New Arrival

Frank writes...

Sunday was a rainy day and a quiet day in the car shop. My first task when I got onto the property was to check out our latest arrival.

Iowa Pacific 515 is an E8A passenger diesel built in 1954. Originally it was C&NW 5029B, then later renumbered C&NW 515 for commuter service. It retained this number through some time with Metra before being retired and, eventually, finding its way to Iowa Pacific.

The locomotive was purchased from the Iowa Pacific auction by longtime IRM volunteer Roger Kramer, shown here with the engine, who explained to me the process that was followed for getting the engine moved from its former location in Mississippi up to IRM. It came via Little Rock and Omaha before being dropped off at the interchange not long after midnight, early Sunday morning. Right now we need to raise money for track space, indoor storage, and some mechanical considerations like new batteries, but the long-term goal will be to eventually repaint it yellow and green. It's the museum's first E8A and our first C&NW E-unit.

I spent some time contemplating the "exit" roll sign box on the 18; there's some damage to some of the gear teeth but virtually no way to remove them without disassembling the wall of the car. Since I didn't want to do that, I put off that project and turned my attention to another item on the to-do list: replacing our one missing seat cushion. In the drop section of the car, there's a longitudinal bench seat along the left side wall with three sections to the cushion. The shortest of these three sections, about 2' long, was missing when we got the car. I brought the cushion section next to it (shown here) into the shop to take some measurements.

It's a pretty basic design. There's a 3/4" thick plank on the back, three 1-1/4" thick generally "L" shaped front-to-back supports, and a rounded wooden piece along the front. A piece of sheet metal is nailed to the top, then a layer of something generally felt-like, then the rattan. No springing here! Hopefully this will be relatively straightforward to replace, though I have no idea at this point whether we have rattan of the correct pattern on hand.

I also put a coat of paint over the primer on the 714 lobster trap saddles. A look into the paint locker revealed a can of "Conway cream," which is what we dubbed the mix for the 1930s CA&E cream that was used on the 321. Since this paint isn't likely to see much use in the near future (and was pretty fully of "cheese" anyway) it's what I used. While I was at it, just for yucks I painted a couple of pieces of paper as makeshift drift cards. After that I checked on how the 3142 was doing (fine), wandered up to the station to see the train, and then after 7pm drove around in the golf cart for about 45 minutes unplugging strings of Christmas lights. Bah, humbug.