Cowan Railroad Museum #1 was built Porter-Type 2-4-2 tank engine for the Cherokee Brick Company in Macon, GA in 1920. It was one of the main locomotive for their small industrial railway operation cause of its size, and suited for the brick company's needs and pulled six yard side cars loaded with clay from the clay pits to the foundry til the company cease steam operation. In 1964 the locomotive was purchase by Walter E. Smith former president of the NRHS and it was rebuilt with a tender by the Charleston, SC Chapter of the National Railroad and Historical Society which was put into operation service to pull thousands of people in many of South Carolina's functions. Later on the Tennessee Valley Railroad acquired the locomotive til the Cowan Railroad Museum purchase the engine in the 1970s. Today Cowan Railroad Museum #1 sit silently as the billboard for the Museum, and a symbol of what was once the working class locomotive of the golden age of railroading.
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
