An aging Beauty stops to visit. Southern Pacific's 45-year-old Engine 4449 gathers steam early Sunday morning at San Luis Obispo's train depot. The 432-ton steam engine spent the night thee before pulling out at 7:15 a.m. en route to Walt Disney studios in Southern California. About 200 people showed up to see the locomotive off. 'It was just gorgeous,' a dispatcher said of 4449. See story 5/A©The Tribune/Tony Hertz
This photo is a thing of wonder and beauty on two levels.
To start, anytime an old steam engine rides out of history into the present traffic stops. Railfans come from all over with their cameras to record the event.
Southern Pacific 4449 was built in 1941 and is the last operable streamlined Art Deco steam locomotive. The 110-foot-long GS-4 Northern engine was the pride of the Southern Pacific Daylight route and served as the star of many promotional photos and posters. It was hoped that the glamor of the design would lure people back to the railroad from their cars.
Steam was replaced by the less romantic diesel-electric power in the late 1950s and she was retired to static display. At the same time many jobs were lost in the region as the roundhouse in San Luis Obispo that did steam repair and maintenance was shut down.
A volunteer group formed to restore the engine and the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation is working for a permanent home near Portland, Oregon. Too beautiful to send to the scrap yard, the steam engine lives on.
The second wonder is that this photo offers a masters class in photography. Early in my career Tony Hertz gave me a great piece of advice. He told me that in a feature situation, take all the time you need, scout locations, walk 360-degrees around the subject, try high and low vantage points, work to find the definitive perspective. This is especially true with wide angle lenses where a tilt of a few degrees or a movement of an inch or two will completely change the composition.
Most people take pictures from their standing perspective but here the perspective is not that of the over six foot Tony Hertz. The camera is almost resting in the water, angled upward capturing the reflection and the elegance and power of the steam engine. Our old Nikon-F cameras had a removable prism quickly converting the single lens reflex into a older style view camera. Looking down into the ground glass the image was flipped forcing you to look at large compositional shapes. It is an experience you don’t get with the mini-television screens on today’s digital camera backs. The guy at the right gives you a sense of scale and the star power of the locomotive.
Since leaving The Tribune, Tony has established a career in local photography and teaching.
UPDATE: I forgot to include the date the image was made: March, 8 1986. A few excerpts from the brief article that ran on an inside page on March 10…
About 200 people braved overcast skies to see the 432-ton steam locomotive pull out of town after an overnight stop….The train could be heard throughtout the area belching and hissing as it gathered speed down the tracks, just as it did years ago when it pulled the Coast Daylight.
Related posts:
It was on its way to star in the movie “Tough Guys” with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.
David – question:
If this is Sunday morning and the train is heading south, why does the sky look like the sun has just set in the west?
That’s not the glow of a setting sun…it is the glow of perfection coming from the engine itself!
I heard that they had found a replacement location from the Brooklyn yard roundhouse where they had stored it forever. I’ve seen this engine twice running. Each time I felt deeply blessed by awe.
Dave,
Departure time was slated for 7:15 am and the engine take a while to get steam. Since there are no shadows this looks to me like the sun hasn’t popped over the Santa Lucia’s yet. The sky is slightly burned down to hold the edges of the frame and show the steam rising into the sky.
The burning in would explain it, David. But I like Steven’s answer better! Ha!
Yes, I saw 4449 in 1989 when she was headed south, and I saw her back in the 1980s in Dallas, TX. And I must have seen her a few times when she used to travel the LA-SF route back in the day, but as a young lad then I’m sure I didn’t fully appreciate what would soon become but a memory, save for 4449 herself. “The most beautiful train in the world,” as the SP billed it, and I cannot disagree.
Years ago I heard a very touching story about 4449. As you know, after retirement she was consigned to a public park in Portland Oregon in 1958. After sitting for 16 years and being vandalized and having many parts stolen, she was chosen as one of the engines to pull the Freedom Train around the country for the Bicentennial. Like most machines, steam engines need constant maintenence and dont take kindly to sitting still in the weather. When she was ready to be pulled from the place she was sitting, there was no small amount of concern that she would even move. 350 tons of steel sitting on soft metal bearing for that amount of time usually sieze up fairly rapidly if not lubricated periodically. When the diesel engine assigned to her began to pull, she rolled out as if she was ready for her next assignment. Needless to say, everyone present was pleasantly suprised and quite curious. After some checking around, it was discovered that a retired SP employee living in Portland, unable to bear the thought of her rusting away in the park, had taken it upon himself to periodically lube the axles of the engine as well as the tender.
Joe,
Thanks for sharing that story. What loyalty.
Oh, good night, to have been able to see her when she came into town pulling the Daylight. How I envy you, John.
David,
I got that story third or fourth hand at least, but I can certainly believe its true. Most of the men who drove, fired, and maintained steam locomotives were as dedicated to them as they were their wives and families. Some probably more so. Given that they ruled the rails for the first 100 years of the railroads, there were several generations who came to love them. When the end came for steam in the 50s, it was virtually overnight. The modern equivalent would be for the driving public to suddenly convert to all electric cars in the next 10 years.
I chanced upon this story while looking for SLO Roundhouse history, Mr. Hertz’s photo sent a chill up my spine because the lone figure in it is almost certainly ME!
Small world, SLO.