Caution: "Live Steam" is dangerous if proper precautions are not taken, know an engine is safe and what you are doing before firing it up.

Beggs

Eugene Beggs of Patterson New Jersey began manufacturing live-steam toy trains around 1871 with his associate Jehu Garlick. Their engines were of better quality than the European imports and as such also more expensive, the fact that they looked like American steamers was a selling feature. The cylinders acted as safety valves as they were held against the frame by springs.They were unique in that rather than the wheels being parallel they were at a radius so they would better follow the small diameter of the circular track.

Jehu Garlick went on to build a trolley type, battery operated, electric train in 1895, unfortunately it did not catch on so the line was discontinued.

Beggs 4-4-0 No.1 Locomotive

Beggs No.2 Locomotive

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Beggs No. 2 Steam Train, locomotive, postal car and passenger car. The cars have heavy cardboard bodies with tin roofs.

Beggs No.3 Locomotive

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Beggs No.3 with original wooden box locomotive shipped in.

Original patent drawing print for Beggs toy locomotive is available from Vintage Internet Patents

Weeden Manufacturing Company

The Youth's Companion, a publication for children approached William Nye Weeden and asked him to design an inexpensive, quality toy that the magazine could use as a premium in an effort to increase subscriptions. Weeden designed an upright steam engine, the design, quality and function of the engine so impressed the publication that they gave Weeden an initial order for ten thousand units at one dollar apiece. This $10,000.00 would be the impetus for the formation of The Weeden Manufacturing Company in 1883. The company was in business until1952 producing a vast line of steam powered products that included stationary engines, mobile tractors, boats and trains.

The Weeden Dart

The Weeden No.1 Steam Locomotive

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The Weeden No.1 Steam Locomotive was introduced in 1931 and produced into 1933, 12" long X 2 1/2" wide and 4" high. This is an 0-gauge loco that runs on standard track designed to pull cars made by other manufacturers.

The Weeden No.2 Electric Steam Locomotive

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The Weeden No.3 Steam Locomotive

A No.2, similar to the No. 1, was designed for The Steam - Electric Company, 400 watts of power was required to heat the water, which was impractical so the project never really got off the ground. These engines are very rare.

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The Weeden No.3 Locomotive is a larger version of the Dart, 12" long, 3 1/4" wide and 4 1/2" high, introduced around 1903 and produced for a couple years. The complete train had a tender and two passenger coaches, identical to those of the Dart, with a 5' diameter track.

Classification

The Whyte notation for classifying steam locomotives by wheel arrangement was devised by Frederick Methvan Whyte and came into use in the early twentieth century.

Whyte's system counts the number of leading wheels, then the number of driving wheels, and finally the number of trailing wheels as groups of numbers separated by dashes. Thus, a locomotive with two leading axles (four wheels) in front, then three driving axles (six wheels) and followed by one trailing axle (two wheels) is classified as a 4-6-2.

Other classification schemes, like UIC classification and the French, Turkish and Swiss systems for steam locomotives, count axles rather than wheels.

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