Ross Winans (1796–1877) was an American inventor, mechanic, and builder of locomotives and railroad machinery. He is also noted for design of pioneering cigar-hulled ships. Winans, one of the United States' first multi-millionaires, was involved in politics and was a vehement states' rights advocate. His outspoken anti-federal stance as a member of the Maryland legislature led to his arrest during the early period of the American Civil War. Winans was related to James McNeill Whistler through marriage (Whistler's brother George married Winans' daughter Julia).
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Ross Winans was born in Vernon, New Jersey on October 17, 1796. His parents were William and Mary Winans. He married Julia de Kay (1800-1850) in 1820 and they had five children. He moved his family to Baltimore, Maryland in the late 1820s and did business with the newly-founded Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O).[1]
Following the death of his wife Juila in 1850, he married Elizabeth K. West (1807-1889) in 1854.[1]
Winans came from a New Jersey family of horse breeders, but successfully made the transition to other forms of motive power.
In 1828 he developed a friction wheel with outside bearings which established a distinctive pattern for railroad wheels for the next one hundred years or so. In the late 1820s also he became associated with the B&O, eventually entering their service as an engineer. One of his first and more important tasks was to help Peter Cooper build the Tom Thumb locomotive. By 1831 he was appointed assistant engineer of machinery on the B&O. He invented and patented an improvement in the construction of axles, or bearings on July 20. Also in this productive year he built the "Columbus", his first double-truck car, which he immediately patented, even though he was not the first individual to build one.
In 1835 Winans went into partnership with George Gillingham and in 1836 they succeeded to the 1834 lease of Phineas Davis and Israel Gardner of the B&O's company shops at Mt. Clare and continued the manufacture of locomotives and railroad machinery. "As far back perhaps as the year 1836, the firm of Gillingham and Winans, and, after the dissolution of that firm, I myself, down to 1841 or 1842, manufactured a Rail Road Wheel..." (letter #322).
In 1841, he opened his own shop adjacent to the B&O Mount Clare Shops, with that railroad as his primary customer. He was a pioneer in the development of coal-burning locomotives. He was eccentric, and his locomotive business made him independently wealthy. His customer relations were simple—he built engines his way, and you bought them. Bored with the business, and having a design disagreement with the B&O, he closed his shops, which were later leased to Hayward & Bartlett. He went on to do significant work for the Czar’s railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow in Russia. All of the listed engines are type 0-8-0, called the "Camel." They were all acquired from predecessor roads. Engine sales to Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad (C&P) were recorded in 1863. James Millholland, the C&P Master Mechanic, was familiar with keeping these Camel engines running, and making improvements to them.
Winans set trends in locomotive and car design rather than followed them. His locomotives, popularly known as "Crabs," "Muddiggers," and Camels were used all over the fledging rail network of the eastern United States, from the 1840s until after the turn of the 20th century. The B&O was Winans' largest locomotive customer, with one hundred and forty locomotive deliveries going to that road. Winans had a disagreement with Mr. Hayes of the B&O, which delayed delivery of some engines into 1863. Winans' second best customer was the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. These two customers represented 70 percent of his sales. Winans typically offered a thirty day trial period at the customer site.
About two hundred and sixty-seven engine deliveries to twenty-six American railroads by Winans are documented during the period 1843–1863. The Winans engine designs impressed a Russian delegation, and he was asked by the Czar to build the Imperial railroad from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Winans sent his two sons, as well as engineer George W. Whistler to Russia for several years for that project. Winans may have sold as much or more equipment in Russia as he did in the United States. Winans' son returned to build a Russian style estate in Baltimore, named Alexandrofsky and a country estate named Crimea. Alexandrofsky, located near what is now Hollins Market, was demolished to expand the housing stock of the city and Crimea was sold to the city, with money donated by Mr Leakin, to create a park called Leakin Park. The contents of Crimea were sold at auction. Luckily, twenty-three boxes of Winans papers and journals were donated to the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore for safekeeping. The City Park hosts a large outside model train club layout and the original house and canon embankment (his attempt to deter Northern troops from camping on his grounds) and water wheel still exist.
Winans' next important development in locomotive design was an 8-wheel connected freight locomotive in the early 1840s. In 1843 Gillingham and Winans built their own shop to maximize their profits. The company's most notable product was the camelback locomotive. Winans quit the locomotive business in 1857 after a dispute with Henry Tyson, then head of motive power for the B&O, over the use of leading bogies (trucks) on his locomotives. Winans generated a great many patents and was heavily engaged in litigation over ideas he claimed as his own.
The majority of the Winans engines were burden (freight) as opposed to passenger type. Engines delivered after June 1848 are almost all of the Camel 0-8-0 type, favored by Winans. The early models are sometimes referred to as the Baltimore engines. The Camel name derives from the first of class of that name, delivered to the B&O in 1848. All Camel engines were of the 0-8-0 wheel arrangement. Winans did not believe in the use of leading (pony) trucks.
The Camel engines were all low-speed, heavy haul units. The speed was limited to 10–15 miles per hour by the steam capacity of the boiler, and the lack of a pilot truck. However, at that speed, a single Camel could haul a 110 car train of loaded coal hoppers on the level. The most distinctive feature of the Camel was the cab atop the boiler. They had a large steam dome, slide valves, and used staybolts in the boiler. More than 100 iron tubes, each over 14 feet (4.3 m) long, were installed in the boiler.
A Camel was about 25 feet (7.6 m) long, with an 11-foot (3.4 m) wheelbase. There were three major variations: the short, medium, and long furnace models. The small units had 17" × 22" cylinders, and the others had 19" × 22" cylinders. The medium unit had about 23 square feet (2.1 m2) of grate area, expanded to more than 28 square feet (2.6 m2) in the large furnace model. The long furnace model had a firebox more than 8 feet (2.4 m) long, requiring lever-operated chutes for the fireman to feed the front of the fire. The fireman worked in the tender, as the firebox was behind the drivers. This design required that the drawbar passed beneath the firebox, and it typically heated to a cherry red color. Even after rebuilds with a more conventional cab design, the fireman worked in the tender. The standard Camel engine had 43" wheels, and was painted green.
Camel tenders were 8-wheeled, generally with brakes on the rear truck only. They held 5 tons of coal, and 81⁄2 tons (more than 2000 gallons) of water. Fully loaded, the tenders weighted 23 tons, only 4 tons less than the locomotive.
Ten Camels were delivered to the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad, including one “engine sold them from Maryland Mining Co., $8000 cash.” Ten more sales are recorded to successor line Northern Central Railway. Two units went to the Elmira & Canandaguia in New York, and were subsequently sold to the Cumberland & Pennsylvania. The P&R engine Susquehanna is described in detail in White's book (ref. 71). Two Winans engines went to the Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain (H&BTM) Railroad in southwestern Pennsylvania in 1863. One unit blew up in 1868, with the loss of four lives. The H&BTM ran along the west side of Broad Top Mountain, best known for the narrow gauge line on its east side, the East Broad Top Railroad. The C&P interchanged with the H&BTM at State Line, Pennsylvania.
Most of the Winans Camel engines sold for around $10,000. Engine sales were expedited by syndicates of what we would now call investment bankers, such as Mr. Enoch Pratt. Banks did not yet have the accumulated capital to make loans for commercial purposes.
The records of the Philadelphia & Reading contain detailed information on Camel engine mileage’s and rebuildings. This line received a series of forty-eight deliveries from 1846 to 1855. By 1858, the P&R had racked up in excess of 3.5 million miles on its 44 engines, with the Camel fleet representing 20 percent of the P&R motive power roster. In 1865, 28 of 48 engines had not yet been rebuilt. By 1870, only 4 of the 48 were not yet rebuilt, but these four had accumulated almost one million miles of road service. The average service life before a rebuild was about thirteen and one-half years. Similar data for the B&O gives an average service life of 8.5 years before rebuilding. A total of 15 Camel rebuilds are recorded at the C&P shops in Mount Savage, from 1866 through 1875.
There are only three documented catastrophic failures in Camel engines. Non-catastrophic failures were more prevalent, but fewer were documented. Roberts (reference 48) gives the performance of a Winans Camel on the B&O’s 17-mile (27 km) grade, circa 1855, as 144 trailing tons. Dilts (reference 17) gives the performance of B&O engine 71 as 117 trailing tons up a 2.2 percent grade at 18 mph (29 km/h). Engine 71 was a Winans Camel, built in April 1851. The Winans engine could haul 40 empty coal hoppers up the Eckhart Branch, based on a tare weight of 3 tons for the Winans designed 6-wheel hoppers in use in 1854.
During the Civil War Winans was elected a member of the Maryland House of Delegates (the lower house of the state legislature) for the 1861 special sessions called to discuss the issue of secession,[2] and was arrested twice due to his anti-Federal activities and speeches. On the day before the Baltimore riot of 1861, Winans moved a resolution "protest[ing] in the name of the people of Maryland against the garrisoning of Southern forts by militia drawn from the free States" and 'calling upon citizens of the state unite "to repel, if need be, any invader who may come to establish a military despotism over us." He was arrested shortly after the riot, was released, and elected again on April 24 as part of a States Rights ticket. Meanwhile, Winans' firm was reportedly preparing weapons and munitions for the defense of Baltimore against union troops. According to the American of April 23, "At the works of the Mssrs. Winans, the entire force is engaged in the making of pikes, and in casting balls of very description..." (Brown, 65). On May 14, one day after martial law was declared in Baltimore, Winans was again arrested while returning from a special session of the Maryland legislature in Frederick (the session in which in which the Maryland legislature considered, but ultimately rejected, secession). He was quickly released, after signing a "parole" guaranteeing his loyalty to the federal government. Winans' arrest, by Benjamin Butler's Federal troops, was one of the cases where Lincoln's emergency suspension of habeas corpus was employed. Winans' brief incarceration was not legally challenged, as it was in the of Johns Merryman (Ex parte Merryman).
While Winans is often credited as the inventor of the Winans Steam Gun, said to be among the weapons bought from the five hundred thousand dollar fund that Baltimore Mayor Brown and Maryland Governor Hicks gathered "for the defense of the city. This experimental weapon was in fact not designed by Winans, but was invented by Charles S. Dickinson, and built in Boston in 1860. It passed through Winan's machine shop during the period when his workers were making pikes, shot and other items ordered by city authorities. When it emerged, its former history was forgotten, and word spread that it was built by Winan's to oppose Federal troops. Though this novelty ultimately had no military impact, it was widely discussed at the time and its connection to Winans, along with his political views reputation as a threat to federal control of Maryland.
In the mid-19th century Winans and his son Thomas designed and built a series of spindle-shaped boats, usually referred to as the "cigar ships." The first was constructed in 1858 and featured an unprecedented (and in the end, technically unfeasible) midship propeller, enclosed in a shroud. This propeller was driven by steam engines located in each hull section. The intent was to allow the ship to progress with less disturbance from weather and waves. This ship was discussed at length in the pages of Scientific American, and in the end remained tied up at the Winans docks for many years, after a series of trials and modifications. It was never subjected to a sea trial.
After the Civil War, Winans and his son took their enterprise to Europe, and several boats were built in England and in St. Petersburg, Russia. None of these were put to full sea trials, though press reports survive of trips in the Solent and the English Channel. The boats themselves remained tied up in Southampton into the 1880s, but inspired no imitators.
Thomas Winans stayed for a time in Russia and contracted with the Czar's government to develop Russian railroads.
Winans took an interest in sanitary engineering and public health, publishing a number of pamphlets on sanitation, particularly in regard to water and ventilation. He lobbied for the development of a public water supply for Baltimore City.
Winans was a pioneer in the development of low income housing building a housing project he called "workingmen's housing" in Baltimore. Today a public housing project remains on the site and is named Mount Winans.
He also published religious writings, including a pamphlet on religious tolerance and a collection of Unitarian sermons.
The Winans' cigar ship and it's shape inspired for Captain Nemo's submarine ship, for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.
Winans died in Baltimore on April 11, 1877 at the age of 81.[1][3]