Brooklyn Yard May, 1964

Model builders and locomotive restoration teams have at least one thing in common: a need for good detail photography.

K-M's factory photos were well-shot and the negatives are quite detailed.  And many in-service shots by railfan photographers also reveal a wealth of information for K-M students.  But film wasn't nearly as cheap then as digital storage capacity is today, and exposures were carefully measured out back in those days.  The subjects were also rare and elusive.  So for forty-some years the fan world at large didn't have a source of detailed photographs of every panel and every quadrant of the K-M hood units.  Those are commonly called "walkarounds" , and when we were first building this website,  here's how we addressed the scarcity:  "We're still waiting for that full series of walkaround photos, and we'll probably wait for a long time".

Those resigned words were barely a week old when we received an email from Lou Thelen.  His brother David might have taken such a series of photos back in 1964 when the hood units still smelled of fresh paint, and were we interested?

Yes, we were, to say the least.

Lou's brother had a buddy from the Air Force who was the son of an official of the San Francisco Belt Railway.  This got them a tour of Southen Pacific's Brooklyn, Oregon  roundhouse.  David was "a bit of a railfan", says Lou, and they all knew of the K-M's and watched them go through Salem.  David and his friend made the trip up Portland way.  Lou elected to go fishing with their Dad instead.

Lou's decision to pass on the K-M's has been exonerated by his gracious offering of brother David's photography.  Four hood units were photographed that day -- 9003, 9005. 9009 and 9013.  (David also photographed both the SP and Rio Grande 1961 untis that day -- they'll appear on the Cab Units history page, a work in progress).

These early in-service K-M hood unit photos will be a cornerstone of research for the reconstruction of SP 9010.  We thank David Thelen for his efforts then, and brother Lou Thelen for his generosity now.

(That's David sitting in the cab of 9013).

The Walkaround

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