This set is very special because it is my first official custom run! I worked with Legacy Station in Atlanta to get it done and is a type of Central of Georgia engine I never thought I’d own. While it may not be 100% accurate in some places, its as close as we could make it with information that I had access to at the time of production.

ABOUT THE PROTOTYPE

The first Nancy Hanks was not a full train, but just a locomotive. Before it was a locomotive, it was a horse. In 1892, a bay mare named Nancy Hanks, believed to have been named after Abraham Lincoln’s mother, set a world trotting record of a mile in two minutes, four seconds. At the same time, the Central of Georgia, then known as the Central Rail Road and Banking Company of Georgia, was trying out a new locomotive type. At the time, named trains were uncommon, but named locomotives were quite common. Someone christened this new locomotive, Nancy Hanks. George Dole Wadley, the General Superintendent at the time and lover of horses, is credited with naming the locomotive.

The Nancy Hanks locomotive was assigned to the Savannah division to trains #1 and #2, but soon, the name was being used to describe the entire train. The engine was a 4-4-0, known as an “American” type locomotive, built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1892 and was numbered 1592. The engine was described as “A very handsome passenger engine, painted in a glossy black, her wheels ornately striped in gold leaf. Her name, in excellent taste, is in plain gold letters.” The cars of that train were described as “a bright vermillion red with the magic words ‘Nancy Hanks’ in light gold letters on the side of each car.”

In 1893, along with a new schedule, the Nancy Hanks got a new look. Painted a royal blue “from the tip of her cowcatcher to the platform of her last coach, and trimmed in gold leaf.” 1592, along with two other locomotives, 1593 and 1594, were also given this treatment. The original Nancy Hanks did not last long, with it’s first train leaving Savannah on October 17, 1892, and the last train leaving for Atlanta on August 13, 1893.

– The Right Way Magazine, Vol 26, Iss. 3 “Nancy Hanks II – Georgia’s Own Streamliner” – Official Publication of the Central of Georgia Railway Historical Society