Southeastern Railway Museum

If you would like to help support this blog, please donate through Paypal here!

£5.00


The Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth is an absolutely fantastic museum sprawling across four large buildings and an open air railway yard.

Their railway exhibits range from steam and diesel locomotives, wagons, carriages, maintenance of way vehicles, signalling equipment, ground working tools and everything in between. They run some of the locos from time to time and also have a miniature railway and a large HO scale model railway.

There’s also a lot of non-railway exhibits including a selection of buses, trucks, taxis and some military and cotton picking equipment which is significant to the areas history.

As a Brit, I’m afraid I’m not an expert on American railways. I’m doing as much research as I can whilst writing this, but if there are any mistakes please do let me know.

As I always do with my museum visits, I’ll keep some of the exhibits out of this blog so you have to go see the museum for yourself. This one I highly, highly recommend!

As soon as I got out of the car I was greeted by this big fellow; which is a diesel-electric SD45-2. This is the only one preserved at the moment. It’s known as a road switcher, which means it would pull goods on the mainline and then can shunt (or switch) wagons into position when they have reached their destination. I was surprised to see this would be used for switching. We have shunting locos in the UK but they are generally tiny 0-4-0s and 0-6-0s whereas this thing is a bit of a monster.

DSC_0010

Once I had brought my entry ticket from the little hut I made my way into the first large building.

As soon as I went in I was greeted my this:

DSC_0012

This Pullman is known as The Superb. President Warren G Harding was to use The Superb as his private car during his two month cross country trip called the “Voyage of Understanding” in 1923. Sadly President Harding passed away due to cardiac arrest during the trip whilst in San Francisco. The Superb was then used in a funeral train from San Francisco, to Washington D.C and then back to Harding’s  home state of Ohio. The carriage was donated to the museum in 1967.

DSC_0013

In front of The Superb was this cool little van.

DSC_0011

Campbell Limestone Company privately operated locomotive.

DSC_0014

Due to the huge amount of distance American trains have to cover, the crews used to have their own car at the end of a train called a Caboose. From here the crew could relax or watch over the train for any loads moving around or any mechanical issues. They are huge inside and the ones at the museum had cooking facilities, storage, sleeping facilities and a toilet for the crew.

DSC_0015
59933990_10219318124207643_8992687827263160320_n
DSC_0018DSC_0019DSC_0020

I always thought that these were the U.S equivalent of a brake van, which in the U.K was a wagon that would be put at the end of the train, operated by a guard who would apply the brakes to slow or stop a train. Turns out they have a completely different purpose!

Here we have a ventilated wagon for carrying fruit. Peaches are a speciality in Georgia.

DSC_0021

Along with a car for carrying milk. In the UK milk would be taken in a cylindrical shaped tanker.  This was a box car with two big vats inside that would hold the milk. Very unusual for me!

DSC_0098DSC_0100DSC_0101

Big steam loco!

DSC_0025

One of the fire doors for it’s boiler. Built in 1912.

DSC_0026

There were a few maintenance of way speeders on display. This one really caught my eye as it’s just for one person. I bet that was a blast to ride along on!

DSC_0024

This is what they traditionally look like.

DSC_0094

There were a number of cabs, trucks and fire engines on display in this building too!

DSC_0027DSC_0028DSC_0090DSC_0091DSC_0092DSC_0093DSC_0095DSC_0096DSC_0102DSC_0103

At first glance I thought the white truck above was electric. The radiator is mounted behind the engine!

DSC_0104

On a couple of the pre-war trucks, there are 3ft(ish) vertical poles bolted to the front leaf springs (such as on the blue and yellow truck above). If anyone happens to know what they are for please let me know!

In a room stemming away from this building was the model room. The centre piece was the museum’s HO scale railway but they also had display cases full of models around the room.

DSC_0105DSC_0106DSC_0107DSC_0108DSC_0109DSC_0110

World over, narrow gauge railways produce interesting vehicles.

DSC_0111

Heading out of the back of the first building, we come to the second, which is where the museum’s bus collection is housed.

DSC_0054DSC_0055DSC_0056DSC_0057DSC_0058

Interesting to see a gauge cluster under the hood. The mechanic can see what’s going on without having to walk the way to the front of the bus.

DSC_0059DSC_0060DSC_0061DSC_0062DSC_0063

A nice simple forwards, neutral and reverse.

DSC_0064

Along with a few other bits.

DSC_0053DSC_0065

If we head across to the next building we have my favourite of the exhibitions which was this rake of unrestored and original Norfolk & Southern pullman coaches and a mail car. DSC_0040

There are two classes of pullman coach. One has a narrow corridor running down the right hand side of the carriage with bedrooms to the left. This I believe to be “First Class”.

DSC_0041

The first room had a sofa. Note the white panel above the sofa drops down to reveal the bed.

60246744_10219319176513950_6668593839856418816_n

On the other side of that room was another single chair and fold down bed. The door you can see lead to a small private bathroom.

59901582_10219319177873984_8104600981154562048_n59906374_10219319177193967_9075132340144963584_n59929691_10219319176273944_1465841083647787008_n

The control panel for the features of the room was lovely! Air conditioning controls, lights and a switch to call a porter.

59754014_10219319177113965_6210364436176175104_n

In the second class rooms the residents would have a private toilet hidden below a seat.

59713319_10219319177993987_7777357170785386496_n59791190_10219319178514000_1702572963674456064_n

Bunkbeds would also fold out of the walls either side for sleeping.

59871841_10219319176473949_4004504992848281600_n

Second class passengers also didn’t get much in the way of privacy. A simple curtain separates the passenger’s room for the walkway.

59985797_10219319177633978_1026438398526619648_n

The mail car in which letters and packages would be sorted and distributed on the move.

DSC_0042DSC_0043DSC_0044DSC_0045

Finally in this rake of coaches was a normal passenger coach. It was kind of eerie in this one. I’m not sure what sort of a history it had.

DSC_0047

These are switching locomotives, which are akin to the U.K’s shunters.

DSC_0032DSC_0084

Some more heavy diesels:

DSC_0088DSC_0089

This one is The General II. The General was a locomotive stolen by Union spies during the American Civil War, who used it to cause as much mayhem on the Confederate rail network as possible whilst being chased by Confederate soldiers on foot and in trains. Look up the Great Locomotive Chase if you want to find out more. It was an interesting sequence of events.

DSC_0074

Nice livery on this caboose.

DSC_0081

This caboose was pretty unique with the extended outside platforms.

DSC_0083

The museums rolling stock collection is vast. Looking through the photos I have and watching the word count of this post, I think I’ll just have to show you a few highlights.

I love railway cranes. Have done since I was a child. There are some really nice model kits of U.S cranes on the market.

DSC_0072DSC_0073

The U.S Army also make use of the nations railways. This is a kitchen car awaiting restoration.

DSC_0033DSC_0034
The last thing I would lie to show you is this ‘Transette’. It’s a sort of prototype built at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The idea behind these was that they could take small groups of people or goods to whatever station they needed to get to. Essentially making public transport easily accessible. The idea never took off though, and funding to the project was cut in the early 1980s.

I saw it and fell in love with it. If I could, I’d bring it home with me haha!

DSC_0030DSC_0036DSC_0038

All in all, if you find yourself in the Buford area I’d highly recommend visiting the Southeastern Railway Museum. It’s one of those museums where you can really get amongst the exhibits. There are more open doors than roped off , perfect displays which I think is great.

Visit the museum’s website to find out more!  https://www.train-museum.org/

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed! If you would like to help me make even better quality content on a more regular basis please donate via paypal through the button at the top or paypal me directly at motorsportformentalhealth@yahoo.co.uk.

You can also join my Patreon here: www.patreon.com/motorsportformentalhealth

If you would like to stay up to date with all my blog posts please subscribe to the blog via email (from the box at the bottom of the page) or follow me on the following social media platforms:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/motorsportformentalhealth/
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-francis-b45025137/

Twitter: @richardmsfmh
Instagram: @motorsport4mentalhealth
Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ-j8broFg4i2rWIBy6W82Q

By Richard Francis

Leave a Reply