Correction: I quoted the build dates as 1900s during the comment section. Of course both of these locos are from the 1800s... even I'm not used to locos built so early!! xD

These old designs scream "Trust me, I'm an engineer, I think I'll put this thing right here!"

I love how unique these look! Pioneering days were surely something.

The best description I've ever heard of John Bull was "an early attempt at the combined lawnmower and tool shed.

Hello Sam, these are great engines! You can fix the cracked gear of Lafayette (at least temporarily) with superglue and baking soda. I have an Electrotren Hellas Sprinter with exactly the same cracked gears on 2 of the 4 axles. Firstly, I cleaned the gear from grease and lubricant and then I filled the gap with a small amount of soda. After that, with the tip of a needle or a toothpick I dropped small drops of CA glue in the gap and on the baking soda. These two materials make a "bridge", that solves provisionally the problem. Then, after it dries fully, you can lubricate again the gear. With this temporary solution, my Hellas Sprinter works continuously for a year now. Hope this helps you fixing Lafayette! Lefteris.

The coaches where built here in the US. The lead truck on the locomotive was added in the US along with most of what is going on with the tender.

Sam: uploads this video Me: ** looks at the strange contraptions that they used to call steam engines with wide eyes **

Hey Sam I am sure the USA was the first country to make passenger coaches with 2 @ 2 axle 4 wheel bogies = 8 wheels in total..... They were so successful that the UK eventually adopted the design as they gave a much smoother ride and did not derail as often as 2 axle 4 wheeled coaches.... So straight away you know those early green coaches were made in USA. Thanks for this great youtube video.

I've "fixed" split and cracked plastic gears by inserting a piece of metal in them with a soldering iron, something like a staple etc. works fine.

Sam You have a real find here. The idea of the Norris locomotives on the 'Lickey' was purely based on the need for freight propulsion and banking duties.

I love these era 1 locomotives! One of the Lafayette locomotives has been preserved at a railroad museum near me, and it's so interesting to see such an old locomotive in this time with all of the more modern locos around it!

Yeah! A new video and a new loco! Great review of that loco mate!

I got to see John Bull in person, amazing how much the locomotive has changed over the 100+ years it's existed,

I love the way John Bull and the entire consist is rocking around, it makes it look like it's running on the really poorly built track it actually ran on.

I always wanted to have the Lafayette! I had the John bull growing up, and it was my favorite, but I so wanted the Lafayette. Awesome that you made a video on these two lovely engines!

Made by Bachmann around the late eighties and early nineties. They made a third set of the DeWitt Clinton and coaches. First NYC loco. There were several other sets of the Norris 4-2-0 with different names and four wheel coaches. I have the three different trackless sets bought at my local Australian hobby shop in the early nineties for $50 each. End of line run outs. The Norris worked well on an exhibition layout I helped run with a club I was in. Even coped well with the fairly steep grades and curves. Helped by the Norris loco having all wheel pickup, a skew wound motor and a surprising amount of weight on the driving wheels. The Norris types are the last release and the best refined drive system. Wish your gear did not split, but not helped by big temperature changes of loft storage so popular in the UK. Need to check mine to see how they run after nearly thirty years out of use.

Hi sam! I am glad to be back watching the channel. The locos look so good! Good job as always!

These are amazing locomotives to look at, and it’s nice to have models of pre-Victorian locomotives and you could make a pre Victorian era railway layout, even in either England or America, etc.

I had a model of an engine called Pegasus that was the same type of engine as Lafayette. She was destroyed due to me being 7 years old at the time. Also, because my brother broke her tender off. Today, I started a project: making an HON3 gauge locomotive. I still have no cab for her, but I’m going to try and find a suitable cab. I came across her funnel a few months ago, and today was the first time in 3 years if not, more, that the funnel and her smokebox reunited. This project involves stealing the boiler, mounting it to an N Scale chassis, and painting the entire thing blue. I might make a 3D printed cab, if I can find one. Pegasus will be reborn anew as an 0-6-2! Have a fabulous day, Sam.

I looked up pics of the coaches, turns out the B&ORR had double decker coaches aswell, very interesting

That’s such a cool locomotive,how have I never heard of this before XD

Pretty sure John Bull was a wood burning engine, so the tender unit was like a sort of wood shed on wheels

Hi Sam, Thanks for reviewing these early Locos. A couple of bits of Info to fill in: Bachman made the John Bull, DeWitt Clinton, and the Lafayette. The DeWitt Clinton Model is propelled by the Tender, Hornby Style ;-) Lafayette was named after General Lafayette, who played an instrumental role in the War of Colonial Independence of 1776. John Bull has some interesting background: Build in England and shipped to the US. Converted to Wood, because Coke was not widely available in the Colonies. The Tender and Pilot Truck (Bogey) was added because it needed the wedge shaped "Cow Catcher" because Lines in the US were not as well fenced as in Britain. There is a replica of John Bull in a Museum that was build by the Pennsylvania Railroad for historical Demonstrations.

The coaches were made in 1836, so they're a little later design than John Bull, but those coaches were displayed with John Bull for many years and ran on the same railroad. When the locomotive was new, it was used with four wheel coaches which were almost identical to those used on the Liverpool & Manchester. The dome on John Bull was added decades later, and it is also crooked on the real thing, so the angle on the model is true to prototype.

I have a fun story, I’ve always loved the color green so my Mom actually got me the Lafayette set brand new many years ago. I still have it and it still runs. It came as a higher end set with the better nickel silver track over the normal bachmann starter set steel track. I will say the coaches have very fragile pins and I have broken two of them, I managed to glue on a plastic pin to replace it recently and I can now pull all 3 together again. You must clean the front bogey wheels often or it will stall a lot, it also doesn’t particularly like hills due to the low weight. Thanks for the video Sam! - Jensen from the United States haha

These are some cool retro locos. Very steampunk-like. Love how the tables have turned for each loco, with Lafayette being made in America to work in the UK and John Bull’s history is vice versa.

A side note on the Lafayette, it was used to portray a locomotive called Yonah in the 1956 Disney film The Great Locomotive Chase.

Wow! Now you have the Rocket, Lafayette, and John Bull! Small locomotives but full of history

Beautiful models Sam! Very well detailed!

I have awaited Lion since I first read about the Liverpool Manchester back when I was a tike. I watched Wind In the Willows with my grandad and asked him about old British railways and we spent an afternoon looking through some old paintings and books. I have a fond place in my heart for the early days of British and American steam.

The Lafayette is actually preserved at the B&O railway museum here in America and you can still see it today. It also starred in the old Walt Disney movie the "Great Locomotive Chase" as the Yonah.

Fascinating! You do realise you have got at least one (and of you fix the other, two) new most requested loco for live streams?! And bonus for the first person who asks for John Bull with Bullman...

I’m not really much of an era one modeler, but those are some beautiful little engines. I’ve had that same problem with split axles on some of my older Bachmann split-chassis locomotives. What I used to fix them was some gorilla glue superglue that I bought from the local home improvement store. It’s not the recommended fix, but it works really well. None of the locomotives I did that to ever had any axle problems ever since their repairs. I mainly model the early to mid 20th century (from 1904 to about 1965. I do have some modern locomotives in my collection (usually older locomotives painted in modern railroad paint schemes). The most modern engines I have are an Atlas c30-7 and a Bachmann sd40-2.

John Bull is my favorite out of the two. Great video overall Sam. Have a good one and enjoy these awesome locos.

This is one of the best video ever made by you and I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it. Never actually had any idea that such locos existed once & I'm glad you brought them out from your junkyard even though you had to crawl a bit to save your head!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Sam, this is what DK's Train has to say on the John Bull: Built by Robert Stephenson & Co., John Bull was exported to the US, where it worked on the Camden & Amboy Railroad from 1831 to 1866. US engineer Isaac Dripps added his two-wheel bogie, to which he attached the first cowcatcher, as well as a headlight, spark-arresting chimney, and covered tender and cab. There's even a nice linedrawing of how it looked when Stephenson build it.

Oh a new one out from Sam. I like, I watch, I smile :) Quite the cute little era one locos hahah. What a joy :)

Awesome! Great video

Nice locos, i like them they are difrent thats why i like them. You got two gems of locos. Keep up the good work Sam. 👍👍👍😀😀👍👍

Whoa! That’s interesting! I’ve only ever seen Lafayette and John Bull in my visual history of trains. Nice models and video, Sam!

Its always interesting to see the designs of the era 1 steam locos, they just look cool!

Interesting video Sam, well done. Very best wishes, Adrian

I wish they did more models like these, there's totally a market for them. Plus, they just look really friggin cool

I have the John Bull for three years and it still runs like a dream after a service. The other one looks extremely cool interesting. I heard some people calling it Jervis or Norris. I'll put it on my wishlist. Coincidentally I got the John Bull in a box stored away for months as well and I was looking for it just like you did . I have to say that your tender has a missing piece on the rear like a cylinder and the boiler doesn't look straight, but it's sill one of my favorite models. A perfect video for my Saturday. Thank you for this great review, Sam

Awesome video today Sam really interesting locomotives

perfect video sam, i like these engines

hi sam. yes i enjoyed that very much indeed.nice to see the first types of locos. cheers tom.

I've got both of these! Fantastic engines!

Excellent Video Sam! I own the third set missing from this Trio of Era 1 Sets - The Dewitt Clinton. Picked it up from the NYC Museum in Elkhart, IN when it was first released back in the early 2000's. I've been thinking about picking up the other two since I got the DC but I just got the opportunity to pick up the Lafayette while I'm in Delaware for Engineer Retraining. I was on the fence but your video just helped me make my decision. Keep up the great work mate! Can't wait to see what you review next! XD

Fascinating!! I do hope you get Lafayette running. I love this era. Surprised you didn’t run Rocket as a third train. And if ever Bullman was called for hahaha!!

The case of the John Bull is a very interesting example of how the differences between British & American locomotive designs came about, and what influenced them. When fresh built by Stephenson, John Bull was delivered as a normal 0-4-0 with an open tender. As Sam mentioned, upon coming to the US the B&O quickly found that the rigid, coupled wheelset of an 0-4-0 frequently derailed on the rough American track. The removal of the con rods & addition of a leading wheel set & cowcatcher (also used to push away track debris, including actual cows sometimes), were done to remedy this. In addition, a headlight for overnight operation and a covered tender to keep coal dry during rain were added. These home-grown American improvements to Stephenson's original product were specifically designed to meet the challenges of railroading on a larger continent. Even later on, the B&O added a balloon smokestack (not represented on this model) to keep sparks from lighting the thick American forests ablaze, as well as a full cab to better house the crew during their long shifts. All of these early innovations set the first example of what special equipment an American locomotive needed to complete the longer journeys on US railroads. Many of these features, like larger tenders & guiding wheels, pilots/cowcatchers, and enclosed cabs are what continued to differentiate American and British steam locomotives well into the 20th century. Fun note; "John Bull" was early-American slang to refer to any gentleman from England (kind of like calling someone "Tyrone", "Bubba", or "Pablo/Jose" these days). Makes quite an interesting point of how American culture has(or hasn't) changed since back then (but that's another story).

I have wanted you do a reveiw of these forever! great video.

Hello 'Sam', another interesting vlog, great to see the old trains. Regards, RichardA.

Very cool video Sam, thank you 🙏

Yes, I would like to see that locomotive resurrected the one you mentioned, and great video Sam

An engine similar to Lafayette built by Norris was also one of the first steam locomotives in Austria, it was named "Philadelphia". An engine of the same build named "Austria" was intended to be the first steam engine in Austria in 1837, but never reached the country. Instead it was sold to the Birmingham and Bristol railway. The actual first engine (also named "Austria"), was a Stephenson design.

Great locos thank you Sam for sharing

Very nice Sam. There's something quite cool about these older engines. I have a bachmann DeWitt Clinton and of course the Rocket. Very nice. Cheers

That was pretty amazing Sam - Very different!!! 🙂🚂🚂🚂

What interesting locos!!! Great video.

The coaches on John Bull were built for the Camden and Amboy by the same US company that built the Delaware and Hudson co’s gravity coaches. This more modern design was pioneered on the gravity railroads first

Really really cool and I actually have a model of the N&W 1218 and I made a couple of videos of it as well keep up the good work and I can’t wait to see more videos from you

Such unique trains, are these. I look forward to the day, Sam, when you will be able to get the La Fayette engine running. Probably definitely a 'puller' rather than being pushed along! I wonder if they would come up on an internet search? Let's take a look........ Best, Pete.

Thank you for a fine video. I have both engines, but they haven't run in a number of years - they were my 'around the Christmas Tree' trains, and they apparently picked up too much carpet dander. You can dress up John Bull quite easily with some stretched sprue - run a "bar" between the valve handle on the boiler and the nib on the steam dome valve and a fine sprue from the bell to the boiler as a pull cord. Simple, but they improve the looks of the engine, IMO. It's hard to fathom that these were the SSTs of their day, racing along at 50 Kph. The Norris engine was used by the Baltimore and Ohio RR, on the mountainous portion of their routes - they had a lot of pulling power. I think this was the reason that a couple were exported to England, to work on some of your grades there. The Bull stayed in service a long time for an early engine. IIRC, it ended it's working life as a shunter in the late 1860's or early '70's. They added a cab and cut down the tender for that role. John Bull was also involved in one of America's first railroad fatalities: the engine separated from the tender and a crewman fell into the path of the oncoming train. Safety chains were added shortly thereafter. I very much enjoy your videos, especially those featuring the smaller engines, and appreciate the time and effort you put into them.

Nice to see them Sam. I got some VR photos of era1at the French National Museum at Mulhouse a couple of years ago.

Hi from North Carolina! Sam I am a Postwar Lionel head and love your channel. Man I wish they made these in O gauge. Beautiful !!!🚂🚂🚂

I do love the older engines, their unusual and look nothing like more modern engines but they laid the foundation for steam.-Das Mann

I was given a similar set of these for 'safe keeping.' They are really cool little trains and fun to compare to the larger motive power.

Fun fact- the Lafayette replica that is on display at the Baltimore and Ohio railroad museum had a role in the 1956 Disney film "the great locomtive chase", the locomotive played the role if the locomotive called the "Yonah"

I have the Lafayette set and the loco is more than strong enough for the three coaches. I'm currently building some 1830's style freight cars for it to haul (look up the 1927 Fair of the Iron Horse (you can find film of it on youtube) to see the replica hauling some 1830's freight cars).

I love the look of the older locomotives, but the rocket is my favorite out of the older locomotives

nice video sam, that really reminds me of the Stevensons rocket

You, sir, are a real gentleman. Greets from Vienna.

Hi Sam, Loved the review, Fantastic they should make them All like that , Yes they should bring out some old one All the Best Brian 🤗

Hello Sam'sTrains. You won't know me, but I am Luke's Locos, under another account. This is my new video-posting, please read the channel description if you want more info!

Bachmann definitely need to make more novelties like this. I love them.

I have the John Bull and several other era one train sets that were made by Bachman and none of them ran right out of the box . I had to get them to work but they do not last . They look great detail wise but mechanically they don’t cut it .Good luck with yours. Keep these great videos coming.

Sam: shows the cabinet of Do0M... Me: hmmm that would make a good video. the video Sam's magical cabinet of stuff. seriously though that would be a cool video to look and see all whats in in there.

Hey Sam, I had a Lafayette set when I was younger, not many in the UK! The locomotive ran really well given its size, and hauled the coaches no issue. Sadly, stopped working a few years ago - seems to be a fate most of them encounter. I recently got my hands on a Bachmann Prussia, a near identical Norris 4-2-0 but an older model, and just yesterday won a US auction for another Lafayette set with a working loco.

Lovely locos Mr Warwell, I’ve always wanted one like them

Hi Sam please could do a review on the Locomotive that on top of the box that contained Lafayette Locomotive and John bull Locomotive

Lovely set there Sam. Fascinating to see the roots of steam locomotion. Thanks again 👍 I'm sure you could source a brass gear for Lafayette, would be noisier. Maybe mold a replacement would be easier 🤔

As far as I can determine, the coaches that came with the John Bull are American. I found a picture of such a coach at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, the Camdon Amboy Coach No. 3. It is the oldest preserved coach in the US and was retired in 1865. Cheers from Wisconsin.

I think Lafayette is my favorite of the two, very unique design!! It reminds me of Stephenson's Rocket :)

Nice One Sam! Tbh not a fan of these ones but its nice they exist in model form all the same! Keep up the great model reviewing! :) ~ Matthew

I've just realized to companies make the same mistake with the gears cracking Bachmann and playart Keep reviewing good models Sam and don't forget to take a look at what I suggested Bachman on30 scale and Tyco super turbo train

Sam, you could try putting a thin ring of heat shrink tubing over the two cracked flanges then shrinking it. You'd have to remove a driver, slip the gear off, reassemble then shrink it. I've done that with a couple that weren't worth bothering with the unavailable new gear.

Got the Lafayette in my display case - it was a great runner until the valve gear disassembled itself. Since then I've returned to my roots with 3-Rail O and my HO collection stays in the case. looks great and I'm excited to get Lionel's version of the John Bull this year

Nice locos Sam! I wish I could have a collection as big as yours!

That is amazing sam

Lay-Fe-Ette. This is a great video sam

Some very interesting locomotives there Sam they look quite nice and a very lucky find.

It’s so satisfying to see these historic locomotives run in such a tiny scale

my god sam your lucky having a friend just gave you loco that was very nice of him and you also donated to salvation army i would have to agree that you deserve all 100k of thoses subcribes have a nice day :D

You can buy 3D printed Bachman driving gear

This is sick dude

Hi Sam. It's so rare to see Era 1 locos these days, so thank you. I think the gizmo on the front of the John Bull is more likely to have been a cowcatcher rather than a snow plough; please leave your comments below (LOL)!

Very interesting they look really cool

I have these two and the De Witt Clinton, love running them

Loved watching these, I think they will be a popular request. In answer to your question, yes do get that US old-timer in the cupboard out and running, I would love to see it. And how about an extended video-tour of the cupboard itself?