Back in the early 70's, I was working a lot at Standard Oil's #1 Power Plant at the Richmond Refinery. Just outside the locker room to the old structure was the Santa Maria Loading Racks where tank cars of crude oil were unloaded.

The SP crews would often take their break inside our locker room...nobody had any problem with that and sometimes I'd have a little time to converse with them. Most of the guys looked to be old heads and all wore bibs. They left their SW-1500 idling outside while they visited.

One day I got to talking with this guy named Jack and he just up and offered me a shot at running the engine. The crew all grinned at this. When you're young, everything's a lark so I jumped at it. Technically, I was leaving my plant, but it was within earshot and I could hear my call whistle if I was needed.

Well, we get up on the engine and I sat down. When I got a signal, I went to move the thing and nothing happened. Jack kept a poker face, but I knew I was missing something and IIRC, it was the field switch, so I closed it and off we went. No air on the cars and I was slower than all get out, but it was a lot of fun. That little machine sure was designed well for that kind of work and they surely did last for years. They tried out a 4000 class RS-32, but she seemed to prefer spending more time on the ties than the rails.

The SW-1500s are gone, but I believe that the Loading Racks are still there. The Power Plant, built in 1936, is still running, but out of the seven 800 lb. boilers that we used to operate, I think 2 of them have been retired and are no longer used.