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Monday, June 20. 2011IRM Equipment to attend Train Festival 2011
For release June 20, 2011
Historic Train to Attend America’s Railroad Celebration in Rock Island, IL Update July 19: Nebraska Zephyr to offer dinner train service at Train Festival 2011 Update July 19: Track the Nebraska Zephyr via GPS to Rock Island, Illinois Train Festival 2011 in partnership with the Illinois Railway Museum announces the addition of IRM’s historic train set, the Nebraska Zephyr, to the Train Festival lineup. The silver Zephyr, a full matching train, will take passengers to Bureau Illinois and return on July 24. This will be the first time the general public will be allowed to ride this train outside Museum grounds since the Zephyr was taken out of regular service in the 1960’s. Accompanying the Zephyr to Train Festival 2011 will be ex-Chicago & NorthWestern F7 streamlined diesel locomotive and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy SW7 diesel switch locomotive. All locomotives and passenger cars will be on display during the 4 day event.  CB&Q 9911A and Nebraska Zephyr The Nebraska Zephyr will be on display for visitors to tour during the day. On Sunday July 24, the Zephyr, pulled by the 9911A, will do something it has not done in over 40 years, offer a public excursion for up to 150 people to Bureau, Il and return. The train has run at the Illinois Railway Museum for years and has left the museum rarely for a private charter or movie shoot. This will be the first opportunity for the general public to ride this historic train outside the museum in decades. The train is scheduled to depart Rock Island at 10am and return around 3:30pm. Lunch will be served on the train in the dinning car. Two classes of service will be offered, coach class and premium class. Premium passengers will be treated to a meal prepared on the train by IRM chefs over the original charcoal grill. Coach passengers will receive a gourmet boxed lunch and beverages. Tickets are limited to 120 coach seats at $219 each and 32 premium parlor seats at $329 each. Tickets include the round trip excursion, lunch, a photo run-by, admission to the event and a ride on history. This will be the only excursion offered on the Nebraska Zephyr. Tickets are available at http://trainfestival2011.com/tickets/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=10. The Nebraska Zephyr, CB&Q E5, CB&Q SW7 and C&NW F7 locomotives will be on display at Train Festival 2011, July 21-24 in Rock Island, IL. The locomotives will join 7 steam locomotives from around the country, Amtrak locomotives, locomotives from the Iowa Interstate Railroad and others on display for public viewing. Excursions are offered each day behind different locomotives pulling historic passenger cars. Excursions run to different locations in Illinois and Iowa. Also offered at Train Festival 2011 are miniature train rides, children’s area, model trains, riverboat excursions, railroad vendors, children’s concerts, and various railroad displays. More information and tickets are available at www.trainfestival2011.com or by calling the Quad Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau at 800-747-7800. For Information on the Illinois Railway Museum visit www.irm.org For information on Train Festival 2011 visit www.trainfestival2011.com Release Contact Info: Jason Johnson Chairman – Train Festival 2011 jason@prestigecreative.com 330-339-5100 Information About Trains: Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Nebraska Zephyr Built in 1936 by Budd Following the introduction of the highly successful "Pioneer Zephyr" in 1934, the first diesel powered streamlined train, the CB&Q took delivery of this train and an identical sister train in 1936 for use in the then highly lucrative and fiercely competitive Chicago-Minneapolis passenger market. They became known as the "Trains of the Gods and Goddesses", because the cars were named for Greek and Roman deities. Like the "Pioneer Zephyr" and other early streamlined trains, this train and its sister were complete articulated units which could not be uncoupled except by the repair shops. Unlike the earlier streamliners, however, the locomotives of the 1936 Zephyrs were not integral parts of the trains. This prevented an engine breakdown from requiring an entire train to be removed from service. Articulated trains such as this one fell into disfavor soon after the 1936 Zephyrs were built because of the impossibility of varying train lengths. The 1936 Zephyrs were replaced on the Twin Cities route by newer streamlined equipment in 1947. This train and its sister both then received the name "Nebraska Zephyr" and were used between Chicago, Omaha and Lincoln. Originally seven cars in length, both trains were reduced to five cars in later years. They were retired in 1968. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 9255 (EMD SW7) This operational SW7 switcher was built in 1950. It is a phase II variation that included a redesigned cab window eliminating the curves on the front. It was acquired from the Burlington Northern in 1995 as Davenport, Rock Island and North Western 121, a shortline jointly owned by BN and CP Rail that operated on the site of Train Festival 2011. It was restored at IRM to CB&Q 9255 in 2006 and operates regularly switching the museums yards. Chicago & North Western 411 (EMD F7A) This operational F7A was built in 1949 as CNW 4082C. It was acquired in 1999 from Metra as 305 along with Metra 308. It was used in CNW's Chicago commuter service as well as freight service, later being used for work train service on Metra. It was restored to CNW 411 in 2006, and regularly operates at IRM with restored CNW commuter cars. Monday, June 20. 2011JOHN MC LOUGHLIN Report - June 20, 2011In the last BLOG entry for this car we identified it as an 8-1-2 Pullman car. Many fans, members, and even serious students of railroad history may be uncertain of what that means. YOU ASKED FOR IT!!!  Plan 3979 A For our car, the way to decode 8-1-2 is to refer to the plan and we find it means 8 OPEN SECTIONS, 1 DRAWING ROOM, and 2 COMPARTMENTS. Entering the car from the left we first find the Men's Facilities - a lavatory and smoking room which has a door leading to a modest one hole hopper. Then there are eight open sections. An open section was the workhorse of overnight rail travel for decades. There are two facing cushioned bench seats for daytime travel. At night those two benches would be made into a lower berth, and an upper berth would be dropped from storage above, below the car roof. Coarse curtains would be drawn providing the very minimum in privacy. For your exercise you would enter the upper berth via a portable shared ladder. You better have earplugs since there was no way to prevent the other sounds from your neighbors, their snores and snorts, passing traffic in the aisles from being heard and noticed. This was by far the most commonplace and affordable method of experiencing overnight rail travel in a Pullman car. Nowadays, you might be familiar with them only from the classic Hollywood films, many of which staged such scenes for both drama and comic relief. Next in line as we move through the car was the one drawing room which was the most deluxe accommodation in our car. Noticeably, it was close to the center of the car which provided the most comfortable ride, and the quietest, being as far removed from the trucks as was feasible. And - it included a private lavatory! Next are the two compartments, similar in furnishings to the drawing room, but on a smaller scale, less lavish, smaller floor space. Finally there is the separate women's lavatory, about what you might expect as similar to the men's but with dressing table and mirror. There you have it. With enough resources we hope to repaint and repair the exterior to bring it a very presentable display in our barns. And with enough dollar support (Fund RMCLOU) and hard spent volunteer hours, the interior can be refurbished, open for display, or occasionally operating in our trains. Do you have your PULLMAN TICKET? Sunday, June 19. 2011Wood Shop Update - June 18, 2011As usual there was a wide diversity of activity, so here is SOME of it.  Grading Buildings and Grounds Manager, Dave Diamond, has made the re-paving of the Depot Street area his priority. Here, Gerry Dettloff is running the skidster, while Dave is in the foreground piloting a shovel. The north end of this project has all the underground infrastructure in place, and backfilled. Finished grading and compacting was being done.  The Vaults Two large concrete underground electrical vaults have been set in the intersection of Central and Depot. Max Tyms has placed forms and was pouring concrete for the conduit entries.  Brickwork Lorne Tweed continued on making a set of forms for helping the Steam Department to make new refractory firebrick. This is a tricky exercise in negative space thinking for the forms, to produce the correct positive shape of a new brick.  B and O Boxcar Ray Pollice was able to come out and help for a day in the Freight Car Department, and we really appreciate his help on a grueling job. He is stripping off old paint and corrosion from the end of our B&O wagontop boxcar. Note the relatively unusual flat ends used in this car construction versus the corrugated ends seen on most boxcars, contemporary to this period.  An Old Saw The Electric Car Department received the donation of a very nice metal cutting bandsaw and it has a new stand fabricated and is being cleaned up and readied for use. STILL ON THE HUNT We are still on the hunt for finding a way to get new brake shoes for our workhorse trolley CSL 3142. It is increasingly difficult to find a foundry today that will accommodate a very small production run, using homemade patterns from IRM. If any of you are familiar with gray iron foundries that might be willing to consider this job, please contact us. Below are images of a set of two patterns, cope and drag, that were used to make new shoes a few years ago for our Chicago and West Towns 141.  Pattern One  Pattern Two |
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Comments
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...
Mon, 12-27-2021 16:28
Happy New Year to all the Departments at the Illinois railway Museum! Thanks for all the good work you do in railroad preservation. Ted Miles, [...]
Wed, 10-13-2021 13:33
Was the CB&Q 1309 every transported to IRM?I’ve been reading old issues of Rail&Wire and the car was mentioned several times.
Mon, 06-07-2021 22:40
I was wondering if in the model layout display what scale would you guys be using and would you be displaying model train history as well? Just [...]
Wed, 06-02-2021 17:27
Nice to see 428's cab back on. Looking forward to when it is operable!
Tue, 06-01-2021 16:47
I hope the work will continue on the UP #428. Now that they are the museum's connection to the national railroad network; she would be very [...]
Sat, 04-17-2021 23:07
What is the status of 126, the Milwaukee Buffet car that is in S. Dakota? Any guess on when or if it will get to IRM?
Wed, 04-14-2021 21:09
Perhaps it is time to scrap the remains of the c, B & Q 7128 to make room for the Villa Real. Ted miles, IRM member
Wed, 04-14-2021 15:26
Hi IRM my name is Jason and I was wonder If you guys would be willing to save a CN Dash8-40cm they are currently being retired by CN and being [...]
Fri, 04-09-2021 19:56
Bear in mind that the Nebraska Zephyr is an articulated train set, so cars cannot be inserted at will. Although cars and/or a second engine could be [...]
Wed, 03-31-2021 11:37
I believe Silver Pony is currently on the back burner, and has been put into storage in one of the barns. The car needs a lot of work done to it's [...]