UP With People

It's always good to have friends, and the Union Pacific has always been a good friend to our Museum.  Today was our annual UP Family Day, and so we had a lot of UP employees and their families enjoying a day at IRM.  There were several tents with various activities set up near the 50th Ave. station, and plenty of trains running.  And we even had several former and current UP employees among our volunteers running the operations.

And then, as requested, here's the floor plan for the new Multi-Purpose Building.  The building faces north (up), so the public facade is at the top of this diagram.  The Pullman Library will occupy the south half of the building, as it's not normally open to the public.  The model railroad display is in the northwest corner, and the library/archive portions, mostly occupied by the Milwaukee Road society, are in the northeast corner.  At least that's the current plan.

Construction continues on the building itself.

You unlock this door with the key of imagination.   Beyond it lies another dimension....

 As I mentioned, there were lots of trains running, despite the dreary weather.  Here the 1630 is passing the wood L cars at 50th.

And the CA&E steel cars were running.  I meant to get a crew picture of Larry Stone and Brian Patterson, but we were all too busy.

And the 411 pulling the waycar train is very impressive.

Everybody likes to look at the steam engine.

And speaking of friends, I met some new volunteers who are friends of Frank through the train show business.  Kristin and Jeremy Dummler were manning the waycars.  Welcome!

In the morning, I spent some time cleaning and sorting in the 451.

I also spent some time going around begging for money.  Not for me personally, but for the 453.  I got some (tentative) results, but more is needed.  Send in your money now, before I start haunting YOU!

And of course several Car Dept. projects were in full swing.  I was too busy to capture most of them.  Here Ed Woytula and Chuck Meter are moving PCC truck parts with the overhead lift.  

And Bob Sundelin arrived, and explained the exact requirements for a circular plate to hold the 309 bearings in place on the lathe.  This is a complicated setup, but the main thing is that we needed four holes of about 1 1/2" diameter bored through this plate, which is about 1 1/4" thick.  That's a lot of steel to remove.  So I spent most of the afternoon on the big drill press.  We start by drilling a small (1/8") hole, then bigger and bigger holes.  It takes a while, and also uses up plenty of tap fluid.

Anyhow, by the end of the day the plate looks like this.  The holes require one more drilling.  We have a big enough drill bit, but our biggest drill press won't handle it.  So Bob will take it over to the Steam Shop; they'll let us use their drill press as long as we bring the drill.  That's more than fair.  The press itself is currently set up for a job, but once that's done, we can continue on the bearing project.

So bear with us.  Hey, no, put that down!!!

In conclusion, though, don't forget the 453.  Let your conscience be your guide, but I won't take "no" for an answer!