(Stephen Scalzo photo, via Dave Mewhinney)
This year's "Snowflake Special" will give you one last chance to ride the IC Highliners on the electric division. It's Sunday, November 9th, and all the details are available here. This is a fundraiser to help IRM acquire a pair of these famous cars, some of the last electric equipment produced by the legendary St. Louis Car Company. I'd say actual snowflakes are unlikely, but you're sure to have a great time, so order your ticket today!
6 comments:
Would these cars be adaptable to the 600V overhead power at IRM as were the older IC trainset was?
C Kronenwetter
The goal is to get the highliners the museum acquires operational. This primarily involves either replacing the MA set, or finding an alternate way to generate the 240 AC. The traction motors are DC and will operate at a reduced speed just like the older cars.
At this point, we don't see anything impossible about running them on 600vdc. The propulsion equipment is a fairly simple cam/resistance control. The auxiliaries, including the air compressor, are almost all powered from a single motor-alternator set, so that's where the work will be. It doesn't look too bad, but we'll see.
R. W. Schauer
What is in mind for Highliners as far as historical completeness? Is restoring them as IC cars with an appropriate interior even a possibility, or have all the cars changed too much to make it achievable?
Chris- Fabricating an interior would be necessary. But there are other, less visible changes made too. Braking and control equipment come to mind and I'm sure there are others. Finding the people and money resources to backdate would be very difficult. At present the plan is for them to be preserved as 2014 Metra Electric cars.
R. W. Schauer
I'm sure that you guys know that there are or were some cars still running around with older furnishing. Is any of that stuff being kept track of?
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