Visit to Strahorn Library

One of IRM's better kept secrets, at least from the casual visitor, is our array of library holdings of railroad-related printed material of all sorts.  The flagship of the library system is the Strahorn Library, located about five miles away in downtown Marengo.

The building itself is historic, and an architectural landmark.  It was built about 1930 and was the city's public library until Marengo outgrew it and needed a more modern facility.  It was then purchased by the Museum and holds a large collection of railroad books, photographs, and other historical artifacts.

Mr. Strahorn built the building as a memorial to his wife and her father:

Inside, the building is packed full of bookcases with railroad books of all sorts, as well as corporate records and photograph collections from various sources.  The library has its own small core of dedicated volunteers who are organizing and cataloging the collection, which continues to grow as more materials are donated.  Barb Lanphier is the curator of the library, and she would welcome additional volunteer help.

For lack of a better location, the library also has a number of scale models of various types.

Many of them are of equipment in the museum's collection.  The one on the left was donated by Frank!

And you might recognize this:

And among other things, there's this Pullman-Standard Safety Trophy:

The Strahorn even has public visiting hours:  Wednesdays from 10 to 2.  Other times can be scheduled by appointment, especially if you have materials to donate.

But that's not all.  The Museum also has the Pullman Library, which holds a large collection of blueprints, mostly from the Pullman-Standard company.  It is not open to the public, but the library provides a copying service so that owners of Pullman cars across the country can obtain copies of blueprints needed for restoration purposes at a reasonable cost.  The library is currently located in the old bank building ("One North Main") in Union, but it will be moving into the new building on Central Avenue in the Main Street district when that's completed.  And as we mentioned last week, construction of that building will be starting soon!

There are also several smaller technical library collections on the property, but they're not open to the public either.  If you need technical information for a Museum project, you can probably find what you're looking for by asking your department curator.

Incidentally, I used to know a General Manager who wanted to move the Strahorn Library intact down the road to IRM.  Yeah, it would be nice, but the cost was estimated at a quarter million about twenty years ago, and that was certainly optimistic then.  So don't hold your breath.