Marching down the New Mexico mainline of Southern Pacific comes a big 2-8-8-4, looking "right nice" with the cab behind the boiler, and real coal heaped high on that tall-sided tender back there. She's AC-9 Class #3800, a mighty four-cylinder steam locomotive produced by the Lima Locomotive Works in 1939 for Southern Pacific. She's high, wide and handsome, this one, with her statuesque grandeur, her stance of great power unleashed, her striped cowcatcher pilot, her sky-lining, and swivelling front cylinder deck. First, of twelve such ponderous powerful pachyderms, she is in her own way a thing of graceful beauty. Photo by Southern Pacific Railroad Publicity Department and my collection.
