Dan Markoff stores his 1875 American Standard locomotive, Eureka No. 4, in a garage at his Las Vegas home. Photos by Craig L. Moran. Markoff installed track in the locomotive's garage and on its trailer and uses portable sections when he moves Eureka No. 4. This view shows the historic locomotive's driver wheels. Part of Markoff's work on the historic locomotive that once ran on the Eureka & Palisade line in Northern Nevada was to restore it to its former colorful glory. This view shows the intricate details of the Westinghouse air pump on Markoff's 1875 American Standard locomotive.

Dan Markoff's a lawyer with a hobby -- he likes to play with trains. Not much unusual about that.

Except that it isn't an amazingly detailed miniature in the photos that accompany this story. Markoff's preoccupied not generally with trains but specifically with one particular locomotive, Eureka No. 4. And, unlike the various scale models of the legions of railroad buffs around the world, Markoff's "hobby" is a genuine artifact -- a 130-year-old, 44,000-pound locomotive that once steamed along the rails of Northern Nevada.

It's real, and it's spectacular. And Markoff keeps it in his backyard. And, occasionally, takes it out to play. But more on that later.

Markoff, as you might expect, belies the stereotype of the stuffy, self-impressed lawyer. A bottle of Gorilla Glue sits on his office desk, ready for whatever last-minute repair might be needed. As he ushers a visitor out, he opens a box of just-arrived valve castings that have been custom-made and delivered to his office.

His restoration of Eureka No. 4 -- a locomotive that once served the Eureka & Palisade Railroad, traveling, appropriately, between Eureka and Palisade, Nevada, from 1875 to 1901 -- was an altruistic mission, to hear Markoff tell it: "To let people have an opportunity to see what a locomotive from the Old West looks like." But don't let him kid you; it's also a labor of love, born of sentimentality.

Markoff grew up in southern Arizona but has roots in Southern Nevada: His father, grandfather and a cousin came here in 1931 to work on the dam. After World War II, Markoff's father worked at Nellis Air Force Base, and his mother, Elsa Nilsson, performed at the Last Frontier as one of the singing Nilsson Twins. In fact, they met when she was coming off stage one night when Markoff's father was in the audience. She tripped over his feet, they fell in love.

Cut to a young Dan Markoff returning to Las Vegas with his parents for a visit. The Last Frontier Village at the time had a locomotive and three cars from the Eureka & Palisade Railroad on display.

"I fell in love with that equipment," he says, as he pulls out a faded black-and-white photo of mini-Dan in the cab.

The experience was, it seems, the germination of an enduring fascination with trains.

"I had all this railroad history rattling around in my head," says Markoff, who went on to be a history major at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "The railroad played such a major role in Nevada history."

During much of the past century, Ol' Eureka No. 4 did a little rattling around of its own. Warner Bros. acquired it in 1940 from the Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber Co. near Lake Tahoe, which used it to haul timber. Abandoned by the lumber company, it was about to be sold as scrap in 1939 when a rail historian discovered it and alerted the film company, which was looking for old trains. Suddenly, Eureka was a movie star, appearing in films including "The Shootist," with John Wayne.

By the late '70s, the movie company was selling off its old train equipment, and the venerable locomotive was purchased by Old Vegas, then a frontier-style tourist attraction on Boulder Highway.

"Here was a piece of Nevada history being returned to us," Markoff says.

And almost lost again. In 1986, Markoff's wife, Ditty, dragged him "kicking and screaming," he says, to the Boulder City art show. It was a May afternoon, and hot. Afterward, he suggested they stop at Old Vegas for a cold drink. He noticed that the area where Eureka No. 4 had been displayed was closed to the public. Investigating, he discovered there'd been a fire.

"There it was, sitting underneath all these charred timbers, burned to a crisp," he says. "Nobody had even bothered to take the burnt timbers off the old thing."

It was a defining moment for Markoff.

"If nobody else cares for this thing, maybe I can," he remembers thinking. "It was a pile of junk sitting there."

He told Ditty he was thinking of buying it. He'd known her since he was 12 and they grew up on adjacent ranches in southern Arizona. Her response: "If it's a dream of yours, go for it."

"I don't know if it was a dream, but it was certainly something that I wouldn't have missed," he says.

He approached the owners. Yes, they were interested in selling.

"It was definitely a fire sale," Markoff says.

And, "I felt like the guy who shot an elk on a 10,000-foot peak," he says. To wit: What, pray tell, was he going to do now?

"The next thing I knew, I was moving a locomotive into my backyard," Markoff says. "I took this thing home with me and spent the next six. years of my life working on it."

The Eureka & Palisade Railroad was a narrow-gauge line, which means that the locomotive is somewhat smaller than a standard locomotive.

"If it had been standard gauge, it would have been too large for me as an individual to do the work," he says.

Still, it was a massive endeavor.

"You take it one little piece at a time," he says. Otherwise, "you look at this thing and think, 'My God, what have I gotten myself into?' "

And what work it was. With advice and assistance from Chris DeWitt, restoration supervisor for the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, Markoff meticulously returned the locomotive to its original condition. During its years with the lumber company its bright colors had been covered with layers of black paint and grime, and its wood-burning boiler was converted to burn oil. Markoff restored it to its original 1870s appearance, which, he says, was "colorful, quaint. They dolled them up pretty much."

And -- perhaps more importantly -- he returned it to operating condition.

"I didn't want to have America's largest dust collector on my hands," Markoff says.

Which, for DeWitt, is extremely gratifying, especially since Eureka No. 4 had virtually slipped through his fingers. Before Markoff acquired it, DeWitt says, the owners had offered it to the state, and through a bit of a mix-up, the state -- "that would be the railroad museum" -- didn't get it.

Markoff remembers that when the two met, DeWitt was somewhat aloof. They didn't become friends until later, when Markoff's commitment to the old engine was clear. Markoff says that when he asked DeWitt some time ago about the initial chill, he responded, "I couldn't get it out of my head that some (expletive) lawyer got this and was going to paint it red and let it sit there."

"That sounds like me," DeWitt says. "It kind of annoyed us that a private individual had acquired a piece that significant to Nevada's history -- and it's a very significant locomotive; we can't stress that enough.

"A lot of people get these ideas that they're going to do great things, but very rarely do they follow through." The good intentions may be there, he says, but few people truly understand the commitment of time and resources -- not to mention dedication -- for a project of such magnitude.

"In 32 years I've only come across two people" that actually followed through on a private restoration, DeWitt says, the other being a California man.

"Dan is to be seriously commended -- absolutely put up on a pedestal," he says.

And, DeWitt notes, it actually may be a good thing that Markoff ended up with the locomotive.

"Not knowing any better, he decided to make it operational," DeWitt says. "To that end, his getting the locomotive was probably the best thing that could've happened to it, because had it come to this museum, given the somewhat limited resources we have, we probably wouldn't have ended up putting it back in service."

Eureka No. 4 definitely doesn't just "sit there." Usually about twice a year, Markoff removes it from its own special garage (which Ditty calls "The Church of the Iron Horse"), rolls it along specially made track and up a specially made ramp onto a specially made trailer, along with the tender Markoff built. In April, it was displayed on Fremont Street as part of Las Vegas centennial celebrations, and it has twice traveled to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, three times to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.

It traveled back to Eureka for a homecoming in 1992, picking up an escort by the Nevada Highway Patrol and Eureka County Sheriff's Office from the White Pine/Eureka County line into the town of Eureka.

"They had a party going on that you wouldn't believe," Markoff says. "It's right up there at the top of the best things I've done with this old engine."

Markoff noticed an older woman on the train crying, and asked her why.

"When I was a young girl, this engine used to pull me to school," the woman replied.

"She was over 100" years old, he says. "It was one of those reverberations across time."

And Eureka No. 4 regularly travels to Colorado for Railfest, sponsored by the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

"I get the fun of running the railroad," Markoff says -- and lots of people get to see the old girl."

"He has the right mind-set -- the preservation of Nevada history -- the interest and the mechanical ability to do a great job," DeWitt says.

"We would've loved to have that locomotive, but it going to Dan was a really good thing."