General Blog Entries

Tuesday night, another in the seemingly endless repeats of severe lightning infested squall lines of thunderstorms passed over IRM.  Power went out early but Edison came out and restored service.  Only to have it fail for good about 5 AM.  Calls again were made and it was determined that the primary transformer, owned by Edison, fell victim.  We believe this unit was installed at IRM about 1987 and at that time, itself was previously used.  This supplies voltage and current to EVERYTHING on site, including to our rectifier sets supplying trolley power, as well as heat, light, water system, freezers and coolers in our diner, telephone system, office services and computers, waste pumping to the drain fields, all sorts of things you take for granted.

Volunteers on site and staff members worked most of the night, some with little or no sleep, and throughout a hot muggy day to do what was possible.  Portable generators were broken out and started to provide backup for some of the critical items.  Extension cords everywhere were the order of the day.  The grounds were open FREE for walk in visitors only, no barns open, no rides.

Victor Humphreys is shown with our recently departed transformer already disconnected in the substation yard.  To their credit Edison responded in force with several line crews, despite another 50,000 customers without power in our immediate service area, from the overnight storms.  By evening a new transformer had been located, transported to IRM, a crane rented to pull the old unit (4-5 tons weight) and the new one dropped in. The lights came back on!

You cannot buy the type of help provided by our people, in very challenging conditions.  Many came to our aid from their regular 'day jobs' and all the staff responded in kind.  Thanks go out to everyone, now take the day off for some well deserved rest.

Just to make it interesting the LEVIATHAN was on site as previously reported.

Here it is on the steam leads east of Barn 9.  The tender has been reunited with the locomotive and the stack is on.  Mechanics worked under and around it making connections and hookups, adding the headlight, pilot, steam dome trim, etc.

This is the engineer's side of the engine, clearly sporting the decorative paint and brasswork behind one of the service rigs that was used to transport it to IRM.

We will start with a few views of diesels being moved and exercised to the staged area for the diesel Parade of Power.  Wow - this 1959 locomotive has been restored to operation after 15 years on the property!  No wonder ALCO's were often referred to as honorary steam locomotives as this unit demonstrates the belching black smoke typical of an ALCO with turbocharger 'lag'.

Illinois Terminal 1605 was also seen moving for the first time in many years after substantial repairs to the electrical system.

John McKelvey was again at work inside Barn 4 doing more reupholstery for this electric car.

Victor Humphreys adds more primer to the 'A' end of the car.  I helped some by cleaning more roof areas for primer before the sun came out and the heat was too brutal to continue up there.

Frank Sirinek hands Mike Stauber a wrench as Mike is prone below the car end.  They are hanging the fender (people catcher) in that cramped space.

Jim Windmeier was inside the shop with his son, Tom, as they near completion of the second batch of six new replica step stools to be used on our railroad.

Tim Peters continues to show amazing progress on this wood el car.  The roof areas are about done, prepared and ready for new canvas.  The letterboards have been repaired and see the first coat of finish orange paint.  Most of the car side windows have been removed as repairs are made to the posts and car sides.

We continue to pursue obtaining salvaged and recycled wood for use in our restorations.  Tim is examining a recent pile of boards on this cart.  Pricing is very reasonable at about a buck a board foot for wood that is many times more expensive - if you can find it all.

What type and specie of wood is it?  This load of timbers came from a barn in southern Indiana and likely were locally grown and harvested varieties.  Are any of you near IRM and have some expertise in identifying these samples?  We have a pretty good idea on two of the species, but would like to get more input before committing funds for purchase.

I am going to post this entry under the GENERAL category since a lot of subjects are covered.

The Depot Street paving is done, ON SCHEDULE!  The Buildings and Grounds crew, led by Dave Diamond, and the many volunteers who contributed and worked on this complex project deserve a lot of credit.  Throughout the day visitors enjoyed the new surface and the B&G crew added finishing touches including dressing the shoulders.

As part of the same paving contract as Depot Street, the paving for the new trolley bus loop was completed.  Here, John Myhre is looking at the old overhead turning wye while you can see the paving in the background.

The Indiana Railroad 65 was the first car acquired at the founding of IRM.  Dan Fenlaciki looks sharp in the motorman's seat, as the car made a rare appearance for some service trips for the public.

Rich Witt has become a very dedicated and productive member of the wood shop crew.  His other passion is Operations and he is hooking up a tail hose brake valve on the passenger train.  This is a connection to the train line air pipe to allow a crew member on the rear platform to stop the train from that position during a back up move.

Speaking of the wood shop, Tim Peters is making new tack molding for CRT 1797.  He has set up a unique system of fences and guides and machined the last profile on some long ten foot boards, BY HIMSELF.

The heat outdoors was brutal and in the afternoon, Victor Humphreys and I were going to proceed to the next steps on a new door.  We got sidetracked when Tom Schneider came by for a visit.  He is steadily improving healthwise and is no longer needing to wear the suitcase monitor for his heart.  It was very good news to see him up and about looking so chipper and with a good attitude.

I am going to close this entry here and add another covering work on our B&O wagon top boxcar.  This is an ongoing major restoration project so I have opened a new sub category under the main Freight Car Department category.  If you are not taking advantage of all the various software options on the IRM BLOGS, here are a few tips.  On the right hand side there is a CATEGORY TREE.  If there is a plus sign in the little square box for each topic you may click on that to expand the category topics.  Clicking on any category will filter other entries and allow you to read updates, in order, for that single topic.

For any blog entry, the images are thumbnails.  Clicking on the thumbnail will expand the image and you may scroll forward and back for any of the images in a single entry.  AND - at that point, if you go to the upper left corner of the expanded image you will see a small square icon pop up and clicking on that gives a full size blowup of the single image.  WOW!