The John Bull is an English-built railroad steam locomotive, operated for the first time on September 15, 1831; it became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world (150 years) when the Smithsonian Institution operated it in 1981. Built by Robert Stephenson and Company, the John Bull was initially purchased by and operated for the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the first railroad built in New Jersey. The railroad rostered it as locomotive number 1 and used it heavily from soon after the railroad's construction in 1833 until 1866 when it was removed from active service and placed in storage.
After the C&A's assets were acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1871, the PRR refurbished and operated the locomotive a few times for public displays. The John Bull was steamed up for the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and again for the National Railway Appliance Exhibition in 1883. In 1884 the locomotive was purchased by the Smithsonian Institution as the museum's first major industrial exhibit.
In 1939 the employees at the PRR's Altoona, Pennsylvania, shops built an operable replica of the locomotive for further exhibition duties as the Smithsonian desired to keep the original locomotive in a more controlled environment. The Smithsonian commemorated the locomotive's 150th birthday in grand style. The locomotive became the world's oldest surviving operable steam locomotive when it ran again under its own power in 1981. Today, the original John Bull is on static display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, and the replica John Bull operates regularly at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.