Our annual Museum Showcase started Saturday and was a great success by any measure. We had a very good crowd of visitors, considering the circumstances of the pandemic and the limited seating capacity of our trains as a result, and there were more photographers than I've ever seen before, I think. The weather was perfect.
I was too busy to take many pictures, but for now, let's see just a little of what was happening.
The IC cars were pulled out and parked at 50th Avenue:
Vera Cruz 19 was running on the car line, always a popular attraction:
Then there was the photo freight train, consisting of 11 vintage freight cars and a waycar. Here it was being pulled (or pushed) by an electric locomotive, later changed to the Shay.
A line-up in front of Barn 2.
The five-car coach train was being pulled by two colorful Geeps, as seen here. They did several runs by the depot at full speed, including RPO mail drops, and were quite loud and impressive.
The four-car 4000's being prepared for service.
The Shay was in operation all day.
Here's a brief video I took, but I'm hoping to get better ones.
The 1754 was also in operation on the car line.
Then, in the early afternoon we brought out the 309 and 319 again.
And we must always have a picture of the crew, no matter how hard to recognize they may be.
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| Photo by Stephen Karlson |
There will be more, I hope, but for now, keep the home fires burning!
Frank adds...
I got fewer photos than my father and didn't really snap any at all until mid/late-afternoon.
The Shay pulling a fairly lengthy (for IRM) demonstration freight train made for quite a spectacle.
Nothing you haven't seen before, but really, can you have too many photos of CA&E wood cars in operation?
As the afternoon wore on, a four-car wooden 'L' train was assembled at 50th Avenue and after dark this set made some short-turn trips to Karstens and back. We need to make up a "Tim Peters Special" sign to hang in the front door. I believe that this is the third "fully operational" four-car wood train IRM has ever been able to assemble (excluding cases of motor cars being towed dead) and only the second fully-restored four-car wood train. Can you name the other two? Hint: one should be VERY easy!
After we put the wood cars away around dinnertime, the kerosene markers got brought out and I ran the 409-431 for a nighttime trip. Jim West served as my conductor while my father worked on bringing the 36, which spent the day in Yard 4 west on display in front of the neon CA&E sign, back to Barn 8. Thanks also to Zach, Nick, Greg, and Larry for helping with these switch moves.
And in other late-in-the-day news, the IC MU cars made a brief trip (I believe to Karstens and back) under power, which was their first public operation for a few years. The last time they ran, a few years back, a control resistor had failed. That was fixed but more recently some leaks had cropped up in an air piping assembly designed for radiating heat. Nick and Greg, among others, worked hard to fix various leaks and at 12:30am on Wednesday night finally got everything reassembled and ready for service.
I got fewer photos than my father and didn't really snap any at all until mid/late-afternoon.
After we put the wood cars away around dinnertime, the kerosene markers got brought out and I ran the 409-431 for a nighttime trip. Jim West served as my conductor while my father worked on bringing the 36, which spent the day in Yard 4 west on display in front of the neon CA&E sign, back to Barn 8. Thanks also to Zach, Nick, Greg, and Larry for helping with these switch moves.
And in other late-in-the-day news, the IC MU cars made a brief trip (I believe to Karstens and back) under power, which was their first public operation for a few years. The last time they ran, a few years back, a control resistor had failed. That was fixed but more recently some leaks had cropped up in an air piping assembly designed for radiating heat. Nick and Greg, among others, worked hard to fix various leaks and at 12:30am on Wednesday night finally got everything reassembled and ready for service.
7 comments:
Additional coverage from Stephen Karlson's Cold Spring Shops.
Thanks for the Museum Show Case report.
Really nice to see the IC MU's out in the sun and running. When (and if) will the IRM overhead be adjusted to work with pantographs so that the IC and South Shore cars (among others) can run the main line?
Wasn't able to make it out this weekend but would love to ride the IC cars in the future. Haven't ridden on them in perhaps 57 years or so - but my memories of them remain strong.
Got the chance to ride on the 1754 on Saturday. Tim has done an spectacular job with the restoration work. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the update and the news. Wish I could have been there as well, I have never seen the IC mu's in service, at IRM or on the ICG. I think I would enjoy a wood L car train now more than ever, rather than a ratty bunch of cars with makeshift workbenches and screw collections across the seatbacks. Hope the freight car train gets longer and longer each year.
Was there a steak roast and slide show event at the Legion Hall? Seems like it is not Members Weekend without that element.
O. Anderson
Those IC cars are pretty tight for air now. We went to put them away at the end of the day Sunday and they still had about 60 psi in their reservoirs, in spite of having been sitting dead for at least 18 hours.
Brian: That's really amazing, far better than most of our electric equipment.
Olin: In recent years this has been replaced by having Fay's Barbeque on the property, without the slide show. But of course that had to be cancelled due to the pandemic requirements.
I'd rather see a 'Ray Neuhaus Special' sign on the wood L train. He deserves recognition for his decades of effort to save the cars from the elements without ever having had the joy of seeing the results of restoration.
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