I still don't understand this. First, the high-pressure cylinder is where normally the single outer cylinder is, and that can be rather big depending on the locomotive. High-pressure cylinders are smaller by default - force is proportional to the pressure imbalance and the area of the piston, so if say pressure is reduced by 75% between the two cylinders, the high-pressure one has to be half the diameter of the low-pressure one. (In this example, a single cylinder of a non-compound locomotive with the same power would have a diameter sqrt(2) times the high-pressure cylinder's.)

Thanks for that on curves - I saw it a few times, now it makes sense... 16-degree curve, that's a 109 m radius curve, ouch!

Here's an interesting account of the terrible snowstorm in 1899 that closed the Colorado Midland for 78 days!

Also see my earlier Forgotten Colorado diary for more on the Colorado Midland (from which I also linked to the same story)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}