North Carolina USA - Royal Hudson number 2839 had a short but highly promoted run as an excursion engine in Western North Carolina in 1979 and 1980.
 
It was a 4-6-4 design, which suited it for speed over flat distances more than for climbing.
 
Southern Railway had leased it from a Pennsylvania group to celebrate the arrival of the first train in Asheville in October 1880.
 
It had previously belonged to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), and was the same model as the engine that had taken King George VI and Queen Elizabeth across Canada on the first visit to that country by a reigning British monarch.
 
That's how it and its ilk got the name "Royal Hudson".
 
On the historic 2 Oct 1980 commemorative run from Salisbury to Asheville, the engineer was the late Frank Clodfelter (seen up front in photo).
 
He was one of the key figures in local railroad history, Asheville-born, son of a Southern Railway employee, a long-time engineer, and the leading photographer of trains in North Carolina.
 
The 1980 film, "Coal Miner's Daughter", featured the locomotive, which is now at the Nethercutt Collection and Museum in Sylmar, California.
 
The passenger line from Asheville to Murphy ended in 1949.
 
Rob Neufeld.