"It was a dog, but it was MY dog! "

Like Benny Greathouse, my personal favorite class K-36 was 484. It was simply a great, dependable and predictable engine. It was also a good rider, and was a "San Juan" engine, after most of the 470s vacated to the Frozen North. Its only problem is it seemed to have a perennial problem with its injectors. I worked on the 488, day after day. it was also a very dependable locomotive, but inhaled coal and was very wore-out when I last worked it, in 1995. I used the quote above whenever Mad Jack would come out of the engine house to aske me how it ran that day.

Even the worst 480s were good locomotives. They all tracked rough, were dirty engines, and were not comfortable to run. However, they were like an old Chevy, tough, overbuilt power capable of getting any load over the road, with fewer mechanical problems than other locomotives.