Monday, October 25, 2010

ARM Convention 1978 - Updated

The 1978 ARM Convention was held at IRM in August of that year. Many cars weren't running because we had suffered a serious flood on July 4th that year, and the North Shore cars were still out of service, among others. But we did the best we could and a good time was had by all.

I just received a great series of pictures of the convention taken by Alan Zelazo who was part of the Branford contingent. He has allowed us to see them here. For me, these really bring back old memories. Thanks, Al!



The 309 really looked wretched in those days. I just had no shame.

I'm probably up in the cab.





You will notice that there was no pavement anywhere.





























Update: The Branford group also took a ride on the old IC MU cars on their way to IRM.


3 comments:

David Wilkins said...

The photos certainly show the massive amount of work that has been undertaken at IRM over the past 32 years, just to improve infrastructure. The pavement, restrooms, landscaping and other items really enhance the visitor expierence.

What kind of condition was the interior of the 309 in at that date?

Anonymous said...

I'll send you a few when I get home... from the track work we all did to get the place ready for the big event - all the way to the east end of the line at the Farm Crossing ~

Tom Hunter

Randall Hicks said...

David:

Very little had been done to the interior at that point. Half of the ceiling and side walls in the main compartment were missing. I have some pictures at the bottom of this section: (scroll down)

http://hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2009/01/h309.html#Fire

I had started refinishing some window frames and shade boxes, but that's about it. There were seats only in the smoker. So all in all it was pretty awful.

In my defense, we'd only gotten the car operating a couple of months before, and it just barely survived the flood. And we needed all the operating cars we could for the ARM visitors.