Re: New D&S Sandhouse

I don't have as much experience with the old sand house as some of the guys on the D&S, but I do have a few "fond" memories of it.....namely I remember that I did not want anything to do with it. As most know, Eureka is light on her feet, and when pulling any sort of a load up the hill had a voracious desire for sand. The overhaning delivery pipe never could work for us because it was to high for Eureka's dome. So, we had to shovel the stuff into buckets, and then by hand pass them up to the dome. Damn, those things were heavy!!
Then after we got on the road we often found the sand was never dried, and between that and the boiler heat causing condensation it turned the sand to the soaked consistency of beach sand. It was miserable stuff. It would never flow down the pipes, and had to be taken out of the dome with a coffee can. I can tell you, that dome holds one hulluva lot of coffee cans of sand!
We did all sorts of things to try to get it to flow, but it was always hopeless. Sometimes one of the guys, me included would ride on the running boards and try to stir the dome contents and beat the side of the deliverly lines with the brake club. Nothing worked well.
Then, a couple years ago, the dry sand started showing up. Man, that was wonderful stuff!!! It was not nearly as heavy, and it flowed well down the gravity pipes to the tracks like it is supposed to. Haven't had any problems since then, and am thankful for it. But as for the sand house, there were times when I wondered why it was even there.
Dan Markoff