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Sunday, March 27. 2011Snowflake Special 03/27/2011
Another successful IRM Snowflake Special today! Thinking back two short years ago, we couldn’t fill a four car train, this year we sold out a SIX car train a week before the trip! Thanks to everyone who bought a ticket and helped support the museum. It is GREATLY appreciated!!!!
Today’s trip started at the Forest Park station at the west end of the Congress line. We started westbound – yes westbound (into the yards). Then back east, transferring over to the Douglass line, going to and through 54th St (again into the yards). Back eastbound, then over to the Midway line. After going through those yards it was downtown to drop everyone off for lunch. After lunch we went out to 63rd and Ashland and of course into the tail track. Back downtown and out to Kimball. You guessed it, into those yards too. Back downtown, but not before our second annual Brown Line/Red Line race from Belmont to Fullerton. Again this year it was too close to call. Finally back west down the Congress line, making our last photo stop at the abandoned California station (the last of many nice photo opportunities), we headed back to our origin station at Forest Park to wrap up another fantastic trip. A huge thanks to David Harrison, without whom none of this would be possible. Dave did his usual great job narrating the trip including many interesting tidbits about the system and the city. Also thanks to Bob Heinlein and Richard Schauer who again coordinated the logistics of the trip. Our CTA crew was top notch as usual. Thanks to all the car captains who kept order in the cars, trading their cameras for orange vests. And most importantly, thanks to everyone who showed their support for the museum by accompanying us on the 2011 edition of the Snowflake Special. Sunday, March 27. 2011Track Report
First off - not a single photo was taken this weekend, we were all just too busy.
Saturday was a productive day, Adam was a surprise visitor as he had some things to take care of up north for a day, so he joined Frank and we always can use the added help. Frank and Adam worked together taking care of joint repairs, marking ties, fixing one of two pull apart, cleaning the ROW and starting the process of switch lube - all from the Santa Fe hyrail truck. I spent the entire day setting out ties from the big tree to the east end of Johnson, picking up where Jeron left off - the CN gon never arrived of course - we worked until well after dark to get it all done. Sunday was just Mitch and I doing some machine repairs - we pulled the bottom bearing from the mower side bar, and cleaned it up in the car shop. We found out why the bolts broke - the bearing is worn out and caused the housing to wobble breaking the bolts. As it is in a trapped hanger, Mitch and I put it all back together without the bolts (that have been broken for years) and fired it up after sitting by Yard 3 all winter - the mower is now back in machine row at Yard 11. I plan to run it on the ROW some next weekend. We spent some time in the Industrial Brownhoist crane with the steam shop folks who are making it ready for service for the Barn 23 track project. We got a plan together for changing out some grease fittings and will get that one ready in the next few weekends as well. Over the next week Jeron will get the 4 inch long sweep exhaust 90 deg bend for the 50 and we can get that installed - as the CN gon was a no show on Sunday too... soon enough we need to be ready to unload it. A productive weekend for sure - Be Safe out there Tom Sunday, March 27. 2011Wood Shop Update - March 26, 2011 The Stack Lorne Tweed adds one more glued up window frame to the growing stack on the workbench behind him. He and Rich Witt continued work on this project, gluing up two more frames, dry fitting another frame and machining parts to complete the job.  Oh Well Victor Humphreys works to complete metal repairs on another of the step well end plates for caboose ATSF 1400. He also helped to load an old planer being removed from the wood shop and sort and pack away an assortment of wood shop machine parts located and delivered by the Signal Department. Thanks, Mike.  Patterns Buzz Morisette continued making the new patterns for the steam shop, to be used to cast shoes and wedges for the UP 428. If you look closely you will see vertical surfaces tapered a few degrees from square. This is the DRAFT ANGLE needed to make the sand molds and cast the metal. Tim Peters was toiling on restoration tasks for the CRT 1797 and there was a lot of other activity. Come on out and look around - Watchers Welcome. Maybe we can coax you into helping if you like the smell of sawdust in the morning! |
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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...