Talking about all those sparks and actually some fire under the drivers: In the late 1970's in Ft Worth's T&P yard two SW-7's had hold of about 100 cars and were pulling them over the hump crest into the receiving yard. They were being run by a fella on his last day before retirement. He had those units in run 8, sparks were flying from all wheels on both units. It literally lit up the yard and you would not believe the firey carbon being exhausted up in the air. It looked like a thousand roman candles all going off at one time. They kept doing that for over a half mile before he throttled down. He never once used any sand. I was slowly driving west on Vickery Blvd watching the show.
I heard he said "I always wanted to do that".