I was watching Back to the Future part three the other day and saw these two engines.
In the movie the Protagonist drives his Delorean time machine to the year 1885. Indians shoot arrows at the car puncturing the gas tank. So they invent the first hirail car. They push the delorean up to 88 mph with a steam locomotive, driving it over an incomplete bridge. He appears back in 1985 with the delorean on the tracks. He crosses the now complete bridge and goes through a few crossings. The deloreans stop right in front of a freight train moving in the other direction. The train is led by 2 end cab switchers… I don’t recognize their models. They defiantly aren’t EMD, and in the 80’s non EMD switchers were common. Here is the video, what mode are these diesels, do you know what line they worked for? You can almost see the Reporting marks on the last box car.
First two are from SP’s first order for Alco S-6’s, delivered with “Switcher package” and assigned to Los Angeles Division. Latter was from SP’s second order for S-6’s and was delivered with SP specified “road package” which included factory installed gyralites and classifiaction lamps, train indicators, and other items for road service. Unit wound up assigned to Los Angeles Division as switch engine after al that.
And according to the movie, apparently trains don’t have to stop after destroying a car. Now the fancy steam engine that shows up later… that’s just another story.