In early 1972 while having dinner with a friend after a day on a locomotive, he brought up a rather stunning subject to me. Turns out that there were supposed to be a few ex Southern Pacific locomotive boilers being used as stationary steam at a lumber mill in in the Sierra foothills East of Sacramento.

Inasmuch as he had gone clear down into Mexico on lost locomotive hunts, I was kinda surprised that he had not yet checked out this story himself.

After I told it to friend Greg Brahms, he said the right thing, " Let's go to Omo Ranch".
This locale is south of Placerville, CA and took a little driving on secondary roads to get to. Greg & I happened upon a log truck by the side of the road with a gent up top scaling the load. I got out and asked him about a mill and before he could answer, the unmistakable sound of an SP 6 chime whistle sounded from the valley down below. We both yelled thanks and hurried down there to find the nose of an AC type boiler sitting out from under a structure. Not only that, but it was under steam. Closer inspection showed a Baldwin builders plate and Superheater plate still on the smokebox and up in the air about 15 ft. on a long piece of pipe was that beautiful whistle. Also visible were the twin stacks and brackets for the compressors.

I took a few slides (one of which was later shown in a Winterail show in Stockton, CA around 2008 or so) and then we figured that the prudent thing to do was to get permission to be on the property.

The mill office was a very unpretentious little building and the owner, Glen Oviatt, was inside. Could we please look around? Sure, he answered. When I commented how unusual it seemed for the builders plate to still be on the smokebox, he asked, "well, do you want the damn thing?" There was a smile on his face as he said this and he bent over and pulled out some tools that were under his desk and handed me a hammer, chisel and big adjustable wrench. I asked what about the holes it'd leave when the plate was removed and he said don't worry about that.

So, I ended up with the plates. I soon gave the Superheater plate to Dan Ranger who had fired that type on the SP Western Division in 1956. This one was SP 4268, a 4-8-8-2.

Right next to the AC boiler was another under steam it "was off of a passenger engine". I later learned that it was an MT boiler, one of the dual purpose 4-8-2 types. There was a third boiler, but it was not under steam. The AC boiler was running at 150 lbs. pressure and being fed sawdust and chips from a Reddler conveyor. Water level was controlled by a level control valve like you'd see in a power plant Glen then drove us through the millyard to show us a fourth boiler, this one obviously out of service and it was off of one of the early AC types, a 4000 class.

This operation lasted here for a few more years and then the mill was moved, but the locomotive boilers did not survive to my knowledge.