If you crop out the yellow turbine tender at the left, this might have been a Robert Hale photo, taken in Nebraska along US 30 in the 1950s. It's actually New Mexico, quite recently.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=143850

Pan photography is almost, but not quite, a lost art. Wonderful image.

The oval drivers were a new addition during the recent overhaul?

That shot looks "squeezed" horizontally, probably due to the digital image processing. Nice pic, though.

I guess I should know this, but I don't. Did the 844 (and sisters) originally run without the "elephant ears" or were they on the engines basically right from the start?

Les

I've seen photos of earlier 800s without the ears and the mars light, I do not know if this is true of 844. Always wondered what she'd look like today without. They've added them to 3985 a couple times.

Joshua

844 is about a year old in this photo, so if it didn't arrive with them, they were added quickly. If I understand correctly, 844 was converted from coal to oil in 1945, and that looks like coal in the tender to me, so the "wind wings" predate the conversion.

JAC