Nice summary, Crescent! Thanks.

Read the book,"Stealing the General by Russell Bonds" than write your script.

I've watched very detailed YouTube videos of car repairs. That doesn't make me a qualified car mechanic.

I've read books on "how to drive steam locomotives" and have ridden engine cabs. That doesn't make me anyone that should be running a locomotive or train, let alone an engineer.

Major Hollywood movies--not shoestring independents like Clerks or The Station Agent--are multi-million-dollar gambles, and have a success rate of maybe 50% at best for earning their money back. (See Will Smith in The Wild Wild West for one dramatic example of an epic money-loser by Hollywood standards--it made most of its money back with world-wide distribution. And it had the B&O Museum's William Mason in it!) And you CANNOT pull off what you are proposing without a multi-million-dollar budget. Real steam and railroads aren't cheap.

good point Alex. I know that I can't do this without the budget it's a no brainer.

I sure wouldn't add that. Fuller lived to the 20th century, quite proud of his part in the incident.
People there saw the influx of Yankees to the area as an invasion. I truly doubt Fuller (or many others) would have had such a moment, especially considering what the Union armies had already done to some of the Confederate bastions along the way on their drive to Atlanta and beyond. It was a long time later but don't forget that the glow of the flames of the burning of Atlanta could easily be seen from Big Shanty, long after the chase had bene over and done.
It was one of the reasons that the resentment toward the North continued for as long as it did, similarly to how some Europeans still resent the allied power nations (US and England, mostly) for the damages done to Europe during WW2

Don't forget what's possible in 2018, you can film, edit, and upload an entire movie on your iphone if you want to. Actually.. filming a movie like the Great Locomotive Chase with an iphone / go pros and presenting is as first perspective footage would be really cool, and a cheap way to do it. You could combine smartly edited shots with real life historic places that still exist... such as the Tunnel Hill tunnel, Dalton GA depot, etc.

Your biggest expense is going to be talent, you would want really good actors to play the major parts. You don't need star names, but you need the right people.

An interesting approach to a variation on the subject, done with models and limited animation, though I have no idea of the scale used.

There is a trailer that gives you an idea of how the whole thing looks.

http://www.toglc.com/

Anyone who has any degree of interest in the Andrews Raid MUST read "Daring and Suffering". That is the book upon which Walt Disney based the movie and is authoritatively, the most accurate version of the event. It was written by William Pittenger and there were three separate editions. The edition currently in reprint is the third edition, which was written in the 1880s.

After the war, Pittenger and his wife returned to Georgia and retraced the route of the raid, including all of the places that he was imprisoned. During their stay in Atlanta, they were received by the officials of the Western and Atlantic Railroad Company and provided with reference materials from the archives of the Western and Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia. On the train from Atlanta to Chattanooga, they were accompanied by Conductor Fuller and he and Mr. Pittenger exchanged stories and remarks about the raid.

Fuller was a determined man, but not one of foolish bravado. During the trip with the Pittengers, he admitted that in hindsight, had he known that he was chasing twenty federal soldiers, he never would have given chase. It should be noted that after the war, Fuller and some of the other southerners who participated in the raid did appear with the surviving raiders and the General at various Grand Army reunions and encampments.