It's come to my attention that the 150th anniversary of the hijacking of the Western & Atlantic locomotive #3 "General" by Andrews and his raiders is rapidly approaching.

There was an initial burst of 150th-anniversary events last April, and there are a scattering of low-key events here and there. Has anyone noticed anything happening for the occasion coming up in April? Obviously, no one's attempting to fire up old #3 and take it from city to city as happened in 1962.........

A little too late to get started on the planning now, I'd think. As I understand it, the building was built around the locomotive. It's been a very long time since I was there, though. Also, it'd take a while to get #3 back into service anyway just from the time she's been steamed last.
The 150th anniversary events are mostly about the battles themselves, and those events are quite large. The Raid was for the most part, a footnote in Civil War history. I'm sure they'll have plenty of official events, but probably just speeches and some re-enactors standing around the building...

There has been some unofficial talk over the past few years about it, but I'm unaware of anything concrete having developed out of it. My sense is this is probably not the best economic time to raise excitment and money..........The Georgia Northeastern runs almost parallel to the old W&A and through similar country, after all, and we have some 4-4-0s like the Mason and Leviathan...........but I think if there was anything concrete in the works it would already be a subject of real discussion.

Chalk this up to missed opportunities.

dave

I haven't seen "The General" since the NY World's Fair of 1964, but I did get to see the "Texas" a few years back. She looks really well, and while I'd love to see either or both run again, perhaps these are two of those rare cases when displayed locomotives of incalculable value should be left intact and untouched. Had someone been on top of it, CSX could have had copies of both locomotives built and run as public exhibits.
Yes, a footnote to Civil War history, but a very imaginative and exciting event in itself.

I did an inspection on the general a number of years ago, prior to the new building. The locomotive is in EXCEPTIONAL condition and would not take more than a few months to get into service with a few skilled people working on it. It was rebuilt quite thoroughly in the 60's.
The museum director at the time had it arranged with CSX to run it several times a year along the spur that runs by the museum as well as run up to ring gold, ga and back on the 150th anniversary. Of course, who knows if that would have been honored.
The museum director at the time had great vision and understood that not much of the "original" artifact remained and as such there is not much threat in doing any damage to the historic fabric as it is interpreted.
The majority of the city council was opposed to the concept due to a clause in the donation of the land that states it will revert back to the family whom donated it should the general ever be moved from the property. They would not even approach the family to get something worked out.
It could still be removed fairly easily, just a matter of taking out a wall and temporarily removing the inside of the museum.

Myself and an associate had approached the museum last year about working out the logistics for bringing the "leviathan" down as a representation for the anniversary. They seemed uninterested at the time but last I heard had taken on the endeavor on their own. Regardless of the fact that the museum director acted in a rather underhanded manner, I do truly hope something pans out.

Cheers, Jason

I was fortunate to be able to visit both the Texas and the General while on business travel back in the late 1980s. In their current states the two engines look quite different, and I was rather surprised by that. I've read that the Texas was restored as accurately as possible to its wartime appearance and it looks rather primitive compared with the General. In its current state, the General reminds me of some of the V&T Locomotives, which were built nearly 2 decades later. It sounds as if no expense was spared in the General's most recent restoration before her 100th anniversary tour. If the Texas-look is more accurate, why was the General not back-dated in the same fashion?

/Kevin

While down at McDonough Ga. in Nov. of 1993 attending LET training for NS i made a trip up to Kennesaw,Ga. one weekend to see the General at the Big Shanty museum.I enjoyed seeing the locomotive on display there as well as the other nearby Civil War attractions.I thought they did a nice job displaying the locomotive inside. Although the building it was housed in was originally a cotton gin it at least had a rustic look outside.

I still have the brochure and a few other souveniors i bought that day at the museum.They had some nice old photographs of the General taken during the Civil War and if i remember correctly one of them showed the engine with heavy shrapnel damage with it's boiler ripped open in several places.The most obvious thing i noticed about the engine was the cowcatcher.The new one was made out of wood and just looked to fake and pointed.The original cowcatcher in the old photo's i believe had horizontal iron bars riveted acoss the front.As far as anything else being new on the engine i don't know enough about what all correct steam locomotive parts should look like and i was satisfied seeing the engine.I know the tender trucks had fitting bolt on journal box covers from the 1850's-60's with a single raised star in the center.I have since found similar ones while metal detecting old RR grades.

A few weeks ago there were some old negatives on Ebay,one in peticular was of the General on a flat car behind a NKP diesel in Cleveland,Ohio during the 1960's when it was on tour i think taken by NKP photographer Willis McCaleb.The other one of it was taken over by North Findlay,Ohio while being transported by train.

IIRC, the General was rebuilt in the 1870s with the wagon top boiler she has now. It replaced the older double dome boiler that she was built with (also a wagon top design).

In her refurbishment by the L&N int he 1960s, I remember reading that the locomotive was found to be in good shape, and not much was replaced, save for the flues. Of course, the air brakes were added, as was a small injector, a knuckle coupler, and the Briggs and Stratton gas engine (in the tender) to run the air compressor.

She was also converted to burn diesel.

Probably the biggest "improvement" made during the restoration to service was the somewhat gaudy paint she now continues to wear.

The General's constant companion in the 1960s, L&N "jim crow" combine number 665 now continues to rot at KRM in New Haven, Kentucky. See the related KRM threads for information about her current condition.

Ahhhh, yes...the best laid plans of mice and men. We set the Wayback machine to 1985 and find a couple of overly enthusiastic 20-somethings who decide it would be a great thing to build replicas of the General & Texas. With the Glover Machine Works in Marietta as a proposed home base and not far from Kennesaw/Big Shanty, a friendly relationship with some folks at Seaboard System, the New Georgia Railroad and a contact at Turner, how could you lose? Bring in O'Connor Engineering, builder of the Jupiter & 119 replicas for the NPS, with a quote of just over $1M per loco...man, those were the days. A corporation was formed, Friends of the General, which in retrospect, sort of describes the atmosphere we were living in...a FOG. I managed to get The Boss interested and he agreed to sit on our Board of Directors. He went with us to Glover to check out the possibilities there...all great stuff...but, all it takes is money, and without much of that the project went nowhere and the corporation was dissolved. Too bad, though. This would have been the ultimate opportunity for re-enactment of The Great Locomotive Chase. That's exactly what we had in mind when we started out over 25 years ago...

But just think, if we had managed to build the replicas, we would now have locomotives that would be over 20 years old, well over twice the age of the originals on April 12, 1862 when the General was stolen at Big Shanty...

In response to the work that was done in the 60's, here is a short list.

1) new tires

2) rod brasses

3) valve gear bushings and some pins

4) crown brasses

5) EXTENSIVE firebox work including but not limited to the lower 12" of the wrapper and partial side sheets

6) New smokebox

7) A ridiculously large penberthy injector (as previously mentioned)

We know the locomotive received a new boiler at some point, at least one new cylinder, new pilot truck, boxes (the existing are in to good of condition to be original, I have heard rumor those were replaced in the 60'2 as well), axles, tender tank(they interpret it to be the original that saw service during the civil war, again this to is in far to great of condition to be original), tender axles and wheels, likely trucks were swapped out at some point, tender frame(original was wood, locomotive was in service until atleast the 20's and then used in the 60's), cab(see previous parenthesesed statement), one of the mainrods and 4 bar crosshead guides, etc, etc, etc.

Point being, by historic preservation standards (for the time period it is interpreted) the general is but a "historic replica". That is, the locomotive is a representative piece consisting of some original components.

The texas was not "backdated" (as I understand it), it was not as thoroughly "modernized" over the years. It would seem the texas was basically "run into the ground" and then parked, resulting in a more complete artifact.

Steve, VERY interesting story about the replica concept....Surprised I never heard of this from you prior. A shame it didn't go through. I know there was a more recent effort that went a ways towards building all three locomotives...that didn't pan out either, obviously.

Cheers, Jason

Jason,

What's your source on the work done in the 1960s?

The boiler is wrought iron, so it wasn't replaced in the 1960s.

David

Trains will run a special issue about railroading's greatest myths and legends in our April 2012 issue with the story of The General (and today's CSX's W&A line) to coincide with its sesquicentennial. You'll also find the centennial story about railroading's connections to the sinking of the Titanic, along with a fresh telling of the John Henry story, a truth-squad piece on Death Valley Scotty special, more about Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid's train robbing exploits, a look at that mysterious track under the Waldorf Astoria Hotel that FDR used, and Al Capone's infamous train ride to Alcatraz!

And then there is Buster Keaton's take on this incident, his film The General. Never mind that it was mostly filmed in Oregon, and the "Civil War era" passenger cars were really highly modified Pacific Electric streetcars. Certainly not to be taken as accurate history, but worth a look and available on DVD. I was fortunate enough to see it shown in a theater with legendary organist Gaylord Carter at the console of the "Mighty Wurlitzer".

David,

My "source" consists of documentation from the rebuild in the form of both paper documents and photos that Big Shanty had circa 2000. Also, I had the opportunity to perform an extensive visual inspection....allowing me to accurately "read" the artifact. The boiler is listed as "wrought iron" on the form 4 from the 60's. However, it is not....

Cheers, Jason

Here she is at the Mother Yard....Conway, PA.