Webmaster's note: Looking at the buildings, we have some doubts about this; is it Lancaster?

According to the unidentified photographer's records, this is Southern Pacific Engine No. 3674 at Saugus, Calif., on March 29, 1936. BW negative, 2.5 x 4.25 inches.

The view would be from the Saugus Depot looking northwest.

Sign says HOTEL. Note the automobile on the street in front of it. Click to enlarge.

No. 3674 was a Class F-4 "Santa Fe"-type steam locomotive with a 2-10-2 wheel configuration.

The SP ordered 170 F-4s between 1917 and 1925 from various builders. No. 3674 was one of 50 ordered from Baldwin Locomotive Works in the fall of 1921. Baldwin held the order at its plant in Eddystone, Penn., until the last one was completed in the spring of 1922. It then shipped all of them together in a single train which it called the Prosperity Special. The train left Baldwin's plant on May 26, 1922, and arrived at Los Angeles on July 4.

The 50 locomotives (Nos. 3668-3717) remained on display at Exposition Park for two days. They were then put into service in the Los Angeles-Bakersfield section, a 171-mile run.

The F-4s had 63-inch diameter drivers, 29.5 x 32-inch cylinders, 200-psi boiler pressure, exerted 75,145 pounds of tractive effort, and weighed 398,000 pounds.

Of the 50 (Nos. 3668-3717), half were converted to coal firing in 1926-1927 and returned to oil firing between 1929 and 1946.

All 50 were scrapped between 1951 and 1958. Of the 182 F-4s made (including 12 for the Texas & New Orleans Railroad), only two survive on display in Houston and Union, Ill.

References: "The Locomotives That Baldwin Built" (1966); Gordon Glattenberg (pers. conv. 2017); espee.railfan.net; steamlocomotive.com.