The Southern Appalachia Railway Museum was proud to announce today that they will bring Central of Georgia combination car 391, Fort Mitchell, from the Cuyahoga Valley Railway to be restored to its original configuration.

This is monumental for the organization because it means that for the first time in the preservation era, all 4 of the original Central of Georgia “Man O’ War” streamlined cars (the others being coaches 664 Fort Oglethorpe and 665 Fort McPherson, and observation car 692 Fort Benning).

SARM believes that this is the only non-articulated streamlined passenger train to be fully reunited, and restored in its original configuration.

Details available below from their Facebook page.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 8825220233

More news about the Man o' War passenger trainset (click on photo to expand), not sure what happened to the pilot:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 7307584365
"East Tennessee Rail Car Services, Inc.
23h ·
We're excited this evening to introduce the final piece of a puzzle we started working along with our friends Southern Appalachia Railway Museum roughly 35 years ago. East Tennessee Rail Car Services is pleased to announce the acquisition of former Central of Georgia passenger GP-7 #121 (aka Project X). The 121 will complete our "Man o' War" passenger trainset and is the sole surviving example of a Central of Georgia passenger diesel.
The 121 was built by the Electro Motive Division of General Motors and delivered in May of 1951. It has a 16 cylinder model 567BC engine and delivers 1500 horsepower for traction. From the factory she was equipped with a steam generator and other equipment necessary for use in passenger service. While 121 was never intended as a regularly assigned passenger engine she and her three passenger equipped sisters would serve as back ups when a reqularly assigned unit was out for repair or maintenance or an extra boost was needed due to a longer than normal train. In this capacity 121 saw service on the Man o' War passenger train as well as many others.
With the decline of passenger service in the 1960s along with the acquisition of Central of Georgia by Southern Railway, the 121 eventually had its steam generator removed and was assigned exclusively to freight service. We've seen several photos in the Southern Railway era of the locomotive assigned to the Knoxville area. After Southern Railway retired the unit it was sold to the Chattahoochee Industrial Railroad in Georgia and later transferred to their sister operation at the Georgia Pacific paper company in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.
We've owned the unit for most of 4 years now but a combination of Covid, plus the need for extensive repairs/prep work, and a busy schedule helping our customers slowed the process. We completed a truck swap, coupler replacement, and other critical repairs recently and it made its first move toward home today. The locomotive is complete and non-failed, but tired. We're looking forward to being able to do a thorough evaluation and getting it returned to operation. She'll spend her retirement years helping us with freight moves at Walden's Ridge as well as special appearances with the restored Man o' War passenger train. Stay tuned!"

I think I found footage of Man O' War or Nany Hanks starting at 2:13 in this film. Was curious what the whole train looked like and the available photos were normally from the rear and not very detailed. A fine looking consist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGkUWaHa_P4

The donated GP-7, 124, can be seen in this video starting at 5:33. I'm impressed by the train, I'm not impressed by the track condition.

Minor pick: I believe the donated unit is 121; they only show 124 as an indication of how a passenger GP7 looks in CofG paint.

You're right. I'll bet 121 is in there, there are around a half-dozen other GP-7s seen, but he was using two few FPM to see the numbers clearly.

I'm not sure I'd say the track was in bad condition. If the frame rate is accurate, you have trains moving at decent speed on that track, and the locomotives and cars don't seem to have a lot of sway, suggesting good line and surface.

The rail is light, and the ballast a bit thin, but that wasn't unusual on secondary routes and railroads back in the day. There are stories and photos of Katy 4-4-0s (very light engines, it's true) whizzing along on at 50 mph on what was described as a "dirt track railroad," one with just dirt for the roadbed and apparently not much ballast. Yes, the photos show the short trains raising a good cloud of dust, too.

Another case to consider was the original Norfolk Southern. In steam, that road went from 2-8-0s to 2-8-4s--and the Berks were probably about the lightest standard gauge versions ever built. They didn't look much larger than a USRA light 2-8-2, if they were even that large.

You wouldn't want to run modern trains with hopper cars having axle loadings as high as the locomotives that pull them on such track, and you wouldn't want to run most large steam engines on that track, either--but it was adequate from at least the 1920s to the late 1960s, when really heavy rail cars became common.