Nick, thank you for mentioning O'Connor Engineering. These two 1979 locomotives were, as I recall, the first standard gauge steam locomotives built in the USA since the N&W switchers of 1953. The point that is never mentioned that I see is that O'Connor Engineering, founder by now deceased Chad O'Connor, is the preeminent supplier of motion picture tripod fluid heads. In my career in the movies they were my preferred pice of gear. Chad had the assistance of Ward Kimball who painted the special scenes on the locomotives and Gerald Best, railroad historian extraordinaire and movie sound engineer. In creating these magnificent locomotives for the National Park Service, it was as though these three movie men sought to right all the wrongs Hollywood had ever perpetrated regarding railroads.
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