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Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Railroad |
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Rolling Stock
Paintings
SPNG in the Movies
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All material courtesy of Rich McCutchan unless otherwise noted.
See USE NOTICE on Home Page.
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A number of feature length Hollywood films have been made in the Owens valley, and several have included the narrow gauge. The line has appeared in "B" westerns with such stars as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Keeler has become "Crazy Horse, Nevada for a 1942 production. [RKO Studios] The narrow gauge played an important role in "Three Godfathers," starring John Wayne. The movie was made in the valley in 1949 and featured SP 9, flatcar 259 and combine 400. The film's train arrives at the fictional "Apache Wells, Arizona" tank. Film crews built the water tank and "weathered" the train to make it look even more dusty than usual. [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer] The Slim Princess was also used in the 1950's television series "Annie Oakley," [The Cinder Trail] "Bad Day at Black Rock' used scenes filmed on the "Jawbone line," and at Laws, while the 1965 Steve McQueen Paramount film "Nevada Smith" used Laws and the narrow gauge display train..
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Annie Oaklie - The Cinder Trail (Season 1/Episode 10)
March, 1954
Gail Davis /
Jimmy Hawkins / Paul Burns
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3 Godfathers - 1948
John Wayne / Harry Carey Jr. / Ward Bond
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Sinister Journey - 1948
(There is as LOT of Slim Princess and Keeler Depot action in this movie!)
William Boyd / Andy Clyde / Rand Brooks |
Bad Day at Blackrock - 1955
Spencer Tracy / Robert Ryan / Ann Francis / Dean Jagger /
Walter Brennan
Lee Marvin / Earnest Borgnine / Russell Collins
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Nevada Smith - 1966
Still action at the Laws RR Museum
Steve McQueen / Karl Malden / Suzanne Pleshette / Martin Landau
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Saga of Death Valley - 1939
Roy Rogers / George "Gabby" Hayes / Ann Meredith |
Flame of Barbary Coast - 1945
John Wayne / Ann Dvorak |
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The Blazing Sun - 1950
Gene Autry / Lynne Roberts / Anne Gwynne |
Greed - 1925
Gibson Gowland / Zasu Pitts /Jean Hersholt |
3 Godfathers - 1948
John Wayne / Harry Carey Jr. / Ward Bond
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Somebody at Keeler Station filming a western.
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Annie Oaklie - The Brass Collar (Season 1/Episode 1)
January, 1954
Gail Davis /
Jimmy Hawkins / Brad Johnson |
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The Gene Autry Show - Steel Ribbon (Season 3 / Episode 11)
September 1953
Gene Autry / Gail Davis
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A variety of "B" Westerns starring Gene Autry and Roy Rogers |
 01/23
Clint Eastwood's 1972 Malpaso Company's production of "Joe Kidd" - Here the gang is at SP Jawbone Branch Wee.
Starring - Clint Eastwood, Robert Duval, John Saxon, Stella Garcia, Don Stroud, James Wainwright, Pepe Hern and a host of other.
Filmed in the Alabama Hills, Sherwin Summit, Buttermilk Country, and Inyo National Forest. There is even a scene somewhere along the SP Standard Gauge tracks between
Lone Pine and Owenyo where Duval's gang crosses over the SP tracks.
Though not filmed in Owens Valley, I love the scene near the end of the movie where Joe Kidd drives the locomotive clean through a building into a bar where he then shoots a few of the bad guys.
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Owens Valley vestige - Engine No. 9
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Sunset Water Stop
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Southern Pacific 1 derrick at Mina - circa 1936
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Southern Pacific 1-A wheel car.
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Combine 1-B - housed the wrecking crew.
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Water tank car 350.
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Baggage Car 12 being used as crew quarters in Keeler - circa 1946
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Southern Pacific Flanger 108 at Laws - circa 1940
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Caboose coach built in 1880 and retired in 1939. |
Tank car 61 at Keeler.
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Southern Pacific water car at Owenyo - circa 1954
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SP 1-D crew car at Mina in 1936
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Southern Pacific narrow-gauge boxcar number 2 in Keeler. This ancient piece of equipment was photographed, I believe, around 1948 based on the service date on the air reservoir. Notice the somewhat unusual Southern Pacific Lines logo on the "B" end of the car.
(Photo and text courtesy Mark Van Klaveren) |
February 22, 1954 at Owenyo.
(Photo courtesy of Mark Van Klaveren) |
Photo of combination/caboose #SP401 before a crew member partially fell through the clerestory roof ine 1953 and the entire roof was rebuilt resembling a box car style roof
(Photo & text courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Caboose 467 at Keeler, CA - 1942 |
SP car #20 at Owenyo |
08/21
SP car #467 at Owenyo
(Photo courtesy of Dennis Burke)
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08/21
SP car #467 with locomotive #22 at Laws.
During the 1946/47 renumbering of SPNG equipment caboose #467 was renumbered 402 per our SP car registry but it was never stenciled for #402
(Photo courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
03/22
S.P. 54
(Photo courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
03/22
Tank car being filled with water
(Photo courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
03/22 
S.P. 133
(Photo courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
06/22
This is SPNG caboose #401 when she was MofW 1 B taken at Mina with a fresh coat of paint and stenciling. She looks good here.
(Photo and text courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
06/22
Here is a very interesting image of combine/caboose #401 sitting on the old Owenyo turntable spur in 1947 after the turntable had been removed years prior and a dirt berm was set to block the end of track. Notice in this image #401 is sitting on two different trucks. One a 5 ft passenger truck and and the other a leaf spring thielsen truck. Prior to this photograph being taken she was involved in a derailment that was either caused by the missing passenger truck or another reason and the one passenger truck was damaged and replaced by the thielsen truck. Anyhow, she sat on this spur for a short time while combine/caboose #400 took over the caboose duties. Soon #400 was in too bad of shape to continue on and the remaining passenger truck on #401 was replaced with a 2nd thielson and was put back into service. In 1953 one of the crew members stepped or fell through the clerestory roof and it was replaced at Owenyo with a box car style roof. The car was donated to the County of Inyo in 1960.
SPNG combine/caboose was constructed in 1883 by the Carter Brothers for the San Joaquin & Sierra Nevada RR, later to become the Nevada Northern Ry. After that she spent time on the South Pacific Coast RR before she was sent over the the Nevada & California RR (SPNG) as their #8. While on the SPNG she carried several numbers one of them being 1-B when she was part of the MofW train with the derrick car, wheel car 1-A, and others.
(Photo and text courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
06/22
Here is an image of the SPNG Derrick car MW1 that Brian Norden had spoke of taken at Mina. She is coupled up the the MW train which consisted of the Derrick car, wheel car 1-A, 1-B which we have already covered, box tool car 1C, and crew car 1D.....Note that box tool car 1C is now in Independence owned by the C&CRy..also the metal remains of wheel car 1-A is at the NCNGRR Museum.............It is very interesting that the Derrick car is actually an ex Central Pacific standard gauge derrick that was no longer needed on the mainline and was transfered to the SPNG and NG trucks placed under her.......She never made it to the Owens Valley as she was to large,wide, to make it through the Montgomery Pass tunnel. She was an hand cranked derrick. Not very heavy duty rated....Coupled to the derrick car is wheel car 1-A.
(Photo and text courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
06/22
1-A.
(Photo courtesy of Sam Antell) |
06/22 
Weathered SPNG box cars
(Photo courtesy of Dennis Burke) |
08/22
Rolling stock in Owenyo
(Photo courtesy of Andrew Brandon) |
Speeders on the SPNG
(Photos courtesy of Mark Van Klaveren) |
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09/21
SPNG boxcar #2 |
SPNG boxcar #7 |
SPNG car #12 |
SPNG car #12 |
SPNG boxcar #44 |
SPNG boxcar #52 |
SPNB boxcar #55 |
SPNG stockcar #161 |
SPNG tank car #354 |
SPNG car #401 |
SPNG flatbed car #259 - used for hauling telephone poles.
Paul Gomez writes:
A memorable photo. The house in the background with the partially white picket fence was my grandparent's home for many years. I spent many wonderful hours visiting them in their "boxcar" house. My grandfather retired from Southern Pacific RR Company after 30 years. His last place of employment with SP was Owenyo until the narrow guage line was abandoned in 1960.
August 2021 |
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12/22
03/25
Gene Kille photographed Southern Pacific narrow gauge boxcar No. 34 at Laws, Claifornia on January 14, 1942.
No. 34 is one of the former Florence & Cripple Creek cars that were purchased by the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway in 1915. On the N-C-O and the F&CC this was boxcar No. 549. Fifteen of these box cars arrived on the Southern Pacific during October and November of 1928 from the N-C-O and were numbered 26 thru 40. They were 20 ton cars and all were 30'-3" long. The cars were constructed by the American Car & Foundry Company.
One of the prominent features of this car is the black circle of the SP's circular herald; just about all of the white lettering and circles has weathered away. Elsewhere on the car, at the top of the door, a remnant of the N-C-O initials is barely visible.
The car was weighed at Keeler during October, 1932. The journal boxes were repacked 4-28-39 at Owenyo and the air brake was service 10-28-040, also at Owenyo. The carmen dutifully added the initials SP next to the servicing datges, the same as required on all SP standard gauge cars.
All but one of the cars were scrapped in Owenyo in 1955. The one survivor, SP No. 26, went to Universal Studios in 1955 and later made its way to the Nevada County Narrow Gauge RR Museum where she has been fully restored as NCNGRR No. 142. The NCNG never had a boxcar numbered 142, the fictional number representing the next number in the series of former F&CC/N-C-O boxcars operated on the railroad.
(Photo and text courtesy of the Journal of the Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Historical Society)
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On September 23, 1942, Gene Kille found Southern Pacific stock car No. 162 at Zurich station. Zurich was an original depot on the Carson & Colorado name "Alvord."
The car started out as C&C flat car No. 72. The C&C rebuilt it into a roofless stock car, retaining the same number. In 1916 the car was rebuilt at the Sparks, Nevada, shops of the Southern pacific into the car shown here. It was re-numbered 162.
At the end of the narrow gauge in Owens Valley it was sold to William Harrah (Harrah's Auto Museum) and relocated to the grounds of his auto Museum in Sparks, Nevada. After Mr. Harrah's death in 1978, the auto collection along with some of the railroad equipment was sold in a series of auctions between 1984 and 1986. The remainder of the railroad equipment, including No. 162, was donated in 1986 to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City.
Although the car was stored at the Museum out of the weather, it suffered from previous outdoor storage in Reno. NSRM dismantled the car in the spring of 2019,and over the next year restored it as operable C&C Flat Car No. 72. During the summer of 2021 the museum converted the car into a riding car for use behind the C&TL&F Glenbrook and other narrow guage locomotives.
(Photo and text courtesy of the Journal of the Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Historical Society) |
SP tank 58, originally SP/NRy flat car 661 built in SP Sacramento Shops, to SP tank car 661 in 1903. SP/N&C 58, retired in 1940.
(Photo and text courtesy of the Journal of the Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Historical Society) |
SP boxcar 51 (SP/NRy 80 N&C/SP 365, rebuilt as 20 ton 30 foot car in 1924, SP 51 in 1946) and caboose 401 (former SJ&SN combine 1, SP/NRy 1009) in the Owens Valley in the 1950s.
(Photo and text courtesy of the Journal of the Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Historical Society) |
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