A Visitor on the S&C

The Western and Atlantic's General coasts through Farmington.

 Last week, the Stockton & Copperopolis had a nifty new visitor running through town. It was George Bogatiuk's model of the Western & Atlantic's General. As most of you probably know, the General was one of the locomotives which took part in the Andrews Raid of 1862 otherwise known as "The Great Locomotive Chase." George was in town on business and stopped by to show me the locomotive. It ended up running over the railroad from Oakdale to Stockton and back and it is a very nice-running engine. George started with a Bachmann 4-4-0, added new domes, smokestack, headlamp and other modifications to recreate the locomotive's appearance in 1862. Of course, the engine has a Soundtraxx Tsunami2 TSU 1100 decoder in it with a current keeper and it sounds very nice. 

     For those of you who might not know, George works for Soundtraxx and frequently puts on clinics at various model railroad functions such as the Railroad Protoype Modelers' meet in St. Louis last weekend. He has just gotten interested in Civil War-era railroading and the General is a great first locomotive.