The urban legend of the man who blew up a train by being Dummy Thicc - Best Friend of Charleston 

Sir, I'm trying to fire the engine, but I'm Dummy Thicc, and the mass of my ass cheeks keeps jamming the safety valve

I read of an incident that happened about this era when boiler pressures were about 70 psi. The driver inquired about the pressure and the fireman said it should be ok as the needle on the guage has already been around once.🇦🇺

Hey, that's my post at the beginning! I made that back in January 2020

I get the feeling this might be a case of mistranslation from olde English to modern day English, where the original intent might have been to say "the fireman was such a massive ass, he tampered with the safety valve and caused the boiler to explode" rather than any physical overqualifications the man may have had.

Mississippi riverboats were notorious for blowing up (when they didn't run aground or catch fire) Saw an account of one that seemed to be going unusually fast (with no pressure gauges, the stoker judged his stoking by the sizzling of the safety valve, and it was making no noise) - the captain found a passenger asleep on top of the 'cheese-shaped' weights of the valve with his luggage beside him. 'On [him] being turned off, the valve opened with a roar'.

I think naming the engine that came after Best Friend Pheonix is the coolest fucking name I’ve heard for a engine in general.

Interesting story. Although I believe the first engine in the U.S. to suffer a boiler explosion was ironically the first engine to ever run in the U.S.: Stephenson's Pride of Newcastle, later renamed to "America", which arrived in early 1829 and blew up while testing later that year.

Imagine having to tell someone that you blew up a trains boiler cuz of dem cheeks

This seems to me, to be the same reasoning of people who don't want to wear a seatbelt, because "it's annoying" or "it's uncomfortable"

At this time interfering with the pressure valve was a common cause of boiler explosions. In Britain, and I assume America, the valves were redesigned to stop any interference by the footplate crew which stopped the practise of over pressurising the boiler. One of the bones of contention between the fireman and the driver was the lose of steam caused by the driver not doing his job in a way which helps the fireman. This results in the fireman having to spend most if not all of his time shovelling coal which is very tiring for the fireman. I have noticed that the locomotive, Best Friend of Charleston, is very similar to the American entry by John Ericsson and John Braithwaite at the Rainhill Trails for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in England. It has been mentioned that if it had been the winning entry then trains in Britain may have been much different with quick but shorter and lighter trains used instead of the longer one which were used. If this was so then it would have been only briefly as the number of people using the railway each year grow enormously and having longer trains would have been much more efficient and less costly. Besides the Stockton and Darlington Railway was already hauling long trains made up of coal wagons. Something to be noted here is the date. December 1830. Which is the same year as the Liverpool and Manchester Railway started running its trains. There were those who very early on realised what effect something like the railway would have on a country the size of America would have.

It appears I am dummy thicc, I'm unable to get around here. All the diesels, so uncivilised. Where's Topham? Topham? Oh Topham is filming this. Are you dummy thick as well? May the force be with you, stay dummy thicc

A bit of pedantry: Best Friend was purchased by the SCC&RRC on December 9th, 1830 after a trial run. It was trialed again a few days later. Two excursions were advertised in the local papers before the Christmas day run, and there is no evidence to suggest these "official" trips did not take place. The first official time table was published on December 24th (rather than an ad for a single trip) which had lead to many believing the Christmas day trip was the first made by the locomotive. In fact, Best Friend had made several excursions with passengers on the railroad in November before being the official trial on the 9th of December.

Jamming and sitting on a safety valve to stop it from hissing because it was annoying? That does sound rather silly.

Your videos are the source of any interest I've built up on trains. I really like your style

Missed opportunity to use "Baby Got Back" as the background music

Another thing: the fireman was an enslaved man who wasn’t properly trained. If you look at contemporary drawings of it, you’ll see that the drawings correctly depicted him.

For anyone curious, the loco at 1:31 is kkStB class 301 sitting in the National Museum of Technology in Prague

fun fact. iv actually seen the replica of "best friend" in the south carolina state museam when was i younger.

Fireman being fat? That's a new one on me and I already knew this story.

There is a book written by one David Brown, which used to have a transcription on the Internet, entitled something like "The History of the First Railroads in America." Brown used primary sources (letters to and from some of the then-surviving principle individuals involved) to write this book sometime around the turn of the 20th Century (1890?). I printed out the transcription after learning of it while I was one of the docents for the City of Charleston's former Southern Railway replica of the "Best Friend" at Railfair '99 in Sacramento, CA. Unfortunately, the transcription has since disappeared from the Internet, and my printout is currently in storage, so I'm working from memory here. Apologies for any errors, if someone catches any please post corrections! Brown did not mention the "Pride of Newcastle" IIRC, nor have I heard of this engine before. He did, however, go into considerable detail about the "Stourbridge Lion", "Tom Thumb", and "DeWitt Clinton" as well as the "Best Friend." My impression has always been that among several other "firsts," the "Best Friend" was the first locomotive boiler explosion as well as the first locomotive rebuilt after a catastrophic accident. I believe the date of the explosion, BTW, was June 17, 1831. According to Brown, the fireman (an uneducated black slave, this *was* prior to the War of Rebellion, in the very city and state that started that unpleasantness) was not killed -- at least not immediately, anyway. He suffered a bad cut to his chest and severe scalding. Nicholas Darnell, the engineer, was only slightly injured, as he was helping load some lumber on a freight car behind the engine -- this is also why the slave was left on the locomotive unsupervised. I expect the slave didn't last long after the accident, given that medical care at that time was not terribly advanced, even for whites. Brown provided no further information on him, however. A side note here -- the original "Best Friend" was allegedly completely devoid of brakes. The valves had to be operated manually to reverse it, which prevented reverse from being used for stopping as the handles were literal arm-breakers. The story I've heard (can't recall if this was per Brown or elsewhere) is that stopping was accomplished by a gang of slaves running out of the depot and grabbing the train to hold it back! As for the explosion and its cause, Brown told the same story of the safety being tampered with. Based on the safety's location high on the vertical boiler, the fireman sitting on it is very unlikely -- it was probably tied shut. I currently work at the world-famous Durango & Silverton RR, which has two 1923 Alco locomotives in operation that, when nearing pop-off pressure, emit a high-pitched whistle from their safeties. I don't mean to suggest that these more "modern" safeties (a century old, yes, but half the age of the "Best Friend's" tech) are anything like the "Best Friend's" primitive leather-seal-and-weight. However, having endured the incessant racket from ex-Rio Grande Nos. 473 and 476 on many occasions now, I have a bit more sympathy for the "Best Friend's" fireman and his annoyance! Brown quoted a contemporary newspaper as saying that the boiler flew some distance from the engine. The distance 500 yards sticks in my memory, but don't hold me to that. The boiler on the Southern Railway replica was a 100 psi vessel; I've seen the number 50 psi for the original somewhere. There are currently two full-size (although standard gauge, the original was 5' gauge) replicas of the "Best Friend," both originally intended as operating, but both now cold. The first was built in 1929 (with brakes!) by the Southern Railway for the centennial of American railroading. I believe it was sent to the B&O's Fair of the Iron Horse in Baltimore. Southern then ran it for publicity, eventually using a Chevrolet engine in a box on the flatcar behind the locomotive for reverse moves, until the mid 1980s. This is the replica I accompanied to Sacramento in 1999. I recall the boiler ticket still on the engine showing a last inspection date of something like 1987. Southern modified a boxcar and flatcar to carry the replica, which consisted of the locomotive, a flat car (many think it's a tender, but it isn't), and two coaches. These transport cars were donated to The South Carolina Railroad Museum in Winnsboro, SC a year or so before the replica went to California in 1999. As a result, only the locomotive went, and it traveled by truck. The other replica was built by a now-defunct museum in Aiken, SC called "Wings & Wheels" (the "Wings" part of that collection became the Florence Air & Missile Museum in Florence, SC, which I believe itself closed in the early 2000s) sometime in the early 1970s, using the Southern's casting patterns. This is the replica pictured in the video, now in the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, SC. This replica originally had the flat car and four coaches, but the display in Columbia only had room for two coaches. The two extra coaches were donated to the SC RR Museum in Winnsboro, which used one of them as a parade float for a few years until it was realized that the car was being damaged slightly each time it was loaded and unloaded. Last I knew, these coaches had been loaded into the transport boxcar for storage. I used to have a photo of the Museum's 45-ton GE center cab locomotive #82 switching them at Rockton Yard -- if I still have it, this is also currently in storage. Some spare parts for the "Wings & Wheels" replica, including a set of locomotive drive wheels, were also donated to SCRM. Last I knew, the parts (mostly rods and frame brackets) were stored in an ex-ACL express reefer, and the drivers sat rusting in the Museum's Rion Quarry yard. I tried a few times to drum up interest in using them to create a replica of the "Phoenix" while volunteering at SCRM, with no success. There really isn't very much to work with -- a suitable boiler being the primary missing piece. I believe the Southern's casting patterns went to the NC Transportation Museum in Spencer, NC, but I don't know if they still have them or what condition they may be in. Information on the "Phoenix" is also considerably less common than hen's teeth. It allegedly remained in service on the Aiken end of the SCRR until just prior to the War, when it was scrapped and its metal parts used to cast a cannon for the Confederacy. I have heard that this cannon is displayed somewhere in Charleston, but remember little else about it.

My father told us the actual story when we were kids, so for once I knew this beforehand!

"Best Friend" is such a cute name for a tiny train

One way or another, it's an all too common way to get killed. "Safety systems are there for a reason." Exactly that.

'Best friend' is such an adorable name for an engine! I wonder why it was named that...

Nice use of the Bob-omb Battlefield music/Super Mario 64 Theme (Smash Bros. calls it the latter.)

This reminds of the novel 'Doctor at sea' by Richard Gordon. In it, the ship's doctor watching boiler pressure on the gauge remarks that it beyond the red mark. To which the engineer replies that the engine works only then.

Nice Bomb Omb Battlefield music lol

Overclocking is can be bad even in the 19th century

Everybody gangster until a guy blows up a boiler by sitting down

Tom! Best friend blew up! Oh my god, Daniel. How did Kelly blow up? What? You said "Best friend" blew up. Yeah, the steam engine. Well, lucky Kelly's still alive, because you just lost a friend.

This important safety device to prevent the boiler from overpreasurising is making a noise, better stop it? That's almost as stupid as a nurse turning off the EKG machine in intensive care because the noise won't stop.

cool can you make a video about eire class trains please

Do royal trains please.

I really wish your videouse would be longer

Funny thing is that I got to see a replica of best friend and I would not stop with my best friend blew up jokes for years after seeing it

This brings a whole new meaning to ass blast

Tragic yet funny. It was probably hard to find firemen back then that actually knew how the thing worked.

And here I was expecting a story about a train that pulled a man so dummy thick it blew up

make a video about eire class trains please

The firemen: you know I wonder if I sat on the boiler, maybe the engine can finally shut up *sits on the boiler* The boiler: *heats up* The firemen: *Sniff x2* say something smells like bacon *looks down* ohhh it’s me. No wonder why it smelled like ba- The boiler: *explodes* Moral of the story: *DON’T SIT ON A STEAM ENGINE BOILER OR YOUR BUTTS GONNA GET ROASTED LIKE HAM*

thumbs up for the dropping of the word Arse in a RU-vid video 😂

Everybody inTSW2 Spirit of Steam right now...

In South Carolina, the Boilers go Sing-Song, Kitty, Can’t you ki- *Bang!* What? It’s realistic!

_Is this perchance the truth behind maidens not wanting to ride trains, chap?_

So, to further muddy this one. It's now believed by American railroad historians that the whole story of the boiler explosion is itself, false. "The Best Friend of Charleston" and was one of the first locomotives to operate in a scheduled service in the US. She was designed and built by Adam Hall and Ezra Miller during the spring of 1830. She was tested and displayed in June 1830, and then put into storage until October, when she was shipped to Charleston. This delay puts Best Friend in a very strange position historically, as the state of the art was advancing so rapidly that while the design would have been technologically advanced when ordered in March 1830, by the time she entered service in December 1830, she was in some respects already old fashioned. Although to be fair, locomotive design at that time was all over the map, and certainly there were plenty of much worse attempts being made. This delay caused a considerable amount of animadverting by the directors of the company. And there is some evidence to suggest that even after the arrival, and successful operation of his locomotive, bad feelings continued to exist between the company and Ezra Miller. Miller felt "sore" about his treatment according to Adam Hall, and Hall himself commented in a December 1830 letter to John B. Jervis, that he felt the conduct of the directors toward Miller had been unjust and unprofessional. It's from that animosity that the story about the locomotive exploding sort of got embellished. The truth is, a fireman got annoyed by the hissing sound of the axle powered water injector. He closed the valves on it and thus starved the boiler of water. Rather then the boiler exploding, the crown melted and the boiler basically fizzled to a ruined heap. No explosion. However, the story as repeated by Miller and Hall is that the South Carolina Railroad Co. let the locomotive fail due to their ineptitude, and that story was embellished to be a wild and fiery explosion.

R34 artists are writing this down

So about the replica, a couple things; the National Railway Historical Society (NRHS) is a national group with different sub-chapters; and no central national museum. In the case of the 1928 replica, its the NRHS chapter in Charleston that owns it, and currently its kept indoors on display in the city. I don't know if it is Best Friend, but I know one of those early replicas of a steam engine in the US (Tom Thumb maybe, or the John Bull replica?) actually lacks reversing gear, and has a small gas motor in it to run the train in reverse when needed. Kind of a funny set up.

Screwing down the safety valve was common until non-adjustable valves became standard. In the churchyard in the centre of Bromsgrove, in England are two headstones, bearing very accurate drawings of two different Norris 'one armed Billies', commemorating an engine crew killed in an explosion on the nearby Lickey Incline. (Actually it's a bit of a libel on Norris engines, which were used on the bank - the engine involved was an experimental machine named 'Surprise') One record says the driver (the line's CME) was a drunken liability, but there's a strong suspicion about those safety valves!

2:15 - 2:24: It depends on the kink ...

I know where the myth originate, but RU-vid autodeletes my comments so sadly I can't post it

the locomotive got a little too excited it blew up

All i heard was that he simply “held the lever” down.

Never seen the safety device on my table saw have ya? That thing was a useless pos.😂

Is that Bob-omb battlefield I hear

"Parts of Best Friend were salvaged.." Right.

….I’m speechless

I remember this story from my history textbook in elementary school back in the 60s. It had a story about the Tom Thumb and The Best Friend. It even had an illustration of The Best Friend blowing up with the fireman being ejected from the blast. The text said the fireman sat on the safety valve because he was annoyed by the hissing. It also stated that the fireman was a “colored” man. If he was a black man in South Carolina in 1830, he would have been a slave. No one could sit on a hissing steam pressure release valve without being instantly and severely burned. I wonder what really happened in this accident besides the dead slave getting blamed.

That picture was actually taken of a similar train in the state museum in Columbia South Carolina, their animatronic dolls are not the creepiest though, just on the other side the animatronic ghostly movements of the men in the Hunley submarine are creepiest on earth

awesome

Is that sm64 music? 😂

The train was having an arousel

The funniest accident I’ve read in ages.

Perhaps the story about the fireman holding down the safety valves was made up to reassure passengers that there was nothing wrong with the locomotive, but that it was the act of a stupid person.

901st like!

I've never heard of the fireman being fat, but it doesn't seem that unreasonable to sit on it. I mean, it isn't shooting steam if it's shut tight. Also, If I remember right, it was the style that used gravity to stay closed, and I don't see any way to keep it shut other than putting more weight on it, so it doesn't seem hard to believe that someone would apply weight by sitting on the leaver, or at least leaning on it.

To be honest, calling the fireman a dummy and thick isn't quite fair. Yes today we know safety valves are there for a reason. Look at the incident in historical context of what the average man knew of steam power in 1830. Very little. My guess, is the fireman didn't know about the risk of explosion.

All I can say is wow

I thought it was just recently people are stupid. Obviously not. Stupid is fo-eva.

Interesting

I need a girl like that, someone who can really appreciate dirty train facts- lucky guy! More seriously though, that's some big pressure and likely would have blew him a new asshole before it exploded... literally. I suspect that he stuffed something into the valve Nice story!

Thicc

he is really has loads of cake

Isn't the dummy thicc part just comedic exaggeration?

Ka - Choo