IRM's Collection Grows

It's a Hicks Car Works exclusive! Many thanks to our intrepid cub reporter Jeron Glander for passing along the news that the museum's latest acquisition (and, I believe, our first rail-borne acquisition of 2020) arrived last Friday to very little fanfare. I didn't even hear it mentioned when I was out Sunday.

All photos are copyright Jeron Glander and may not be reproduced or distributed without permission

The new arrival is our only GE 25-tonner and is from Lone Star Cement - more recently known as Buzzi Unicem - of Elkhart, Indiana. I believe it was unnumbered. Jeron writes that it was built by GE in October 1942, has one traction motor, is 16' long, weighs 50,000 lbs, and is rated at 150hp. In a true "David and Goliath" scene, he captured this smallest GE passing our largest GE, the turbine, which is some 10 times as long, 17 times as heavy, and has more than 50 times the rated horsepower. And yet, in a fashion appropriate to the Biblical metaphor, the 25-tonner will surely end up pulling more weight at IRM than will the turbine. Many thanks to Buzzi Unicem for donating this diminutive, yet undoubtedly useful, little switcher. I suspect we will see it hooked to many a streetcar in coming years.