For those who have wondered what has been going on with Eureka, I thought I would let everyone know that we have started disassembly of the locomotive for its 1472 inspection.
The tubes are currently being removed so as to do the internal inspection. Then as we move along we will remove the jacket, lagging etc. etc. It is hot work at this time of year here in southern Nevada, but we start at 5:30 am and work until it gets miserable. New tubes are stored in my garage. I'm looking forward to getting this project done so we can hopefully return to the various narrow gauge railroads. Meanwhile, Eureka still holds a current Nevada boiler certificate.....but we got to meet the federal requirements to use her on FRA roads.
You are probably wondering why this project is being done during the summer. Well, I wanted to do it earlier when the weather was nice, but was preoccupied with a major case for months and could not get to the work on the locomotive. Oh well, the heat isn't all that bad if you're a sinner.
We obviously have a way to go before the inspections can actually be done, but you got to start somewhere and sometime and get the job going.
Dan Markoff