90-63-70

Frank writes...

There was nobody signed up to run the wood cars on Sunday, so I agreed to run them.  My conductor was Keith Letsche.  It was a hot day, with temperatures forecast for 90 degrees, though with low humidity and a breeze it wasn't unpleasant.  The crowd, though, was quite small, and after our first trip we closed the 319 and carried all of our passengers in the 309 for the rest of the day.  A good time was had by all, though, with a steam train and a diesel coach train (complete with RPO doing photo run-by mail catches in front of the depot) operating.

It was the last day for 4-4-0 #63, the Leviathan, to operate at IRM this year.  It's always great to see steam in operation at the museum and the Leviathan is a beautiful engine that's quite popular with visitors.  I took the above photo to harken back to this shot, which I took nearly eight years ago - I certainly wouldn't have predicted then that I'd have the opportunity to catch either a 4-4-0 or the 319 at this location within a decade!  I got the below photo on its last trip of the day, by which time we were already bringing the CA&E woods back to the barn.

 In other news, there's been more progress on the Bellock Playground, as seen below left.  And until they left town midway through the afternoon, there were a couple of modern UP diesels parked on the west leg of the wye including a "gen set" with a face only a mother could love and a big six-axle locomotive painted up for breast cancer awareness.

 

And finally, it was the 70th birthday of IRM's Executive Director and resident wheeler-dealer, Nick Kallas!  Festivities included watermelon and chocolate cake in the office.  If you don't know Nick's story, click here for archival footage detailing his meteoric rise from humble beginnings as a Forest Park paperboy to Executive Director of the nation's largest railway museum.