In Memoriam
By Dick Pennick (With info from Dave Ruiz)
Terrance Edward "Terry" Durkin
December 8, 1942 - September 21, 2003
Long-time Museum members were saddened to learn of the recent passing of our founder and Museum Life Charter Member #1, Terry Durkin, from a stroke on September 21st at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Hillcrest. He was 60. His impact on the railroad preservation efforts in San Diego and Southern California were huge.
There was more to Terry than his monster appetite for all things rail. Few knew that it was actually "Dr." T.E. Durkin. He earned a Ph.D. in Zoology at San Diego State then was accepted by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Dublin, Ireland. After one year of working on his medical degree Terry decided the nasty weather wasn't for him and he returned to his hometown. He went to work for the Santa Fe as an engine hostler as soon as he got back to San Diego. He realized that railroading was too deeply ingrained to ever let it go.
While still a teenager, Terry took an interest in a movement to establish an operating railroad museum in San Diego County. Although the pioneer Railway Historical Society of San Diego had managed to acquire or facilitate the acquisition of a local steam locomotive, a wooden business car, a Union Pacific coach, several electric streetcars, and a narrow-gauge caboose, all were static displays at various locations around the county.
Terry joined with other early visionaries, including Eric Sanders, Walt Hayward, Al Diamond, Douglas Duncan, Charles Gerdes, Dick Pennick, Bill Wootton, Jack Stodell and others to take the first baby steps that eventually culminated in the formation of the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association, Inc. He served at various times as President, Vice-President, Board Chairman, and other positions. He succeeded in talking the Santa Fe Railroad into providing Room 5, upstairs in Santa Fe's historic San Diego Depot, as PSRMA's first commercial home.
Terry lost no time in demonstrating the fierce tenacity that enabled the fledgling group, with barely two nickels to rub together, to acquire its first rolling stock, five steam locomotives and a tiny 9 passenger Fairmont railbus from the short-line Santa Maria Valley Railroad up in Santa Barbara County. He set up a private railway equipment and artifact appraisal business that provided "one-stop" shopping for donors, who could get their tax-deductible charitable donation credit and an independent tax evaluation in a single package.
After sending out literally hundreds of letters to owners of steam locomotives around the country and in Mexico, including main lines, short lines, private industrial lines, displayed park engines, etc., predictably most responses were negative or were unacceptable for various reasons. But this "saturation bombing" technique eventually paid off. The offer by E. J. Lavino Co. in Sheridan, Pennsylvania to donate #10, one of its two remaining standard gauge coal-burning 0-6-0ST plant switchers, was accepted, and on May 11, 1966, the fledgling PSRMA was given its first locomotive!
It left Sheridan on September 10th, arrived in San Bernardino, California by flatcar, where it was unloaded and delivered on its own wheels to Perris and "temporary" storage at what was then called the Orange Empire Trolley Museum (now Orange Empire Railway Museum). Since PSRMA did not yet have any track or real estate in San Diego to call its own, Terry arranged with the Perris museum for interim storage of our first major equipment acquisitions until such time that we had suitable storage space of our own.
PSRMA volunteer crews reassembled the old saddle-tanker and Terry made arrangement with OET to steam the engine up and operate it for the public. Coal and a No. 2 scoop shovel were obtained, a boiler hydrostatic test was successfully completed, and one of Terry's engineer friends on the Santa Fe was requisitioned to operate the little engine on four separate occasions beginning on February 25, 1967. This was PSRMA's very first train operation. Terry was one of several "hand-bomber" firemen who had the opportunity to keep this little tea kettle hot while it hauled an OET-owned gondola and caboose back and forth each day.
The steam-ups ended when a small hole was discovered in the engine's dry-pipe, causing the throttle to leak. On the final trip, the engine had waited patiently while passengers boarded. Unknown to the engineer, steam had been leaking into the cylinders while he waited, so that when he finally released the brakes, the locomotive leaped ahead like a scared rabbit, throwing the hogger backwards into the open cab door window. Amid shattering glass, the hapless Santa Fe engineer landed upside down in the gangway while the little 0-6-0 charged down the track out of control! Only the quick thinking of fireman Durkin prevented almost certain disaster as he crossed the cab and threw the brakes into emergency. The locomotive never ran again.
Just two days after the Lavino locomotive was donated, Terry again hit pay dirt when our ex-Mojave Northern R.R. 0-6-0ST steam engine #3 was donated by Southwestern Portland Cement Co. of Victorville, California on Friday the 13th of May, 1966. Terry's negotiations with the cement company had become heated, with the phone lines and U.S. Mail running so hot the negotiations threatened to break down completely. But Terry's "take-no-prisoners" attitude persevered and the old saddle-tank engine left Victorville on Saturday, July 30th with sister #2, cut into a long string of reefers. Fellow Charter Life Member Walt Hayward rode the
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