A Southern Pacific eastbound, with Cotton Belt SD40T-2 8325 on the front, sits in San Luis Obispo, California, awaiting a fresh crew. This train, heading south to the Los Angeles area with lumber from Oregon, has a typically eclectic assortment of locomotives for power: SSW SD40T-2 8325, SP SD45T-2R 6776, SP SD45T-2 9320, SP GP9 3742 and SP SD45 7553. Two of the Central Coast's famed "Nine Sisters" (also known as the Morros, a chain of nine volcanic mountains and hills created over 20,000,000 years ago, during the Miocene Epoch of the Neogene Period, as volcanic plugs of magma which welled up and solidified inside softer rock, which has since eroded away) are visible here: 1292' tall Cerro San Luis Obispo and, in the distance behind it, 1559' Bishop Peak.
