Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Today's activity was to protect the Winter trains. Today's track department consisted of me, myself, and I.

Continuing the tradition, we have had snow for each and every IRM winter train season. The track department had prepared earlier in the fall for these trains, and in fact prepared a third switch for smudge pots to keep our switches clear of snow during these trains.  Adam prepared the East Wye switch, and I prepared the two switches used previously, South Wye, and 50th ave.

I arrived around 09:30 and it was still snowing. I loaded up a snow broom and shovel, and started work clearing switches. In about an hour and a half, I had the switches cleared of the 2 to 3 inches of snow, and the pots all lit. A quick trip to Karstens crossing to make sure the crossing wasn't iced in, and a quick lunch. Upon returning from lunch, I started to search for the clamps we use on the switch stand by Depot Street. I searched and searched without success. I figured I would do some creative engineering to get it through the day. When I arrived to hook up the battery, I pulled the end of the cable out from under the switch stand and found someone had already attached said clamps to the lamp. I hooked up the battery, then went to run an extension cord for the switch lamp at South Wye. I have no idea why one was wired for 12V and the other for 110VAC. We do need to take them down in spring and remove the wasp nests in both.

The rest of the day was tending to the East wye switch, and keeping the pots lit. We had a couple that just did not seem to want to keep going. I wound up changing out a couple wicks and they were off to the races. The last train ran at 4PM. I made one more round to fuel the smaller pots, and put them out for the night. With no more snow in the forecast, we probably won't need the pots tomorrow.

I will post some photos to the IRM Members page a little later.

Frank D.