In what looks like a railroad publicity photo, Southern Pacific class GS-6 4-8-4 No. 4467 poses outside the Sacramento shops in June 1944. Appearances are deceiving, however, and this photo was actually created as a prank perpetrated by one SP locomotive photo collector upon a rival collector who claimed to have more photos than anyone else. The engine had just been through the shop but the left side of the tender had not yet been lettered, so the photographer persuaded the paint shop foreman to apply a freight car herald to the tender. Once the photo was taken the fake paint was promptly removed, but the photo was sent as a postcard to the other collector with the desired effect of surprise. Taylor Rush posted the photo on the "Steam Locomotive Photographs" Facebook page on January 1, 2024, and gave permission for it to appear here; Caoimhín Kevin Bunker commented with the background information about the prank. (I guess we could call this an early instance of "photoshopping," without the software.)

These SP GS-6 "war baby" 4-8-4s had a booster to augment their tractive effort when starting, and like other SP 4-8-4s they were oil-fired. They had 27x30-inch cylinders, a grate area of 90 square feet, 4855 square feet of evaporative heating surface, and 1835 square feet of superheater surface.