Our Santa Fe freight train is in Victorville, California, the last town we’ll pass through before reaching our destination in San Bernardino. There is a lot of activity here, and Jack Delano photographed this Union Pacific freight train as it passed by on a nearby track. The U.P. has trackage rights over the Santa Fe between San Bernardino and Daggett, California (just east of Barstow), so these scenes are quite common.

The U.P. steam locomotive is interesting. It’s a 4-10-2 type, and was originally a Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad class FTT-1 three cylinder locomotive built by Alco in 1925. In 1942 the U.P. rebuilt the ten locomotives in this class to twin cylinder locomotives, removing the center cylinder and valve gear, and raising the boiler pressure to help offset the reduction in cylinder volume. In this rebuilt form they had new 27″ x 32″ cylinders running under 230 p.s.i. of steam pressure. Their drivers were 63″ in diameter, and tractive effort in re-built form was 72,391 lbs. This image recorded in March of 1943 shows the locomotive relatively fresh out of the shops. She would be taken out of service in 1949.