Saturday, June 7, 2014

Employee Appreciation

Employee appreciation is important.  Well-run companies always make sure that their employees know they are loved and appreciated.  For instance, as President and CEO of Hicks Car Works, I make it a point to often express my appreciation for the efforts of my loyal and hard-working employees Frank, David, and Al - -  although, come to think of it, what have any of you guys done for me lately?!?!?  But seriously....

The Union Pacific is a large and well-run company, and for the past few years they have been sponsoring UP Employee Appreciation outings at IRM.  This brings in a large crowd to the Museum and provides a lot of educational fun for everyone.  Here we see the UP excursion train coming in on Station 2, alongside a car almost a hundred years older.


The excursion train consists of three deluxe passenger cars and a Diesel on each end, to make shuttle movements much easier.  The train ran every hour westward to our interchange, out the old C&GU to some point short of Belvidere, and then back.  The excursion train is for UP employees only.


Meanwhile, IRM was running the steam-powered coach train with RPO, the 308 and 309, and the 1268 and 1797, as well as two streetcars.  The RPO demonstrated mail pickups throughout the day.  I was too busy to take many pictures, so I'm relying on staff photographer Chuck Amstein to send me a selection of interesting shots.  Everybody today seemed to be having a great time, except perhaps for dispatcher Jim West, who had a lot of unusual movements to handle -- so let's be sure to express our appreciation for his efforts!

4 comments:

David Wilkins said...

For those of you playing along at home, UP 103 "Cheyenne" is a business car rebuilt in 1964 from a 5DBR lounge car "Boise." The Cheyenne, at least according to the plan I have, only has one bedroom, an office/bedroom and a servant's room. It has a large rear lounge area adjacent to the rear platform.

Anonymous said...

Frank,
When you are the biggest; nobodycan match what IRM has or operates.

Although we have a pair of Richmond Shipyard railway ex New York elevated cars from 1887 at WRM. One of them is in the shop getting an end platform rebuilt at the moment.

I am glad that IRM is having a good summer!

Ted Miles
IRM Member

Joel Ahrendt said...

By the way, I replaced the Feed Valve with one from stock, so I didn't have to remove any from any cars. The Wheaton Shops do work overnight to keep the operating cars on the schedule demanded by the Hicks Car Works.

Randall Hicks said...

Thanks, Joel, that's a great help. We really appreciate it. And for tonight, I have a compressor to be changed out. :)