Santa Rosa & Pacific Wrote:
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> Dan, I have an excellent model of the Eureka &
> Palisade that I run on my backyard G scale layout
> along our fence line. It appears to be nearly
> identical to the "Sonoma" that has been restored
> for display at the California State RR Museum in
> Sacramento. The model is a strong engine, and like
> to pull a few cars with it. I've seen pictures of
> your prototype engine with one large, heavy
> passenger car and a caboose. Can you tell me how
> many cars the locomotive will pull, and how often
> it is necessary to restock the wood and refill the
> water? John in Santa Rosa
It ought to appear nearly identical to "Sonoma"--they're the same class of locomotive, built to the same plans and generally similar finish less than a year apart.
I can't speak for Dan, but there are a few things to consider:
1: "Eureka" is a priceless antique....I doubt Mr. Markoff has ever been inclined to thrash it. As such he's probably never pushed it to its limit.
2: Modern (even WW1-era) freight and passenger cars weigh a lot more than 1870's equipment did.
3: "How many cars will it pull?" also depends heavily on the grade of a given route. 4-4-0's are somewhat allergic to steep grades.
4: Period photographs of this class of locomotive (there were dozens of them built and they ran all over the United States and elsewhere) typically show them with trains of up to about 6 cars. More would've been possible, especially on downgrade runs or hauling empties, but 3-5 seemed to be the norm. *
5: Range on fuel and water depends on a huge number of variables. As a general rule for a low-pressure saturated steam locomotive with a smallish (typically 1000 gallon as-built) tender, the answer will be some variant of, "not particularly far," but still with significant variance based on load, grade, speed, fuel quality, and so forth.
*The Nevada County Narrow Gauge operated a pair of slightly smaller locomotives (11x16 vs 12x16) with which it regularly hauled trains of 5 loaded cars over a grade of about 2.2 per cent plus curvature. This is useful for the sake of comparison.