Ed Waterhouse reached the highlight of his railroad career in 1892 when he became engineer of the Nancy Hanks, the South’s first non-stop steamliner and the pride of the Central of Georgia railroad. Running between Atlanta and Savannah, the train made its first trial run in October 1892. Its cars were first painted vermilion red with gold trim and later royal blue with gold trim, and it was named for a prize-winning race horse whose picture appeared on the engine and every car. The horse, which set a speed record for trotters in 1892, had itself been named for Abraham Lincoln’s mother. In two back-to-back incarnations, the first Nancy Hanks operated only ten months before two bad wrecks led to its abandonment in August 1893. One wreck occurred at the old Gate City Oil Mill between Hapeville and East Point, Georgia, when a switchman, confused about whether he had closed the switch, threw it in front of the speeding train after Waterhouse had opened the engine for top speed. The locomotive struck the switch, rocked violently, then crashed into a switch engine and cut off cars, while the switch engine crew escaped injury by jumping clear. The Nancy’s engine was stripped of nearly everything except the smokestack, sandbar, and whistle, though it remained on the rails. Waterhouse and his fireman were thrown aside as the cab broke apart, and although both survived, they were seriously injured and spent a long time in the hospital; many passengers and the express master were badly shaken, but no one else was seriously injured. After recovering, Waterhouse continued railroading for more than twenty years, retired in 1915, and died about two years later of heart failure. He was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon. The passing of the Nancy Hanks and of Ed Waterhouse came to mark the end of exciting bygone years on Georgia’s railroads.