During the early days of the D&S in Durango, I (as the day engine watchman) used to spend lots of time in the sand house. In the later days of the Rio Grande, they would spread sand on the floor to dry, then screen and blow it up in the hopper as needed. That was more than enough sand to take care of the 2 trains to Silverton.

After Mr. Bradshaw purchased the railroad and added more trains, we had to go back to firing up the stove and drying the sand. The procedure was to shovel the sand in the holding hopper around the stove, as the sand dried it would fall to the floor. The dried sand was then screened through the angled screen into the hopper storage area. The sand that did not go through the screen was shoveled off the floor and screened again. What was left after the second screening was shoveled out the back door. The dried and screened sand was then shoveled into the underground hopper and then blown up into the sand tower hopper. As you can see this was very labor intensive. When we were at up to 4 trains in the summer season, we had to start getting sand dried and screened for storage around March and keep up with it all through the summer season. At that time, if anybody ran out of something to do in the shop you were expected to go work in the sand house. We were trying to convince management to purchase bagged dry sand, as it would have had to be more economical (and easier).

When some of us got frustrated, we decided that we would build a fire in the stove so hot, that maybe it would ruin the stove without burning down the building. We did. The stove pipe was cherry red all the way through the roof! The cast iron stove broke into about 20 pieces when it cooled (oops). Honest, it was an accident! Anyway, Bradshaw said that if a replacement stove could not be found, they would go to bagged sand. Heck, who was going to have a coal fired stove specialized for drying sand for an 1881 sand house? We were confident that our days of shoveling in the sand house were done. Well, dang if they didn't get a catalogue for stoves of every kind you could think of, including sand drying stoves. They ordered one that was newer and with a larger capacity for drying! Now we had to lift the sand even higher! Oh well.

The stove is still in that old sand house even though it is not used anymore. Boy, what a memory.

Mike Ramsey
D&S Engine Watchman (Ret)