IRM After Dark

Frank writes...

This was the fourth  year of nighttime train operations on Labor Day Weekend and it seems as though it was the most successful year yet in terms of public attendance. As with the last year or two, the wood cars were scheduled during the day on Saturday and Monday and for the "night shift" (3pm-9:30pm) on Sunday. Saturday the train was annulled because we didn't have enough crew, but Sunday we had a full three-man crew ready to go into service at 3:00.

Unfortunately I didn't have much of a chance to take photos, but our official photographer Chuck Amstein was out so I didn't worry about that much. We failed to get a crew photo (oops) but my father was motorman, I was conductor, and Gary Woertz was trainman/car host. The original plan was to just run two cars but the three-car set of 309-36-319 was still made up from the Vintage Transport Extravaganza so we just ran all three. As it turned out, that was a good thing.

While it sounded like crowds early in the day were modest, the museum got busier as it got into the evening. We ran trips at 3:30 and 4:30 but for the 5:30 trip the 309 and 319 filled up and we had to open the 36 to accommodate the crowds - always a good problem! Henry Vincent helped out as an additional car host. After the 6:30 trip it was time for a dinner break, and I took the above photos while the train was positioned out of the way on the west wye.

The dinner break lasted a bit longer than intended but we were back in the station a bit after 8pm. Thanks to Richard Schauer for help with sourcing additional kerosene for the markers and for working as conductor on our nighttime trip! Our four CA&E markers worked flawlessly, once they were properly fueled, and our trip at 8:45 saw all three cars practically full of passengers. Other trains on the railroad included the CA&E steel cars (put away in the afternoon), the 1630 with the coach train, and the Zephyr. The car line saw the 144 run all day bolstered by the 19 during the day and the 4391 after dark, while various nighttime photo ops were set up at 50th Avenue (featuring 2000s and 4000s) and other spots around the property (featuring various diesels). I particularly enjoyed a nighttime running meet at Johnson Siding with the 1630. There's nowhere else quite like IRM!