Here are three views of our newest Freght Car acqusition. It arrived on the property 5/28/08.
The car was built by Genral American in October, 1941, and operated its entire life in the GATX lease fleet, numbered 33519.
It is an insulated tank car, a six compartment tank car, and with its built date in the 1940's, all three of these attributes fill missing links on our already world class tank car collection.
Each of the six compartments are a nominal capacity of 1030 gallons, and this was used to transport several varieties of wine in a single shipment. The compartments are numbered B-1 to B-6, starting closest to the 'B' end of the car.
The last IDT or In Date Testing of the air brakes was 1-22-82, and this coincides with other test and maintenance dates performed by GATX at their station name abbreviation WC. Perhaps West Colton, CA??
The car is sitting on temporary shop trucks, the permanent trucks and 'missing' coupler are still in California.
As with any new acquisition often we have to sieze the moment, and hope friends and members recognize that fact. Where this is going is that there are bills to pay, and more expenses to be incurred to get this complete and intact. As always, donations can be sent to:
Illinois Railway Museum
Box 427
Union, IL 60180
Attn: Freight Car Dept.
Comments
Mon, 09-08-2025 08:22
Good job on the Burlington Nortern 9976. OK.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:56
No new news that I have heard of thus far.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:53
I'll also be doing another update on it soon. Keep en eye out for that.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:47
A little work was done to it for Diesel Days this year. You'll see photos floating around for the temporary short term job that was done to make it [...]
Wed, 08-06-2025 13:01
Is steam car CN 15444 going to be coming to museum several times it was to be moved to muesum
Sat, 07-19-2025 18:56
Yeah, sadly it's still there as of 7/19/2025
Thu, 06-12-2025 19:14
Its been 14 years guys, where is the unit? Like really? Did you guys misplace it? Or are repairs taking that long? At this point be might we will have [...]
Wed, 04-09-2025 17:40
Jamie Thanks for the update. She's gonna shine like every thing else you guys do! Smeds
Thu, 03-06-2025 16:28
Yes, there is a wye. Those two have been MU'ed on diesel days a year or two ago.
Wed, 03-05-2025 14:04
7009 number boards look good. Is there a way to turn a locomotive around at IRM? In case you ever had a mind to connect 7009 and 6847?
Fri, 03-29-2024 21:26
We're slackers and spend more time working on the equipment in the shop than keeping all you readers updated. We'll work on it, but I'm sure updates [...]
Thu, 03-14-2024 08:02
What happened to the Department Blog? It's been over 2 years and I still regularly check for updates, but nothing comes...