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
