Actually, 476 was the "pet" engine of R.D. Shock, who was the senior engineer on the Silverton Branch for many years up to his retirement in about '67.
In the Winter months, Shock ran a switch engine in Alamosa, and he checked on the '76 every day and bitched like Hell if he found something he didn't like.
Shock always ran first section, and almost always had the '76, so in the 60's it was quite unusual to find even a postcard of anything that wasn't 476. 476 was also on almost every other item that depicted an engine number. Woody says that in his last year, Shock asked him to wear new white gloves so he could see his signals. He was found to be legally blind, and was unable to drive upon retirement. His firemen always watched his curves for him to help out. Fortunately, there was never an accident.
When Shock retired, Andy Payne held seniority a lot of the time on the Silverton Branch. Payne had cut his teeth as engineer on the 473, dating back to times when, as lowest in seniority, he was stuck with the '73 in helper service. No one else liked running that engine in the 50's because of the power reverse. Payne liked the 473, and ran it a lot on second section behind Shock, and then in the 70's while he was there he ran 473 on first section most of the time. That's why 473 appears in most photographs, mugs, plates and other memorabilia from that time. There were times when engineers more senior than Payne ran first section after Shock retired, but Payne still liked 473 whenever he could get it.
478 ran the least of the three during both decades from what I saw, but ran more in the 70's than in the 60's.
Woody would probably say they all ran almost the same amount, and I'm sure he would be right, but that wasn't how it seemed to me in the time I spent there until later in the 70's. By then, Payne had moved on from the Silverton Branch.
But the bottom line is that there were two engineers that had definite "pet" engines, and that had a real bearing in which engines were most often seen.
