Photographs of CPRR and UPRR in the book "Yonder Comes the Train"

From: "Michael Van Tosh" mvantosh@gmail.com

I have been interested in railroads since a very young age. I have visited your website and read through several portions of it, mainly focusing on CPRR steam locomotives, many times. Through a stroke of luck, I may be able to contribute something to your collection.

My grandmother is part of a large library in Long Island, which constantly discards older books to make room for newer ones. This has resulted in me amassing a small personal library of discard railroad texts, many of which have been printed in the 1960's to the 1990's. Today, my grandmother brought me a large, coffee-table sized book titled Yonder Comes the Train, first published in 1965. It has a section on the Transcontinental Railroad, which includes several pictures of Central Pacific and Union Pacific. A few of these are photographs I have never seen before online, such as a 3-quarter shot of El Gobernador, and a shot of T.D. Judah with a cowcatcher/pilot and huge headlight on its small tender, with a crew and pointing to the right. There are also several photographs of CP engines with 10 and 12-wheel tenders (two sets of 6 wheels) (CP locos No. 149 and No. 166), which I thought only became common in the middle of 20th century. Several photographs of early UP locomotives are also present, such as No. 1 General Sherman, No. 25 McQueen, and 4 unidentified engines plus No. 261 pushing a rotary snowplow.

I would be happy to list the contents of some of the more interesting photos, and email them to you. Most of the photos are listed as courtesy of the Union Pacific or Southern Pacific, so I'd assume they are part of their archives ...

—Michael