15 January 2012 1401

To celebrate his birthday, Pop-Pop wanted to visit the Smithsonian American History Museum and put his hand on the locomotive that his grandfather, Charles Field Capehart, helped build. So we took the train to Washington, DC and walked over to the National Mall.

This was Sam’s first trip to DC and in addition to the American History museum, we toured the sculpture gardens and saw the Egypt exhibit at the Natural History museum.

But the main focus was locomotive 1401. Built in 1926, this was the flagship locomotive of Southern Railway from the mid 1920s to the 1950s. It ran primarily in North Carolina, and in 1945 pulled FDR’s funeral train part of the way to DC.

Charles Field Capehart was a pipe-fitter. Goodness knows how many pipes he fit on it, because this machine is huge. Just to get the front of it in the picture I had to stand so far away that you can hardly see the three generations of Capeharts standing next to their grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great grandfather’s work. We tried to impress upon Sam how cool it is that she can visit a national museum and touch something that her great-great grandfather worked on. Too many greats for her to grasp, although she did notice that the wheels of 1401 are about two feet taller than she is. Now, that made an impression!