ON Ardendale Road, north of San Gabriel, California, passing motorists are treated to a sight which makes them stare, blink their eyes, and then stare again.
Puffing through the orange groves they see a ghost of the past. It is the locomotive, “Sidney Dillon,” gaudily painted and guilded relic of one of the most romantic eras in railroading’s history.
From cab to cowcatcher this baby iron horse is all there.
Photographed for MI by Peter Gowland.
FOR W.A. COOPER of Arcadia, Calif., an ex-Canadian Pacific machinist, small steam locomotives have been a lifetime preoccupation. At 14 he built a model engine entirely of wood; the smooth little American 4-4-0 he now operates is a far cry from that.