I read in a movie book about the 1927 Buster Keaton movie “The General”, about the great locomotive chase during the Civil War. It said that the movie ends with the “Texas” falling from a burning bridge into a gorge far below…where, it is said, its rusted hulk remains to this day. Does anybody know where one might look for this rusted hulk?
While I don’t have a specific answer to this question, I’ve always had an interest in the Andrews Raid and the General herself. The General was restored to operating condition in 1962 by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, they converted her to burn oil, with a false wood pile in her tender.
The Union soldiers who participated in the raid at Big Shanty, Georgia along with James Andrews were all captured by confederate forces just outside of Ringold, Georgia. Andrews and seven others were tried as spys and were hanged. Most of the others eventually escaped from their confederate captors and made it back to the Union lines. They eventually met with President Lincoln and were the first people in this Nation’s history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
John Epstein once wrote a book about the Great Locomotive Chase, which I remember my sixth grade teacher read to us many, many years ago. I am inclined to think that the Texas did not actually fall through a burning bridge, because while the actual chase was in progress it was raining, and the Union soldiers who had taken control of the General and her train were trying to destroy track and bridges behind them. They tried to burn the bridges behind them but nothing would burn because it was raining. And there was one other locomotive that the Confederacy pressed into the chase, and it was the Yonah.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
The movie industry being what it is, I suspect if you’re wondering where to find the wreck from the movie, you’d have to head for California.
In Clive Cussler’s Book “The Sea Hunters”,He Has A Chapter Devoted To A Trainwreck on The Kansas Pacifc in the 1870’s In Colorado.Although The Rest of The Book Is Devoted To Famous Shipwrecks,The One Chapter Deals With The Trainwreck and Discovery of The Locomotive in The 1990’s."The Sea Hunters"by Clive Cussler and Craig Durgo.