Fresno Yard, April 1964
Every picture tells a story.

The first time I saw Dick Steinheimer's cab side view of 9008 was in a February 1966 Trains Magazine cover article entitled "Steinheimer and the SP." Stein needs little introduction to fans of West Coast railroading in the postwar era, but suffice to say he remains one of the greatest photojournalists of the Southern Pacific railroad, and one of the great railroad photographers of the ages.

But I always wondered: here's a brand-new, comfy K-M still smelling like a new Mercedes, it's a nice Spring day -- so why the long faces in the cab? When we got a chance to really study these wonderful Stein shots of SP 9008 waiting to depart Fresno Yard westbound as a single unit with tonnage, we saw something on closer inspection which might answer that question!

Notice in the three-quarter view that there's only one exhaust plume, as the Number One Maybach idles at a snappy 680 RPM -- but the Number Two Maybach is silent. Joe Strapac's SP Motive Power Annual 1968-1969 ran this same view, and his caption stated that the unit left Fresno on only "half of its horses." Now, forty-some years later we think we know where the other half went -- and maybe why!

If you take a close look under zoom, you can see a couple fascinating telltales: on the back wall, the big round gauge on the main instrument and control panel is the tachometer for the Number Two Maybach. The needle's pegged. Zero RPM is showing. And the bright white alarm light explains why: that's a low-water indication for the same prime mover. And if you look closely at the side view, you can see a Bad Order tag on the engine start switch:

So that's why these long faces. (We wonder how many tons are on the drawbar, and just how much our crew is looking forward to the slog ahead, maybe going dead-on-the-law instead of going home that night.)

But why did a brand-new unit, less than a month after delivery, throw a low-water alarm? Especially under all the maintenance scrutiny that was likely shining on the Newest Kids off the Boat?

We have a theory. It may be full of... hot water. But this is a stencil on one of the early units taken about a month later, and it may (we're not positive) be a closeup of unit 9008:

David Thelen

Notice the crisp German Federal Railways-style lettering on the right half -- and notice that the SP has quite obviously re-stenciled the lettering for 'Hopper' and 'No. 1 Engine' right over the top of the original K-M labels. It's apparent that from the factory, those identifiers were transposed. (The second photo is of the correct original K-M labeling on a different unit.)

Krauss-Maffei Werkfoto

We suspect... and only suspect, mind you... that 9008 was either mis-lettered at the factory, or mis-plumbed. If this happened with the Number One engine, it might have happened in the plumbing for the Number Two Maybach as well. So maybe that pesky No. 2 engine just couldn't get enough water from the fill hose. But something else was full to the brim and running over!

As we said... it's just a theory!

Thanks to the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, Ag1982.0233 for permission to share these photos, and to Richard Steinheimer for being there for all of us.