Current Status
After Southern Pacific retired 745 in 1956, SP donated 745 for display in Audubon Park in New Orleans. It remained there until 1984, when it was removed to make room for possible expansion of the Audubon Zoo. Ownership was transferred to the Old Kenner Railroad Association, and then the Louisiana Railway Heritage Trust. Its lease to the Louisiana Steam Train Association (LASTA) obtained the labor (volunteer and professional) and funds to restore it, and the Trust made 745 available to LASTA. In December 2004, SP 745 conducted its first main-line operations in forty-eight years, running to Reserve, LA and back over the Kansas City Southern Railway with William H. Johnson, engineer and David Bartee, fireman, as engine crew. Since then SP 745 has toured Louisiana and southwest Mississippi, and visited Kansas City, Missouri and several nearby towns. It is usually present at LASTA's yard in Jefferson (near New Orleans), Louisiana, across from Ochsner Medical Center.
SP 745 was used in two films. One was the Brad Pitt / Cate Blanchett movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for which it was painted to look like a Southern Railway locomotive. The second was Jonah Hex.
Read more about this topic: Southern Pacific 745
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