V&T goes to Hollywood

One of the locomotives from the Virginia and Truckee Railroad is being featured in a movie filming in Southern California.

The 90-ton McCloud No. 18 steam engine was shipped to Los Angeles on the back of a flatbed truck May 12 and will be featured in the film, "Water for Elephants," which is slated for a 2011 release.

In return, the movie studio will pay the Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the V&T Railway $70,000 and the right to use stills from the film to market the locomotive.

The film is based on a novel by Sara Gruen and chronicles a young man who works as a veterinarian on a circus train. The movie will star Robert Pattinson of the "Twilight" series and Reese Witherspoon of "Legally Blonde."

Tom Gray, the manger of the V&T Railroad, said the locomotive may be the only steam engine currently operating in Southern California, but then again, "You hear a lot of things."

It was a good size, we just got it reconditioned so it was operational," Gray said. "So it was a good fit."

Gray said the locomotive, made in 1914 by Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, will return to Carson City on July 2.

Gray added its use in the movie will give workers on the V&T Railroad a chance to work out some bugs before the peak of the tourism

season.