Night moves. The crew of Southern Pacific Locomotive #18 stops to confer with their colleagues on SP Locomotive #9, as their two freights pass each other in the yard at Laws, California.
This image was captured during a March, 2023 photo shoot at the Laws Museum, near Bishop, CA, organized by Lerro Photography. Although Locomotive #9 hasn't had a fire in her since the demise of the Southern Pacific narrow gauge back in 1960, this image almost makes her look alive again. For the purposes of this photo shoot, her headlamp was lit with an LED bulb. Steam effects were created by having the crew of the SP #18 open their cylinder cocks, which put steam on both sides of the 9. The one, crowning touch which we were not able to do, was create some smoke from the stack. Charter organizer Pete Lerro had plans for that and went to great lengths to acquire white smoke sticks, which are a low-level firework product that does not fly or explode, but produces copious amounts of white smoke. The museum had granted permission to use them, and procedures had been designed to ensure no harm would be done to either the locomotive or the grounds, but sadly, at the last minute, Inyo County denied their permission. Eleventh hour appeals by several third parties were made to try to get the county to reverse their decision, but they were not successful. Maybe next time....
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
Images from the March, 2023 Lerro Photography photo shoots at the Laws Museum, near Bishop, California, featuring the Southern Pacific's Baldwin 10-wheeler #18 on her second visit since her 2017 restoration.
