The original
> Western and Atlantic Railroad ,home of the
> real General, was built to a gauge of five
> feet during the Civil War, it was never a
> narrow gauge.

Terry, fabulous post, thanks for trying to tie up all the loose ends!

You've brought up an interesting point about Keaton's Oregon/narrow gauge comment. Maybe because HE KNEW the civil war era W & A was 5 foot gauge, he considered everything else narrow! :-)


SJHussar@aol.com

It's interesting that Keaton never made any mention of what precipitated the location move from Tennessee to Oregon (not that the casual moviegoer would have noticed the difference). For those who have studied the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, it is general knowledge that Keaton originally approached the railroad about using the actual locomotive and locations on the NC&StL for the movie. The filming was to have been done on the Tracy City Branch west of Chattanooga and portions of the Western and Atlantic Railroad main line between Chattanooga and Atlanta.

It is also known fact that Keaton gave a newspaper interview, in which he stated that the movie was to be a comedy. Here Keaton made a mistake that would cost him the agreement with the railroad, perhaps failing to realize that many Southerners would consider his treatment of the subject sacraligious. The pressure applied to the railroad by the public at large left the railroad no choice but to take the action it did. It should also be noted that never again did the railroad offer the locomotive for use in a movie production (it had done so once previously). The last time that movie use was brought up was when Wilbur Kurtz offered to negotiate use of the General for the movie "Gone With the Wind" on behalf of Director David Selzenick. The railroad was favorable to the idea, provided that the production company would pay the shipping on the locomotive. Due to the high shipping cost, this never happened.

awalker1829@yahoo.com

> The demise of "The General" - The locomotive which portrayed both "The General" and "The Texas" at various times in the movie was later sold to the J. H. Chambers Lumber Co., of Cottage Grove. They literally ran the engine to death in logging service. I have a picture of the loco sitting in ruins on a weed-grown siding. It is a sad sight. I will scan it in and send it to anybody who is interested enough to contact me.

fatpiecat2@charter.net

Nice report -- wonderful.

It is reported that some of the cars used in the picture were rebuilt from retired Pacific Electric streetcars. These were old, "five-window Huntington standards" that had been replaced by new steel center-entrance cars during the 1920s. The conversion work is said to have been done by the PE shops prior to shipment to Oregon.

Brian Norden

How did the regauging fron 5 feet to standard affect the intedgrity of the loco?


TyburnRR@cs.com

I looked at the General in the earlier museum at Big Shanty. The drivers have wide tires and the tender wheels have clearly been moved inward, either on the same axles or new ones. Whether the lead truck wheels have been pressed inward or there are new wheels and axles or even a new lead truck was unclear.


Electric City Trolley Museum Association

> "How did the regauging fron 5 feet to
> standard affect the intedgrity of the loco?"

It's likely that very little of the original General survived the civil war. I have seen pictures of it after its capture, and it looks like it was burned and had cannon ball fired through the boiler. Before the war, she had three domes and a second outside frame. After the war she had a single frame and only two domes, which means she was probably rebuilt from the bottom up. She was probably regauged at the same time, though I am guessing about that. So, given that The General had a new frame, and most likely a new boiler, a new cab, and probably had all new piping and appliances, I'd have to consider the post-civil war General a new locomotive.


fatpiecat2@charter.net