The Sumpter Valley didn't run much at night from all the records that I have seen. There are 3 exceptions. At one point, they ran a night crew out of Austin. The info I saw was from 1924. At that time lumber loads would have been coming into Autin from the OLC mill a mile away at Bates, this was just after the time WHEccles had moved to Idaho, with Gardener milling their remaining timber at Austin, and Baker White Pine was still operating their mill and Comapany town between Austin and Tipton. In other words it was a very busy period for lumber loads moving east on the rr. On the dispatchers sheet that I saw, 19 was the night engine. After being in use during the day, a new crew took over, and moved blocks of 5 lumber loads to Tipton. I am out of town, so am doing this from memory. They made two trips to Tipton, then took the 10 cars plus caboose down to Whitney, then took 5 loads to Larch, returned for the next 5 loads, then ran light (probably had the caboose) back to Austin, where they left 19 probably for serviceing for the day shift. The crew then took another one of the mikado's and made another trip with 5 cars. I don't recall how far up the line they moved that block of 5 before returning to Austin at the end of their shift. Over what span of years this night time procedure went on, I do not know.
The other exception where night time operation occurred regularly was the Baker Switch Job. Various reports show this crew often working 12-13 hours. I think they came on at 7:00AM and obviously didn't finish till 7:00-8:00 PM which in the winter time meant some hours of work in the dark. Photos of the sw. crew with engine 15 in the teens always have it with an oil brakeman's lantern hanging from the headlight. #14 was the sw. engine in the 20's and photos show it with a technological update, that is a battery brakeman's lantern hanging from the headlight. The photos were obviously in daytime, so the lanterns were just there at the ready for ther brakeman to grab once it got too dark for hand signals. The 3rd example of night operation would be simply when the typical east bound freigt move or even the Pass. #2 was headed in during the winter and darkness fell sometime before the trains reached S.Baker. Likey there were many occasions where night time operation occurred due to mech. failure, derailment and the like. The only thing crews would do differently on any railroad of the time would have been turning on the headlight, light the oil marker lamps, track workers would have as part of their reg. jobs to light sw. stand lights and signals would have to be given with lanterns.
