Re: Eureka & Palisade combine

Hi Jeff,
The original car still exists, but it is derelict. It is literally falling apart. However, long before its decline I started making dimensional drawings of all the components of the car. I must have made some 150 to 200 of them all on legal pads. From those drawings I have resurrected the combine as you see it.

I should mention that the original car was built as a full coach. It was sometime in the early 20th century it was made into a combine. I chose to make my car as a combine because for my purposes it is more practical. I can carry tools and equipment in the baggage end along with anything I want to. It is much easier to load things through the large baggage doors than it is to squeeze them through the car end doors. Also, the original car because it is a conversion into a combine has some structural considerations that could be done better. By starting out to build my car as a combine I could correct those things I thought deficient and make it stronger. Other than that, the car is exactly the same dimensions as the original right down to exact reproductions of all the window latches and finger pulls.

I do not intend to use the car to carry passengers. It is to be strictly private for a number of reasons. One is because I will not use it regularly, and it is meant to merely visually compliment Eureka historically, and give folks an idea of what a Victorian car looked like behing the locomotive. It a historical and educational car in that context.

Also, it will have air brakes. All the interior hardware, such as lamps and the stove have been made and await installation.

Dan Markoff