The Making of "Heavy Traffic on the Valley Pike"

I moved my viewpoint to street level instead of an elevation and showed Engine 208 making the final turn just before arriving at the Strasburg railroad yards. I was also able to include a view of the iconic Signal Knob peak in the painting. – Mort Künstler

To the right of the painting, pictured in a red kepi, rides Captain Thomas Robinson Sharp, an Assistant Quartermaster in the Confederate army and the officer in charge of the operation. Raised in a railroad family, Sharp had held supervisory positions at five southern railroads including the Virginia & Tennessee and Alabama & Florida.