Roger Kramer asked me to mention the pending acquisition of a steam generator car for IRM.
This is a CN steam generator, car 15444. More details are available at Roger's post on the IRM blog here. Briefly, this can provide steam for heating most of our passenger car fleet, and would enable us to expand operations during the colder months. But acquiring, testing, fixing, storing, and repainting the unit will be expensive (no surprise there!) so your donations are being requested.For even more details, there was a thread on RyPN here, with pictures of similar units at Monticello and North Freedom providing heat. Gotta keep up with the Joneses!
Randall,
ReplyDeleteWe used to run Wild flower on the non-wired part of the Western Railway Museum's track. The power was a Diesel with a heating boiler; similar to the one that the IRM is getting.
Let me tell you the people visiting on thise early Spring days sure appreciated the steam heat. And it looked great coming out of our passenger cars!
The Diesels are now at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum and we run the Wild Flower trains under wire and use electric heat. I hope the steam generator car gets there in time for operation in the Fall of 2015.
Ted Miles
IRM Member