Horatio Allen (May 10, 1802 – December 31, 1889) was an American
civil engineer and inventor, and President of
Erie Railroad in the year 1843–1844.
Biography
Born in
Schenectady, New York, he graduated from
Columbia University in 1823, and was appointed Assistant Engineer of the
Delaware and Hudson Canal Company (precursor to the
railroad). In 1827 he quit the Canal Company and went to England to study the emerging rail road technology, particularly locomotives. He was therefore asked to arrange for the construction of 3 locomotives for the Canal Company's projected railway (as per his June 25, 1880 letter to the editor of the New York Times). There he made the acquaintance of engineer
George Stephenson. In 1829 he operated the first
steam locomotive, one of the ones he ordered for the D&H, to run in
America, the Stourbridge Lion, which ran successfully at
Honesdale, Pennsylvania on August 8, 1829.
From 1829 to 1834 he was the chief engineer of the
South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, at that time the longest railway in the world (about 136 miles/218 km). He was the inventor of the so-called "
swiveling truck" for railway cars. He wrote: The Railroad Era; First Five Years of its Development (1884).