This week we take a close look at Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge number 18 at the Great Western Steam Up
18 was retired in 1958 and placed in the park in Independence California. Then in 2009 a volunteer group restoring the SP facilities in Laws California acquired the locomotive and started restoration, finishing in 2017. The group has restored or rebuilt much of the SP shops at Laws as well as laying about 1000 feet of track.
No. 18 was originally built in 1911 for the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway (NCO) as No. 12 until it was sold to Southern Pacific (SP) in 1926. It was renumbered to 18 and worked the rest of its career on SP's narrow-gauge lines along with sister locomotives Nos. 8 and 9, serving the desert areas of Nevada and California.
No. 9 was the last SP narrow-gauge steam locomotive to retire and pull a passenger train, with the last day of steam operation on the narrow-gauge line being August 25, 1959 and was retired a year later.
Then, in early November 2018, No. 18 was leased to the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG) in Durango, Colorado to train the crew on an oil burning steam locomotive, as the D&SNG is restoring K-37 No. 493 to operating condition while also converting the locomotive from burning coal to burning fuel oil.