This image was scanned from Don Ball, Jr.'s America's Colorful Railroads, published by Bonanza Books in 1978 and now out of print. It shows the Alton's class P-16b Pacific No. 5296 during the brief time in 1947-48 when it operated with GM&O lettering on the tender. This locomotive was a member of a group of ten 4-6-2s erected in 1913 by Alco's Brooks Works as the Chicago & Alton's class I-6, numbered 650-659 (No. 5296 was originally No. 656). They had 77-inch drivers, 25x28-inch cylinders, and 200 pounds per square inch of boiler pressure. With a grate area of 70 square feet, they developed 42,500 pounds of tractive force and weighed 127 tons.

Under Baltimore & Ohio ownership these engines were renumbered 5290-5299 and reclassified to P-16. Seven of these locomotives were modernized in 1943-44 with thermic siphons, new superheaters and Worthington feedwater heaters — note also the disc main driver — and again reclassified as P-16A and P-16B. In this rare color view by Richard R. Wallin the freshly shopped No. 5296 (P-16B) leaves Brighton, Illinois with the southbound Alton Limited in March 1947.