Here's what I thinking, it's too big and not "colorful" enough to be an avergae interior deocration. There is a date under the writing which is correct for the year the locomotive was built but the cow catcher is wrong, the one in this picture was used later. The smoke stack in this picture shows a inward rim which is missing from the engine by 1900. Now to add flavor, almost small enough not to be noticed on the right front is "3-65". Interestingly there is no name on the locomotive, but there is the numeral 3. From what I've been reading last night the company who produced the locomotive, Baldwin, did not assign names until a few years after this one was built. So every other picture I've seen has the name plate and still carries the numeral 3. Maybe some of the Georgia diggers can help.
Sorry about the last post, wireless problems before I could review and complete my thoughts.
This picture I jacked the contrast and true color in favor of details. The smoke stack is clear, look under the first E in SHEET, a small dark line looks like an imperfection, that's the 3-65 I mentioned. Another curious piece to me is the part of the caption that reads "Approximate Characteristics">
The name on the print is of the locomotive is General, while looking along these lines I had to smile when I read "The General is an American 4-4-0 Steam Locomotive. The Original Engine was built by Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor of Paterson, N.J., for the Western & Atlantic Railroad at a cost of $8,850 in 1855. The construction number is 631."
Nice piece for sure, The General is as famous as they come. I have some nice early photo's of other engines from Paterson....congrats on the find....Jim
I removed the print from the frame to shoot better quality pictures and check for new clues. Nothing new to share other than this rascal is next to impossible to capture in pics. I did find more pencil erasures than I had noticed before. Not sure what these details are telling me, I did manage a decent pic of the 3-65 date [?] I mentioned before. The first is as close to true color as I can reasonably achieve, the second one I jacked some to show details.