Illinois Railway Museum Blog

After a week of planning, great progress was made on the turntable in the last ten days.  This is critical as site clearing will start this month and we must have the table out before this happens.

JD and Phil travelled to Denver in a truck loaded with tools and equipment and have been working with Dennis and track contractors based locally.

The table before stripping

The stages of the removal are:

1.       Remove and ship the rails, deck, railings, circle rail and everything else that can be taken from the top of the main bridge beam;

2.       Lift the main bridge beam from the pit and lay it on the railroad flat car that will carry it to Union;

3.       Take the trucks and center bearing, along with the remaining ring rails that lie under the beam and load these for transport to Union.

View of one of the drive trucks under the table

A surge of activity early last week saw everything on top of the bridge beam removed, stacked and then loaded onto 3 flatbed trailers.  By Thursday, all 3 were unloaded at Union.  Many thanks to Dave and Carl for their efforts in unloading.  Each trailer was unloaded in 45 minutes, which was an indication both of their efforts and the good work of the team in Denver ensuring that everything was carefully strapped and loaded.

First the electrical supply arch is removed

Starting to remove the walkways

The decking itself is removed

Now we have the bare bridge ready to be lifted from the pit

and the parts are already arriving at Union

Unfortunately, the weather meant that we have a future job.  Heavy rain Wednesday night meant that we could not use the long term laydown areas for rail, ties, etc. and had to locate everything for outside storage on gravel surfaces.  So there will be lot of relocating once the weather improves.  However, the electrical boxes and other sensitive items are now all in covered storage.

After this rush of activity, the guys in Denver have been preparing the oak timbers that will be used to mount the bridge onto the flatcar but have now run out of work and are returning home.

Everything is prepared with heavy lift equipment lined up to lift the bridge from the pit and onto the flatcar.  However, we must now wait for the flatcar to arrive on site, along with the idler cars that will travel under the overhanging ends of the beam.  All this is ordered and in-transit via Union Pacific to the Burnham yard but it is currently expected to be late this week before they arrive.  Once they do, there will be another rush of activity but, until then, there is nothing more that can be done.

Congratulations to Dennis and the team on a very successful job so far.  Now we all wait in anticipation of the lifting and loading operation.

Nigel

I can now write about a huge development in the last few days.

To support the Turntable Fund, follow this link!

A turntable has been a key element of the museum plan for many years.  This will be the center of the long term plan to house and present our steam collection in a roundhouse setting.  More than that it will present a fascinating visitor attraction, photographic opportunities and the ability to turn all types of equipment to present in different orientations to those with which we are familiar.

We have had on site for a number of years the C&NW table from Harvard.  However, this is not of a length that would accommodate larger pieces of the collection.  So various opportunities have been explored over the years to obtain a larger table, ideally thru donation.  A couple of weeks ago we became aware that Union Pacific had included the table of the Burnham (Denver) repair facility, that we had hoped to obtain by donation, in an auction of all assets of this, now closed, facility.

This table was a target in many ways.

·         It is one of the largest at 130ft. and capable of turning any equipment at IRM;

·         It is an historic item, being a centerpiece of the Denver & Rio Grande works at Burnham;

·         Dating from 1941, it was installed to support Challengers coming to the Burnham facility;

·         In 2012 it was subject to a total refurbishment, believed to have cost at least $500,000, so is in virtually as new condition

·         Despite its length it is of very shallow depth.  This is a critical consideration at Union due to the high water table.

In view of this the board approved funding to try to acquire it by purchase at the auction.

I am pleased to say that we were successful and actually obtained the table at what was basically a scrap price of $10,000.  This is our new acquisition giving some idea of its excellent condition.

Our new acquisition in its current home

View along the table

Clearly this is just a beginning.  We must now move it from Denver to Union, which is no small exercise and will cost several times the purchase price.  Once at Union we will have to construct the pit in which it can be installed.  This is a MAJOR construction project and will depend upon fundraising on a large scale.

However, as substantially the largest turntable in preservation, the expectation is that this will provide IRM with a major attraction in years to come.