Zerah Colburn (January 13, 1832 – April 26, 1870) was an American publisher and engineer specialising in steam locomotive design, technical journalist.

As he moved about the locomotive works of New England gathering experience and an eye for engineering detail, he also produced his first book, The Throttle Lever.

It not only took Colburn, then not 20, deeper into the world of publishing, but also earned him wider respect amongst railroad men across America – locomotive builders and train operators.

Together they developed the paper but Colburn, ever restless, sold half to Holley, then took off West to start a venture with a sawmill and then tried his hand at selling railroad tires.

From the first issue to the last, it remained a weekly paper reporting technical and business aspects of locomotive manufacture and railroad operation in America in the 1850s.

The duo visited Britain to compile a massive report about the successful state of Europe’s railways to sell to the presidents of America’s railroads.

The report was a success, but by 1858 Colburn returned to England to take up a job as editor of The Engineer, Britain’s leading weekly technical journal.

Following his numerous visits to the 1867 Paris Exhibition on behalf of Engineering, where he contracted syphilis, he became increasingly delighted by London prostitutes whose pleasures he much enjoyed.