Matthias N. Forney
American mechanical engineer and magazine editor
Matthias Nace Forney (March 28, 1835 – January 14, 1908) was an American steam locomotive designer and builder. He is most well known for the design of the Forney type locomotive. Locomotives that he designed served the elevated railroads of New York City for many years before that system converted to electric power. One example of a Forney 0-4-4T locomotive built in 1902 by Baldwin Locomotive Works has been restored for daily operations on the Disneyland Railroad in Anaheim, California, as the railroad's number 5, Ward Kimball.
Forney was born March 28, 1835, in Hanover, Pennsylvania. He apprenticed with another prominent locomotive builder, Ross Winans, before joining the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) as a draftsman in 1855. He left the B&O in 1858, then worked for the Illinois Central Railroad from about 1861 to 1864. In that position, he patented an 0-4-4T locomotive that was the first of the "Forney" types of locomotives, characterized by the truck (US) or bogie (UK) under the coal bunker/water tank. In 1865 Forney changed employers again, this time to the Hinkley Locomotive Works, where he stayed until 1870. At that time, he started working as an associate editor for Railroad Gazette and quickly earned a reputation as an expert in steam locomotive theory.
“Matthias N. Forney” enters the record as american mechanical engineer and magazine editor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Matthias, Forney and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6791588. VIAF identifies the subject as 45876013. The Library of Congress control number is n88608713. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1835, 1908, 1902 and 1855.
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This entry incorporates text from “Matthias N. Forney” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.