Archives Puzzles: All Aboard Southern Railway 1401

Each Monday, sit back, relax, and ease into the work week with puzzles created from images in our collections that have been designated as open access. Anyone can now download, transform, share, and reuse these images as part of Smithsonian Open Access, launched in 2020.

As we dream of vacations in the future, let’s travel back to the past to explore the history of the Southern Railway No. 1401 steam locomotive at the National Museum of American History. The Southern Railway Company donated the large object, built in 1926, to the Smithsonian, and it was restored in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1961, the locomotive was loaded onto a 250-ton-capacity flatbed trailer, on which it began an 11-day journey from the Navy Yard to the Museum of History and Technology, now known as the National Museum of American History. Read about the locomotive’s final journey on the Museum’s website.  

The Original 

The Puzzle