Eureka had been chartered by some folks from England. After everyone was loaded on the train we headed south out of Antonito. As we travelled down the track some miles from Antonito, my fireman Barry Simcoe looked over to me and said, "I can't make steam!" I asked him if the dampers were open....which they were. I looked at the fire and instead of being bright white and roaring it was black and orange obviously choking down. Eventually, we had to stop out in the middle of the sagebrush country, dead. As it turned out, the wood we were supplied was still green and would not give off any heat.
Those of us in the cab looked at each other with that now what do we do look. Ron Bunker, who was my trucker looked around and said, "Well, there is a lot of sage out here, lets use that!" It was a good idea, so we jumped off the locomotive and began pulling up as much sage as we could and tossing it into the tender and firebox. As we were working one of the passengers walked over to me and asked what we were doing. Rather embarrassed I told him it was an old west railroad tradition to burn sage. In his British accent he said "really!." With that he got all passengers off and everyone began pulling up the sage and tossing it into the tender and a gondola car behind the tender. Barry meanwhile had a roaring fire going and tossing in sage was like throwing in kerosene. When we had enough on board we backed the train to Antonito. There we off loaded the death wood. Now we had to find some stuff that would burn.
Jeff Stebbens said he had some wood stored at his home in Taos. So the boys piled in cars and trucks and headed there.
A while later they arrived back, we loaded the wood on the tender and once again we were heading down the road. At Bighorn wye we had previously spotted a box car full of wood. It was passable stuff, so we loaded the tender up.
Eventually we made it to Osier, but not before running low on water. We could only make 75 pounds of steam and as a result we were pumping a lot of water. We had no efficiency. Earl Knoob took over the throttle as we passed through Rock tunnel, but we still had a way to go to Osier. Fortunately, before the tender went dry, we filled the boiler to the top of the water glass. We timed it perfectly. As we pulled into the Osier tank the fire was out, the water was near the bottom of the glass, and we ran into town on the residual steam.
At this point, we were hours behind schedule, but as we pulled into Osier, another train out from Chama was pulling in. Their passengers were amazed to see old Eureka and came over to look at her. They were so impressed that they asked us to join them for a steak Bar B Que they were having. Well, all of us were dog tired and hungry. We chowed down, but by the time we finished it was getting dark. We thanked them, turned Eureka, lit the oil headlamp and headed back to Antonito.
I will say this, to see an oil headlamp at night while heading through the forests is a most memorable sight. The lamp beam throws a golden glow on the rails, trees and everything. It is simply beautiful and magical.
As we came through one of the tunnels, I noticed a guy sitting on the northern portal . I guess he hiked in and wanted a picture of Eureka. I stopped the engine and asked him if he wanted a ride back to town. He said no, and that he would catch the next train. We knew there was no other train out there and said so. He said he would be alright, so down the rails we went. I found later that this poor guy got to spend to night up there in the wilderness by himself. Oh well, we tried to help.
It was getting pretty late as we headed back to Antonito. All the passengers were asleep, and Earl told me he had to get some sleep also. So, George Sapp fired, while I ran. It was a mystical ride through the night.
Eventually I turned to George and asked him if he smelled something burning. He did, and got into the tender to see if a cinder has set some wood on fire. There was no fire in the tender, but I could still smell something burning. As we rolled through the still night, I caught a glimpse of something glowing red along the tracks. It was clearly a smoldering fire trackside. I stopped the train and backed up to the spot, which turned out to be a water hole for cattle. I guess earlier in the day the 463, which was chasing us earlier that day shot some flaming cinder into the piles of 100 plus years of cow pies. With the train stopped we grabbed some buckets from the caboose got some water from the tender and the water trough and began throwing it on the smoldering cow pies. By that time, all the passengers woke up and joined in the firefighting effort stomping in the crap..
By and by we got it all out, and again we headed into the black night. About 1:30 am we pulled into Antonito. I was dead tired as was George, but we secured the locomotive. As we finished the Brits walked up to the locomotive. I began to apologize profusely for all the delays, stops, and every thing that seemingly went wrong. Their spokesman took my hand and heartily shook it. He said that his group charters trains all over the world, but this trip with Eureka was by far the most enjoyable and adventurous. ]
Well, how about that. I thought the whole thing was a dismal failure, but it was the best these world travelers have ever had.
Dan Markoff
