Unlikely running mates. Denver & Rio Grande Western #315 and Eureka & Palisade #4 sit side by side at Tacoma Siding during Railfest 2010 on the Durango & Silverton. This portrait of the two dramatically illustrates the rapid changes in locomotive design and technology in the late 19th century. E&P #4 was built by Baldwin in 1875 as a 4-4-0 woodburner, with a large, spark-arresting stack. Typical of locomotives in her time, she was brightly painted and heavily decorated with brass. She had link and pin couplers, crosshead water pumps, and an oil lamp headlight. Automatic air brakes had only just been invented and weren't on the option list. My, how things had changed by the time 315 was built, a mere 20 years later. The 4-4-0 design had given way to the more powerful and efficient 2-8-0 configuration. The 315 was built to burn coal, which had a higher BTU content than wood and was becoming more widely available. Crosshead pumps had largely been replaced by injectors. Automatic air brakes and Janney-type couplers were becoming nationwide standards. And while 315 likely was built with an oil-lamp, electric lights were beginning to be widely deployed. Although Eureka was technically obsolete by the time 315 was built, and 315 was obsolete just 20 years after that, both locomotives underwent moderization and went on to lead very long service lives. I wonder if any of the Baldwin people who built these two engines could have ever envisioned that two of their 19th century machines would actually be running passenger excursions together, well over a century later.
