A Festivus Miracle!

You might recall a post from about 6 weeks ago that had an image of  SP PA 6006 getting a bath. Click here to refresh your memory.

Since I posted it, I came across 2 more images of this same locomotive that were taken about 4-5 years apart in Ogden, UT. What struck me as an amazing coincidence, maybe even a Festivus miracle, was that the images were taken not only in the same town, but in virtually the exact same location at the SP’s Ogden roundhouse.

The first image shows the 6006 on October 3, 1958. It appears to have a recently replaced lead truck. Note the position of the unit relative to the utility pole in the background.

There’s no date on the second image, but we can narrow down the date to the 1962-1964 range. What’s my basis for this assertion?

The Southern Pacific adopted the lark gray & scarlet locomotive paint scheme in 1959. The paint on the second image isn’t fresh, nor it weather-worn, allowing me to infer the date range.

Based on the position of the utility pole in the background, the 6006 in the second image looks to be about 20 feet from the its location in image one.

The background scenes are identical save the smokestack has been removed by the time of the second view.

One last thing. There been a fair amount of coverage about Doyle McCormack and the PA that he’s restored to operational condition. Rightfully so.

I just don’t understand why there’s been no coverage about the SP PA that’s the subject of this post. It too is in operational condition in Southern California. Here’s an image of it: