George Washington Whistler

Education and career Whistler graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1819. Upon graduation, Whistler was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Artillery serving as a topography engineer at Fort Columbus, New York, from 1819 to 1821. When the Army was reorganized in 1821, he became a Second Lieutenant in the First Artillery. From 1821 to 1822, Whistler was an Assistant Professor of Drawing at West Point. Still on active duty, Whistler joined the railroad's engineer corps the next year in 1828. Together, Whistler, McNeill, and Jonathan Knight went to Great Britain to study railroad engineering, where they were welcomed by President Telford, of the British Institution of Civil Engineers, where they also met with George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, John Walker, Joseph Locke, Jesse Hartley, and other eminent British engineers. the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives. As one observer wrote: Apparently there was nothing to keep American engineers with adequate credentials from seeing all they wanted to see and from asking about all that they wanted to learn. As a result the American engineers developed knowledge of railroads in three areas – (1) (Steam) locomotives and inclined planes, the two "new" elements in railroads, (2) the uses of materials- especially stone, wood and iron- in construction, and (3) the principles of laying out routes feasible for railroad travel.

Other railroads In 1830, McNeill and Whistler entered the service of the Baltimore and Susquehanna railroad, Whistler remaining on the project for the first 20 miles of main and branch track had been completed. In 1835, he worked with Patrick Tracy Jackson to begin the Boston & Lowell Railroad.

Whistler's first locomotive, the Patrick, was produced for the Boston & Lowell Railroad. This locomotive and others built by the firm were initially copies of Stephenson Planet types (2-2-0s). In 1836, the first two steam locomotives known to have been equipped with whistles were built by Whistler as 2-2-0 types; the Hicksville for the Long Island Railroad and the Susquehanna for the Wilmington & Susquehanna Railroad. In 1838, Baltimore and Ohio railroad engineers Knight and Latrobe surveyed steam locomotives for their management, some of which included machines built in Whistler's Lowell shops. The (Long Island railroad) engine burns one cord of wood in each circular trip of 48 miles, conveying an average load of twenty tons of freight, in four cars, each weighing two tons – the weight of engine being 8.5 tons, with its fuel and water in the boiler, and having six tons on the two driving wheels; the tender weighs 4.5 tons with fuel and water, the additional quantity of wood consumed in getting up steam, being about one-fifth of a cord. — Knight, Latrobe, The Lowell Machine Shop's locomotive production continued until 1854. In October 1839, the road's Board of Directors hired Whistler as its Chief engineer.

The main problem in locating the railroad were the steep grades west of the Westfield River, a major tributary of the Connecticut River, which were in excess of 80 feet to the mile, (actually 1.65% west of Chester, Massachusetts). At that time in 1842, there was no known locomotive that could deliver the tractive effort to climb that grade. The first locomotives purchased for the road in 1842 were Ross Winan's "crabs" or 0-8-0s which could not handle the grade. Whistler substituted Stephenson Planet types (2-2-0s) which delivered satisfactory service. Melnikov and Kraft spoke with Whistler and recommended that the Russian government retain Whistler as a consulting engineer on the Saint Petersburg – Moscow Railway, and Whistler was given a seven-year contract.

Legacy Whistler's stone arch railroad bridges built in 1841 are still in freight and passenger service on the CSX mainline in western Massachusetts. He was the first civil engineer in America to use contour lines to show elevation and relief on maps.

Works Whistler, G. W., Faden, W., & United States. (1838). The British colonies in North America. (Message from the President of the United States, transmitting the information required by a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 28th May last, in relation to the boundary between the United States and Great Britain.) Swift, McNeill and Whistler, G.E., Reports of the Engineers of the Western Railroad Corporation,1838, Springfield, MA, Merriam, Wood and company. Western Rail-Road Corporation., Whistler, G. W., & Massachusetts. (1839). Extracts from the 39th chapter of the revised statutes, concerning rail roads. Springfield, Mass.: publisher not identified. Albany and West Stockbridge Railroad Company. (1842). Reports of the engineers of the Albany and West Stockbridge Rail-road Company: Made to the directors in 1840–1. Albany N.Y.: Printed by C. Van Benthuysen. Whistler, G. W., Crerar Manuscript Collection (University of Chicago. Library), & University of Chicago. (1842). Report to Count Kleinmichel on gauge of track to be used in the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railroad. Whistler, G. W., & Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. (1849). Report upon the use of anthracite coal in locomotive engines on the Reading Rail Road: Made to the president of the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road Company. Baltimore: J.D. Toy.