ON THE COVER
This is a picture that can never be taken again on the Southern. Flanked here by the "Best Friend of Charleston" and a modern 4 - unit diesel locomotive at Chattanooga, Tenn., Southern engine No. 6330 had just finished the last run to be made by a steam locomotive on the Southern Railway' System.
The steam locomotive era on the Southern, beginning on Christmas Day in 1830, was long and eventful. The last fire has now been put out but railroad history will not let memories die of the steam age which saw the growth - and also made possible the growth - of a small nation along the Atlantic seaboard into the great country that is the United States today.