John West ---
That is a very nice photo!

The smoke can be PhotoShopped out and replaced with
a nice plume of white (or grayish) condensing steam.

I, too, DETEST all that thick black smoke. It was
quite justifiably a huge No-No in the steam era because
it both wastes fuel (that black smoke some of you love
so much is unburned fuel) and makes the engine --
temporarily -- a poor steamer (because putting more fuel
into the firebox than the engine can burn soots up the
flues and tubes, and, because soot is a pretty good
insulator, it inhibits heat transfer from the interior
of those tubes and flues to the water in the boiler).

Operators of steam locomotives who unnecessarily made
them smoke have been mis-educating the public for the
past 80 years.

Very few people now realize that steam locomotives do
NOT need to make thick clouds of black smoke in order
to run. To give one example,the SP required its oil-
burning steam locomotives to run with only a slight
brownish haze above the stack. And even a coal-burner
can run with a a pretty clear stack, even when working
hard -- if she had both good coaland an excellent fireman.
For a good example of this, lease look at videos of the
NKP 765 going UP the grade around Horseshow Curve with a
heavy train. It was cold then, and she only made a
beautiful plume of white condensing steam -- it wasn't
even grey! And, yes, she WAS doing ALL the work! (That
is a point of pride to her crew.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4bGc3UsMpg

Long ago, qwhen movie film was very expensive, steam
locomotive crews willingly made black smoke for
photograhers, because showing that a train had a
long plume of black smoke was then the only way those
photographers could show that that train was moving.

But that was then. This is now.

IMO, it is way past time to kick the smoke habit --before
it kicks all of us who love steam locomotives where we can't
stand to be kicked -- by creating public pressure to stop
operating “those dirty steam locomotives”.