Watching the local roll past. A citizen in a residential neighborhood gets a close look at a Southern Railway local mixed train as she rolls into town to drop some loads for area businesses. The power on this train is Southern Railway Locomotive #401, an 82-ton Baldwin H-4 Class Consolidation Locomotive, built in Philadelphia in 1907. She served the South from 1907 to 1949....a 42-year career, before she was considered obsolete and retired. Forty two years would be quite a career for any steam locomotive, but the 401 still had some life in her. She did another 14-years at Alabama Asphaltic Limestone Company as a yard goat before finally being retired in 1965. It would be 45 years before she'd turn a wheel again, but she's found a retirement gig at the Monticello Railway Museum, in Monticello, IL. Today, she hauls museum patrons on short excursion. In the scene pictured here, she's actually performing on a photo charter for Southern Rail Productions.
