Union News

Happy Holiday Railway is Here This weekend is the start of our Happy Holiday Railway event! The event has been expanded and improved for this year, with a heated waiting room in our East Union Depot and free trolley rides included with your ticket. We've also added a new streetcar to our collection and there are many restoration projects seeing substantial progress. Featured in this e-newsletter: Happy Holiday Railway starts Saturday, November 23rd Find that unique gift in our online Historic Sign Shop Museum acquires 1979 streetcar from Toronto Memberships and gift cards now available on our website TP&W 800 fundraising reaches major milestone Rotary snow plow painting update  CSX donates historic maps and storage cabinets Support IRM with Amazon Smile We need volunteers and you can help! Planned giving - another way you can support IRM Visit us online for schedules, blog updates, and more Happy Holiday Railway Happy Holiday Railway starts this weekend and Santa is looking forward to seeing you aboard the train! Tickets are available online now but we expect most trips to sell out so make sure to reserve your seats today. This year's event is improved and expanded with a heated waiting area (and restrooms) in the depot as well as streetcar rides around the museum grounds. Click here for info and tickets IRM's Online Sign Shop If you are looking for something to give that train lover you know, take a look at IRM's online sign shop. We have dozens of unique and historic Chicago and CTA signs for sale. All sales benefit our sign restoration efforts. Click to check out the Online Sign Shop Museum acquires 1979 streetcar The newest addition to IRM's collection is Toronto 4034, a CLRV type streetcar built in 1979. This car, which represents post-PCC era surface transit, is more than 30 years newer than our next-newest streetcar, the Green Hornet! The museum plans to make the car operational as time and funding permit. Click for more information Memberships and gift cards We are now offering 2020 memberships, good through the end of calendar year 2020, on our website. We are also offering gift cards that can be used towards memberships and items on the property like food or store merchandise. Either makes a great gift for any railfan! Click for membership information Click to purchase an IRM gift card TP&W 800 milestone reached We are very pleased to announce that we have reached our initial fundraising goal for TP&W 800. Thanks to all who donated! This Alco C424 was acquired last year and some $60,000 was required to purchase and move the engine. That has now been raised. This now leads us to our next goal: raising a further $23,000 to put the engine indoors and repaint it in TP&W colors. Click for more information and to contribute Rotary plow progress The cosmetic restoration of our rotary snow plow, Union Pacific 900075, is moving along nicely. Our volunteers completed major repainting work on the rotary unit (the imposing "maw" is shown here!) so work is now turning to the tender and to non-paint items like re-glazing and installing the windows. Once this project is done, 900075 will be a real show piece. But we still need help to fund the rest of the work. Click here to learn how you can help CSX donates historic maps IRM extends its thanks to CSX Transportation for donating a collection of historic maps as well as the large-format size "D" and "E" map cabinets to house them. The extra capacity of the cabinets will be invaluable for the long-term storage of additional drawings and maps in our Pullman Library collection. Your purchases help IRM If you shop on Amazon, your purchases can help support IRM's restoration activities. IRM participates in the Amazon Smile program, through which a portion of all your purchases is donated to the museum. There's no cost to you; just select IRM from smile.amazon.com or for a direct link click here. And thank you! Volunteers Needed! Do you love trains? Do you have some free time, whether it's weekly or just a few times a year? Are you an IRM member? If you answered "yes" then you are an ideal candidate to be an IRM volunteer! We need people to help restore and maintain the trains. It's a fun, interesting, and rewarding way to spend your time. No experience is necessary - we will "train" you! Contact us to ask about volunteering Planned Giving and IRM IRM has been around for more than 60 years due to the consistent support of people like you. You can help keep IRM a museum in motion for the next generation through planned giving, either by including the museum in a bequest or as a retirement account beneficiary. Click here for more information Visit us online for schedules, blog updates, and more