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Joseph F. Renard
Engineer
Biography
Joseph F. “Uncle Joe” Renard was born on April 1, 1837, in Charleston, South Carolina, and he always wanted to be a train engineer. He was a “pioneer engineer” on the Western & Atlantic and served as an engineer on the State Road for more than 40 years.
He was at the throttle of the Catoosa locomotive on April 12, 1862, during the Great Locomotive Chase.
In September 1894, Renard was oiling his locomotive in Atlanta in preparation for the run to Chattanooga when he was “dangerously stabbed” by a man fleeing from police.
On February 4, 1901, Renard suffered a broken leg in a train collision in Bartow, a siding between Emerson and Acworth. Renard broke his leg while his fireman, James Linsey, was “slightly injured.”
When he died in 1905 at 68 years old, he was said to be among the best-known railroad men in the state. He was interred in Oakland Cemetery.
John Vinson Reynolds
Motorman
John F. Reynolds
Conductor
Biography
John F. Reynolds (unknown-August 20, 1891) was one of the first Western & Atlantic Railroad conductors, beginning service on September 11, 1848. He was the conductor of the first Western & Atlantic train to operate in Dalton, Georgia, in the 1840s.
In 1855, he was the conductor of the first train to cross the new bridge over the Etowah River. By July 1888, he was the railroad agent in Dalton, where he died on August 20, 1891.
Eugene Riley
Engineer
Biography
Eugene Riley was the engineer on the No. 2 express train on July 28, 1869, when it crashed at Budds Creek near Clarksville, Tennessee.
In the locomotive, steam escaping from the damaged boiler claimed the lives of Riley and the fireman.
Riley, a Bowling Green resident, left behind a wife and a child. The engineer “was regarded as one of the most discreet engineers on the road he served and stood high in the estimation of all who knew him.”
He “was scrupulously circumspect with his locomotive, always complying with the rules by which engine-drivers are governed, especially as to slow running over bridges and trestles.”