Can't read the engine number. Possibly the last excursion of 4460, from the Oakland Mole?

http://cgi.ebay.com/1957-SOUTHERN-PACIF ... otohosting

Jeez, that seller has a creepy screen name. Dead people's stuff.

It looks like train #224, the westbound Senator to Sacramento. In 1952, this train left the mole at 7.45AM. An excursion would have been an extra and it would say X44?? in the train number indicator boards. I am not wise enough in the way of SP 4-8-4s to tell if its a GS-6 from the picture without knowing the number. With the single headlight, it could also be a GS-2 or 3, I think.

I have slides of SP 4460 in San Luis Obispo (CA) in May 1959. It was traveling "dead in train" eastbound on the Coast Line; according to the "engine messenger", en route to "a museum in St. Louis". I was in the yard area, with plans to take photos of the roundhouse, and an SP employee advised me that "the last steam locomotive to come down the Coast Line" was up the track. I was just a casual railfan in those days, but I realized this was something special and used up my film getting pictures of it. As the years went on, I became a "serious" railfan, and, when SP 4449 was restored to service in the mid-70's, wondered why I never saw any mention of 4460. Of course it turned out that 4460 wasn't the last steamer through San Luis: both 4449 and 2472 have run through the town in recent years. And after nearly half a century, I finally visited 4460 in its "retirement home", the Museum of Transportion in St. Louis, along with a vast assortment of railroad relics and an operating Chicago "L" car.