When I photographed the 4466 in 1966, I thought the locomotive was headed to the scrapyard. It was a sad sight to behold sitting there in the weeds and old cinders. Little did I know! I next crossed paths with the 4466 at the California State railroad museum as it was the active locomotive on the Museum’s Sacramento Southern Railroad. This happened in 1990 and at that time I did not realize the 4466 was the sad 0-6-0 I photographed in 1966. The connection came more recently as I began the present task of organizing my sixty-years-in-the-making photograph mess – sometimes referred to as my photograph “collection”.
I consulted Jim Ehernberger’s series on Union pacific Railroad steam locomotives and learned it was Lima-built in Oct., 1920, vacated in 1973 and donated to the Museum.
[“Union Pacific Prototype locomotive Photos”, James L. Ehernberger Collection, Volume 2, page 61]
The 4466 at work as the motive power for the Museum’s on-site railroad, the Sacramento Southern Railroad, in 1990. It was a welcome sight for me to see a Union Pacific Railroad steam locomotive, restored and steamed up, doing what it was designed to do: useful work!
BRAIN DRAIN UNCLOGGED 