0-4-0, steam locomotive. It is notable for being one of the first steam locomotives to be built in the US. Within five months of the “Best Friend’s” debut, a second locomotive, the “West Point,” arrived in Charleston. Then, tragedy struck. Christened as the Best Friend of Charleston the locomotive was an 0-4-0 that burned standard wood and was capable of producing 6 to 8 horsepower with speeds reaching 30 mph empty or about 12 mph loaded (laughable, yes, by today's standards but a powerful machine in those days).
Best Friend of Charleston, first steam locomotive built in the United States for regular railway service. Overall, the unit weighed about 3.75 tons (minus water in the boiler and fuel/wood). A vertical boiler mounted on a four-wheel carriage, the Best Friend was built by the West Point Foundry of New York and put into service on a broad-gauge line from Charleston to Hamburg, S.C., by the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company on Dec. 25, 1830. Commissioned by the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, the Best Friend of Charleston was the first locomotive built in the United States for public service.Constructed in New York City at the West Point Foundry to run on the Charleston-Hamburg line, the Best Friend was christened by hopeful supporters on its Charleston arrival in October 1830. It killed him, scalded the engineer and … The Best Friend of Charleston was a steam-powered railroad locomotive which is widely acclaimed as the first locomotive to be built entirely within the United States for revenue service and produced the first locomotive boiler explosion in the United States.
The railroad transcended these obstacles and brought economic prosperity back to Charleston.