Remember well the 1006. Of course it handled all freight on the NWP south of the San Rafael Tunnel through the 1960s starting that tunnel was destroyed by saboteurs in 1959 and not reopened for nearly 20 years, finally opening to rail and bike traffic in 1974 when the abandonment of the Sausalito Branch occured.

It was a deal with the Feds: shut down Sausalito in exchange for opening the San Rafael Tunnel.

You could find 1006 sitting on the rails and old sleepers in San Rafael in the Lost Decade known as the 1960s.

Later it brought 2472 to Larkspur where that now restored engine sat oxidating on the sleepers as lorries trundled by on 101 high above it where I saw it--eyewitness account--highly often, sitting amid the flowers that Larkspur is named for.

I was the first railfan I believe to advocate for and envision the rehabbing of 2472, visiting early SMART board meetings in 1969-72 to speak out for fixing it for commute service. So I take a great deal of pride in what we have accomplished in rebuilding that engine--first in Concord, later in Martinez where it sat on a spur across from the station, then moving to other places and now at the NWP where it sits on the sleepers in sleepy Schellville soon to be in work on daily Beer Train service from Larkspur to Cloverdale nightly.

Of course I am speaking about the SP, formerly NWP line (NWP became SP in 1946, after NWP sold itself to SP in exchange for a share in the ATSF subsidiary Richmond Pacific Railroad--merger between the Northwester Pacific and Richmond Bay Railroad which is why the railroad today is called "Richmond Pacific".