Ship to Canada
Ship to USA
by guest blogger, Elmer Prather
My latest puzzle is a 1000-piece titled Rounding The Horn by Ken Zylla. Before I spend time putting a puzzle together, I must have a connection to it. My connection to this puzzle is the steam powered locomotive pictured in the puzzle. I love steam powered locomotives. The train displayed in the picture is the Union Pacific number 942. It is pictured steaming along railroad tracks beside a swiftly flowing stream.
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| Rounding the Horn assembled by Elmer Prather |
The location is a setting comparable to the Garden of The Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado where sandstone formations like the ones displayed in the picture could be three hundred million years old. The Aspen trees are in full Fall color.
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| Look at all the lovely details in this close up |
I have had the pleasure of riding on several steam powered locomotive trains. I once took a trip on one from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. On the way to and on the way back at each roadway crossing there were people standing along the roadway waiting for a glimpse of the train with the engineer tooting its horn as it passed by. It was apparent that a lot of people love old steam powered trains.
I was a passenger on another steam powered train that runs from Dillsboro, North Carolina to Bryson City, North Carolina. Shortly after the train departed the station in Dillsboro, the conductor announced that if we looked out of the left window of our passenger car, we could see the remains of the train that was derailed for filming the movie, The Fugitive. Much of the movie was filmed in and around Bryson City.
My favorite Steam powered train ride is the one from Durango, Colorado to Silverton, Colorado. The narrow-gauge forty-mile-long railroad track on which this train travels was constructed to move gold and silver ore from the mines in Silverton to Durango.
I live in Canton, Georgia USA which is near the Southern Museum of the Civil War and Locomotive History which is a Smithsonian Institution affiliate. The steam powered locomotive, the General is displayed there. The General is the locomotive stolen by Andrews Raiders. Andrews, a union spy, twenty union soldiers and two Union sympathizers all disguised as Confederate agents boarded the General at the Marietta, Georgia train depot. They uncoupled the train cars and pulled the General out of Marietta and headed North. They were captured by Confederate forces near Ringgold, Georgia.
The National Museum of Transportation is in Saint Louis, Missouri. It was founded in 1944. The museum has over seventy locomotives dating from the early 1800s. One of these steam powered locomotives is one of twenty-five manufactured by the American Locomotive Company and purchased by the Union Pacific Railroad. It is of the 4-8-4-8-4 Class and its number is #4006. This class of locomotive engine is considered the largest steam powered engine in the world. It is 132 feet nine ½ inches long and weighs six hundred tons. It is called “Big Boy.” During its in-service life, it travelled 1,064.625 miles-almost forty-three times the circumference of the globe. Only eight of the original twenty-five still exists.
When I put a puzzle together, I do a lot of research on what I see in the puzzle picture. During my research, I discovered a plethora of information on steam powered locomotives. This information includes the locomotive’s maker, how many each company made, the size and type of locomotive, the number associated with each engine, where it is currently located, and its condition today. Over the years, as these steam engines wore out or became outdated many of them were turned into scrap metal or converted to diesel powered engines. In Georgia there are a total of fifty steam powered locomotives. Only three of these are still operational and the rest are either being restored, stored, disassembled, dieselized, or on display.
Elmer Prather
Canton, Georgia
U S A
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| "Rounding the Horn" 1000pc puzzle by Ken Zylla |