Q: I’m familiar with where the water filler is on more modern steam locomotive tenders. But I don’t see a similar place for water to be taken in on the old wood burning engines, like The General. Can you enlighten me? — Robert Taunt
A: The General was a 4-4-0 American-type steam locomotive belonging to the Western & Atlantic RR, a 5-foot-gauge line running from Marietta, Ga., to Chattanooga, Tenn. It entered history when a squad of Union raiders stole the locomotive during the Civil War, prompting a rail-based hot pursuit that became the subject of the Disney movie The Great Locomotive Chase.
Based on a blueprint of The General that I found on social media website Reddit, the wood burning steam locomotive’s water filler was right where you’d expect it, at the back of the tender’s deck. You just don’t see it because it’s usually hidden by firewood.
A coal tender’s fuel bunker is typically at the front of the tender, surrounded by the U-shaped water tank. Its floor is sloped so the coal will roll forward as it’s shoveled out by the fireman or carried to the firebox by the stoker. Firewood, though, wouldn’t roll forward in such an orderly fashion. It might form literal logjams or tumble forward uncontrollably. Therefore, the deck of a wood burner’s tender is usually flat, sometimes with a metal fence around three sides to allow the firewood to be stacked higher. It wouldn’t matter if firewood was piled around and on top of a wood burning steam locomotive’s water filler, since at least some of that fuel would be consumed by the time the locomotive needed to take on more water.
For more about The General and The Great Locomotive Chase, check out the April 2012 issue of Trains Magazine. For even more about wood-burning steam locomotives in general (pun not intended), check out my answer to Alexander Brennan’s question in the August 2022 Ask MR.
If you want to see The General for yourself, the historic locomotive is preserved at the Southern Museum of the Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, Ga. (southernmuseum.org). Trains.com’s David Popp and former MR Editor Neil Besougloff visited the museum in 2013 and filmed a video that subscribers to Trains.com can watch.
Send us your questions
Have a question about modeling, operation, or prototype railroads? Send it to Senior Associate Editor Steven Otte at Steven.Otte@Firecrown.com. Be sure to put “Ask MR” in the subject.
