On Wednesday, June 17, 1953, at 3:00 p.m., an era ended.

President Harry A. DeButts had announced the day before that the event to take place on the 17th would make the Southern the largest railway in the country to be completely dieselized when our last steam loco- motive in service on the railway would pull a train into Chattanooga, and the fire would be knocked from the firebox.

Clouds of steam arose as Walter Gay hosed down the ashpan after the fire was dumped from No; (i330, last steam locomotive to be operated on the Southern.

"It has taken us 123 years to put out that fire," Mr. DeButts said as he told of the final run which would mark the end of the steam locomotive era on the Southern.

He was referring to the fact that one of the System's predecessor lines on December 25, 1830, put into operation the historic "Best Friend of Charleston," the first steam locomotive to be run in regular, scheduled railway service on the American continent.

The railway began to "put out the fire" in 1939 when it placed its first diesel locomotives in service six 750-h.p. diesel - powered passenger units. In 1940, eight diesel switching locomotives were bought and in 1941 the Southern put into service the world's first diesel road freight locomotive.

Also in 1941 the railway introduced two new diesel- powered streamliners -"The Southerner" and "The Tennessean"-and put diesel power on the all-Pullman "Crescent."

On the last run. Engine 6330 stopped at the water tank at Roddy, Tenn. Diesel 6802 passed right on by this example of a facility the diesel electrics have made totally obsolete.

Since World War II the rise of the diesel on the Southern has been rapid, with diesels being added at a rate that often exceeded 100 units a year. On June 17 the diesels took over completely, 880 units of them which represent an investment of more than 123 million dollars-so that the Southern may better serve the South.

Heavy Mikado type locomotive No.6330 came to a stop in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, yard of the Southern. For the last time her fires were drawn; the whine of the headlight generator faded to a whimper, the feather of steam faded from her pops, the sobbing choke of her cylinder cocks stopped. There was nothing more for the 6330 to do.

So ended the age of steam on the Southern Railway System; an age born on Christmas Day, 1830, when the "Best Friend of Charleston" made her maiden run on the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, now a part of the Charleston division of the Southern. The passing of the 6330 into history brings memories which are history themselves.

A history which saw the barriers of time and weight and distance conquered by a dream. A history made up of facts, now legends.

A railroad builder, with a deadline to meet, hauling a locomotive over the mountain at Ridgecrest, North Carolina, by means of mules and oxen and grim determination, that trains might operate between Ridgecrest and Asheville before the Swannanoa tunnel was dug.

A president of the United States, his smile gleaming beneath a" fierce moustache, his hand clamped on the throttle of a passenger locomotive, bellowing his "Bully!" to all who listened.

The start of the history-making run of Engine No.6330. This heavy Mikado is shown leaving Oakdale with its train as the last steam locomotive to operate on the Southern Railway System. In Chattanooga it "lined" up" with the replica of the " Best Friend of Charleston,". a wood-burning steam locomotive with which a Southern predecessor line established, in 1830, the first regularly-scheduled railroad service on this continent.

That black Sunday in September, 1903, when Joe (Steve) Broady and the 1102 plunged from Stillhouse Trestle at Danville, Virginia, and into the immortality of the "Wreck of Old 97;"

An engineer-evangelist with his symbol, an open bible, displayed on the smoke box front of the 1396.

The "Crescent Limited," beginning an era of her own on April 26, 1925, serving a proud destiny in steam until the diesels took over in 1941, chalking up an amazing total of 7,440,000 steam miles behind the green-and-gold locomotives, the brilliant decorative scheme that came into being in 1926, and which still speaks of the SOUTHERN wherever railroad men and railroad friends gather.

Then there were the "allied lines," welded now into the System we serve. The "Cincinnati Southern" or CNO&TP- where existed the once-famous "Rat Hole District"-and her contingent of mountain railroaders. The Alabama Great Southern, an aristocratic part of the old Queen & Crescent Route. The New Orleans and Northeastern, serving the land of magnolias and sugar cane. The little Northern Alabama, known affectionately in the hills as the "SP&B"-Sheffield, Pirrish & Back. The tinier Harriman & Northeastern, the queenly Georgia, Southern & Florida, the many short lines. They were the sinews that, with the Southern itself, made up the System. They all had their steam locomotives, their own accomplishments, and their pride.

Left to right: Leason L. Waters, superintend- ent, Somerset, Ky.; R. W. Williams, executive general agent, Chattanooga; De Sales Harrison, a director of the A.G.S.; Mrs. Harrison, daughter of retired vice- president R. B. Pegram; I. T. Moon, general manager, Western Lines; and I. B. Akers, chief engineer, Washington, were among those greeting No. 6330 at the end of the last run of a steam locomotive on the Southern.

A 30-year ownership table reads like a history of a great age. In itself, it is an age: During the past 30 years the System has owned many types of power, as reflected below:

They all had their parts to play in the complexity of our industry. From the graceful, 79" driver Atlantics, with their heritage of speed, down through the heavy Pacifics, the hulking Mikados, even to the work-horses, the sturdy Consolidations, they were the giants of their day, made so because of the skill and ingenuity of the men who designed them, maintained them, served them, operated them-and, even, loved them.

The Southern pioneered many of the innovations, the improvements that the years brought to the steam locomotives, even as the Southern has helped pioneer in the development, design 'and operation of the diesel. The skills which made the Southern great in the age of steam have merely been transferred and adapted to the new age of diesel. Those skills were great then - they are even greater now.

Type Whyte	Symbol	Number
Atlantic	4-4-2	10
Pacific	4-6-2	261
Mountain	4-8-2	55
Ten Wheel Passenger	4-6-0	186
Eight Wheel Passenger	4-4-0	57
Four Wheel Forney	0-4-2	2
Six Wheel Switch	0-6-0	258
Eight Wheel Switch	0-8-0	88
Mallet	2-6-8-0	3
Mallet	2-8-8-2	32
Santa Fe	2-10-0	130
Mikado	2-8-2	430
Shay	-	2
Mogul	2-6-0	12
Ten Wheel Freight	4-6-0	46
Consolidation	2-8-0	920

There was something symbolic about that Wednesday afternoon in June. The best of steam power, represented by the 6330, giving way to the best in diesel power. The old bowing before the new. They served their purpose, did "these knights of the past, on their specialized, remarkable assignments. The millions of miles of tireless service they gave cannot be reduced to cold figures here, they are already a part of America, of the world.

It was not because they in any slight degree failed in their high purpose that they are now gone from the modern scene; rather it was because of the inevitable march of progress, the realization of man's end- less search for "the better way." When that better way was found the things of the present became a part of the past, just as when "the better way" is found tomorrow, today will also become yesterday.

The engine and train crew handling the last run of a steam locomotive on the Southern Railway System. Left to right: C. F. Case, Sr., engineer; l. E. Griffey, fireman; A. R. Clevenger, brakeman; C. D. McMahan, lr., flagman, and Harry H. Houghton, conductor. All live in Chattanooga. Engineer Case has 35 years service, Co ductor Houghton, 44 years. The others are "youngsters."

The steam age is ended. But the locomotives, the symbols of that age, although now reduced to impotence, still live. They live in the clangor of their bells from hundreds of church steeples, they live in the chime of their whistles from hundred of factories and plants in the territory they served-and they will live forever in the memories of those of us who are proud to have been a part of the age of steam and, in watching its passing, felt a little part of ourselves pass into history, too.

So it was that, on Wednesday, June 17, 1953, at three o'clock in the afternoon, an era, an age, epoch, ended. Its like we shall never see again.

But there still are greater tomorrows.