Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Entries from May 2016

Tuesday, May 17. 2016

Its Here, Its big, Its long, Its ... Posted by Roger Kramer in General Blog Entries at 22:03

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Its Here, Its big, Its long, Its needs lots of $

The day many of you thought would never, ever dawn at Irm has come. Yes, rail fans Irm's 130 foot ex DGRW turntable is now on the property. It was switched onto our railroad about 11:30 this AM by the Belvidere way freight while making its way to West Chicago. You can be proud that Irm saved this piece of railroad history. Not every museum can pull this off so quickly within the time line permitted by the UPRR. A Big thank to The Union Pacific Railroad for making this happen! Lots of phone calls and hard work by a number of members. Thanks to Dennis, JD,and Phil for working at the location at the Burham shops in Denver, Colorado and to Nigel, Nick and Tom Schneider for all the behind the scenes advice and encouragement.

Setting the turntable in on our siding

Pulling out and going back on the Belvidere sub.

It came in on three flat cars

One empty flat on either side. That is one long piece of steel.

Here is dream! Turning the UP 844 on our turntable after a fan trip out to Union Illinois! NOW, that would be something!

For you young diesel fans. UP 1400, an GP 38-2 is tying on to the UP 531.

Now fans, its up to you whether this artifact of a bygone era gets installed within the next five years or it just sits around until the paint fads into dull grey and starts rusting. The membership stepped up with large donations for the Electroliner. Now lets see if you all can do better and raise $700,000 for the installing of this truly worthy artifact! Enjoy the pictures. There will be more when its unloaded. In the mean time send your contributions in for the TURNTABLE FUND!! Thanks Roger

Friday, May 13. 2016

EL coach 556 Will be in servce this year Posted by Roger Kramer in Passenger Car Department at 21:26

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EL coach 556 Will be in servce this year

We have been focusing, for many years, on prepping the long out of service EL 556 for eventual interior painting. Well, folks that time has finally come! Now, with all the hard work that has been done to it in the last few years, those efforts are finally paying off. You will be able to ride this coach again this year. Our very talented painter, Howard Geier has begun painting the interior. Thanks to all of the volunteers; the hard work is starting to pay off! This car will be a "Thing of beauty" I know, a lot of clichés, but it is amazing to see the difference.

Paul and Cody happy to see the new paint job

Paul was sandblasting parts for the PPR Bobber caboose

Here Paul is pointing out a few areas to sand before Howard began painting the next day.

Thursday, May 12 2016, results. Two coats and what a difference Howard you look like an easter bunnie!!

Another angle of the same side

See the difference! Howard is also painting all the seat frames. Wow! What a contrast.

Howard was also painting on this Friday, but I was not at Irm to catch any of the action. I will take more pictures Saturday May 14. There is even a more dramatic change coming. Howard has started painting the ceiling. What a beautiful contrast!! This is going to be one beautiful interior when we get done. Want to come out and help? Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays are good times to volunteer in the coach dept. Thanks Roger

Sunday, May 1. 2016

Steam Department – Further update Posted by Nigel Bennett in Steam Department at 18:01

Comments (2)

Steam Department – Further update

Good progress this weekend.

On Saturday, we did a final check of #1630 at 125% of operating pressure (225psi) to satisfy ourselves that all significant leaks had been resolved. In addition, the valve chambers were thoroughly washed to remove residues from the honing and lubricated in preparation for fitting the valves.

On Sunday we carried out the hydro test under FRA review. This was successful and we can now proceed thru the next stages toward steaming. The boiler must now be opened and internally inspected to ensure that nothing has been loosened or displaced by the pressure test. Critical internal parts such as the dry pipe must be ultrasonically tested. After this is done, the boiler can be resealed, hydro tested at operating pressure and the stays hammer tested. Once this is complete, we can fire the boiler for steam test.

Our current plan would be to steam test Memorial Day week. We have reasonable hope of having her in steam for Memorial Day weekend but, at this point, it is not clear if we will be ready for service or on live display / under test.

Also on Sunday, in conjunction with the FRA inspectors, we were able to inspect the interior of the boiler of Shay #5 using their high resolution video camera. This proved very interesting and effective. It very clearly showed some areas where we had not been effective in removing all of the sand blasting material used to clean the interior of the boiler!. It also located and allowed removal of a strange lump of material from the bottom of one firebox water leg. This was apparently a piece of slag from removal of a stay some years ago. Overall this demonstrated that we had good visibility and saw no indication of significant wastage or damage in the boiler.

So, a successful weekend, enabling a lot of work in the next few weeks. We have to hope that it progresses without significant setbacks toward steaming at the end of the month.

So wish us luck and

DON’T FORGET TO JOIN US AT THE STEAM DEPARTMENT BENFIT AT SAN FILIPO ON JUNE 26^th.

TICKETS NOW AVAILABLE

http://www.irm.org/events/steamdeptbenefit.html

Nigel

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Comments

Ethan Armitage about A brief history of 9976
Mon, 09-08-2025 08:22
Good job on the Burlington Nortern 9976. OK.

Jamie Kolanowski about New Acquisation: What is CN 15444?
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:56
No new news that I have heard of thus far.

Jamie Kolanowski about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:53
I'll also be doing another update on it soon. Keep en eye out for that.

Jamie Kolanowski about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
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 [...]

Johncrpenter about New Acquisation: What is CN 15444?
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

Lincoln Strickland about New Acquisation: What is CN 15444?
Sat, 07-19-2025 18:56
Yeah, sadly it's still there as of 7/19/2025

Nick about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
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 [...]

Steve Smedley about Milwaukee Road 33C update 3/23/2020
Wed, 04-09-2025 17:40
Jamie Thanks for the update. She's gonna shine like every thing else you guys do! Smeds

James Kolanowski about Diesel Shop update 3/5/2025
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.

Joe S about Diesel Shop update 3/5/2025
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?

James Kolanowski about Milwaukee Road 33C update
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 [...]

AJ about Milwaukee Road 33C update
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...