John Bull is a historic British-built railroad steam locomotive that operated in the United States. It was operated for the first time on September 15, 1831, and became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution ran it under its own steam in 1981. Built by Robert Stephenson and Company, it was initially purchased by and operated for the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the first railroad in New Jersey, which gave it the number 1 and its first name, "Stevens". However, through regular use of the engine, crews began calling it the "old John Bull", a reference to the cartoon personification of England, John Bull. Eventually the informal name was shortened to "John Bull" and this name was so much more widely used that "Stevens" fell out of use.
After the C&A's assets were acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1871, the PRR refurbished and operated the locomotive a few times for public displays: it was fired up for the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and again for the National Railway Appliance Exhibition in 1883. In 1884 it was purchased by the Smithsonian Institution as the museum's first major industrial exhibit. In 1939 the employees of the PRR's Altoona, Pennsylvania, workshops built an operable replica of the locomotive for further exhibition duties, as the Smithsonian wanted to keep the original locomotive in a more controlled environment. After being on static display for 42 years, the Smithsonian commemorated the locomotive's 150th birthday in 1981 by firing it up; it was then the world's oldest surviving operable steam locomotive.
As of 2025, the original John Bull is on static display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and the replica is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, Pennsylvania.
This is an engine I've been wanting to do for a while. I fell in love with the look of this engine when looking through various online resources for inspiration on what trains to make for use in the game and this one caught my attention with it's aggressive looking cowcatcher and boxy tender. I wanted to be able to switch between versions by just changing the skin which necessitated building elements of both version and then "erasing" them out via alpha depending on which skin you use. The default skin uses the current look of the replica while the alternate skin gives you the current look of the original. Since the tender won't change within the game, I made it a bit easier to swap between the two versions by including a separate nif file for it using the alternate skin. Of all the engines I've made for this game, I think this is my favorite.
