Re: Eureka

Hi John,
Eureka is almost identical to the Sonoma. They are both 8-18C Baldwin locomotives. Eureka was built in 1875 while Sonoma was constructed in 1876.

The passenger cars we pull on the D&S while 19th century construction have been heavily reinforced with a lot of steel and are therefore much heavier than they were originally. I think the average weight of those cars is in the neighborhood of 25 tons today. The passenger cars Eureka originally pulled was about 8 1/2 tons. So, one D&S car is about the equivalent of 3 original E&P cars. The passenger car I have built weighs about 9 tons, mostly due to very large axles. When you add in the caboose, Eureka pulls about 40 tons up the grade with power to spare. Therefore, I would estimate that of original cars Eureka can easily pull about a 5 or 6 car train up to Silverton. The other factors that must be considered are the grade, and tonnage of passengers in the cars. On the C&TS we pulled a 5 car train from Cumbres to Antonito. You must remember also that Eureka was built as a passenger locomotive and built more for speed rather than tonnage.

Water and wood all depend upon the tonnage and grade and the quality of the wood.. For instance going upgrade from Durango to Silverton is very different than going down grade from Silverton. Upgrade, there is not a water tank that I do not like. Usually, we take on water at Hermosa (12 miles from Durango) in preparation for the Hermosa grade. We take on wood at Rockwood and out next water stop is at Tank Creek. Our wood will normally get us to Needleton siding where we also take on water at Needleton tank, but sometimes we also get wood before then at Tacoma. The rule is that wood and water in storage beside the railroad is absolutely useless if we do not have it on board. Besides, passengers seem to enjoy participating in the wooding up exercise of helping load wood.

On the other hand, our mileage is much better heading downhill from Silverton. We can usually make it with no problem from Silverton to Tank Creek before taking on water, and then get more wood at either Tacoma or Rockwood for the remainder of the trip to Durango.

I have explained elsewhere that we have 4 grades of wood. Uphill wood, downhill wood. Death wood and atomic wood. The best wood is of course "atomic" wood. It is dry, but still has pitch in it that gives a very hot fire to such an extent that we can lift the safety valves going upgrade. Death wood is usually still somewhat green, and it is very hard, if not impossible to make steam even on a level grade. Uphill wood is adequate to get us up the grades without having to stop and build steam. Downhill wood is less effective, but is sufficient to keep up boiler pressure and run the air pump. Also, we carry a chain saw in case the wood is really crappy and we have to cut up some dead tree to get to our destination.

All in all going upgrade we stop about every 12 to 15 miles before taking on fuel. Downhill it is about double that.

I should mention that years ago we ran the US Gypsum railroad in Southern California. That railroad is almost dead level. Running light, that is no cars, we were able to get about 60 miles before getting low on fuel and water.

As you can see, there are a lot of variables. I hope this answers your questions.

Dan Markoff