Re: Sand drying equipment at Durango?

Yes, it is all pretty straight forward:

*Unlocad wet sand (by hand) from car into bins,
*Hand Shovel wet sand into dry room floor with stove,
*Hand Shovel wet sand into large screen hopper that is surrounding large cast iron stove,
*Build large fire in stove. As sand dries, it sifts through the screen hopper onto dry room floor,
*Hand shovel dry sand through screen into screened sand room,
*Hand shovel dry/screened sand into underground hopper, located under screened sand room,
*Lift dry/screened sand via air pressure to upper hopper for eventual delivery to locomotive sand dome.
*Repeat

The Sargent, CO sandhouse was different as it did not have an underground hopper or tower to deliver the sand directly to the sand dome. Not sure if it was screeded sand, or just dried, but my guess is dried only. The wet sand storage bins were also covered. It looks like from photos that there were raised platforms inside the sandhouse at the same level as the delivery doors. The dried sand was just shoveled into buckets and lifted onto the running board from these doors for lifting by the crew and depositing into the sand dome. It looks like from photos that one door was modified vertically with higher doors so as to be able to reach the higher running boards on the larger locomotives being used in later years.




MD Ramsey