McCloud 18 is a transplant to these parts, arriving at the "New V&T" a few years ago. Initially, I had some misgivings about seeing a California Log-Hog operating on this storied line, because.....well because she just doesn't look like a V&T engine. She doesn't have the slim, pretty lines that the V&T 25, 26 and 27 were showing off in the last days of the original railroad. That said....the 18 puts on a marvelous show, and of the two steamers we saw on this 2014 Lerro Productions Charter, I suspect that she was the hands-down favorite among the photographers. The massive, open-pit mine that she's passing in this photo didn't exist when the original railroad was removed. Crossing it was the biggest obstacle that the Nevada State Commission faced in the reconstruction of the Virginia City Branch as a tourist line. The train is running on a massive fill constructed of 300,000 cubic yards of earth and stone, which now bridges the eastern side of the Overman Pit. Although the project has not returned the land to its historic state, it has turned a man-made eye-sore into something that has a spectacular beauty all its own.