All pictures are copyrighted by the photographer and may not be reproduced without permission.
Photo Above - #484 - The last Doerr photo in the collection to be uploaded is this nice photo of steam train operation at IRM in the 1980s. Shay 5 brings the GPEX "water bottle," C&NW 7700, and all three Lackawanna coaches into the station from the west end, past the future site of Spaulding Tower.
25 comments:
070 - The motorman is probably checking to see that the piles of gravel along the track aren't fouling the third-rail shoes or steps. The people in the foreground look like they're camped out to watch the Trolley Pageant, so the location seems correct. And that number in chalk is certainly embarrassing!
079 - That seems to be folk singer Larry Penn, who was featured on the front page of R&W 132, at the Railroad Folk Music Festival in 1990. Various folk singers and storytellers were featured. The intention was to create some new annual festivals at IRM to bring in repeat business. But the folk singing and storytelling never really got off the ground, while the Vintage Transport Extravaganza, which started at the same time, was much more successful. And I'm pretty sure Frank and I were there that day.
I believe the locomotive in photo 162 is the 154 before it got a cosmetic. I also believe the red passenger car in photo 60 is Dover strait before it got painted in NYC
Picture 176 with the Cicero sign. All of the blue enamel signs from 50th Avenue were gone by the time we had permission to remove the station. Cicero was being dismantled, and we received some signs from that station. The Cicero sign was installed until we had new 50th Avenue signs made. The station was extended a bit at a time.
Picture 193: The 4290 on the left with its faded CTA paint is coupled with 4410 which we had since 1975. Its paint was looking pretty bad, and it received a quickie paint job on July 26, 1998.
Picture 197: That is CTA 4412 next to the "Bald" 4321 which was in the process of getting a new roof. You can tell that it is 4412, by multiple flat roof vents installed by the CTA. It now has the correct roof vents after it received a new roof.
174 - I can date this to Member's Day 1986. Interior restoration was still very much in progress, and most of the seats were still missing. We operated to 50th Avenue for the first time, and usually had passengers in all of the available seats. Guests included Ed Frank, Jr. And Frank himself (age 4) helped by collecting tickets on the car.
171- Behind the Terrarium (Milwaukee Twin Coach gasser) is Dayton Pullman 435.
R. W. Schauer
Re photo 199: The west towns car was always south of central avenue. This is likely yard 7 before the barn and was the first yard in that area circa 1984ish. O. Anderson
I believe that photo 032 shows the east end of Barn 3 from the north. Barn 3 has rather olive colored doors with white astragals, and the yard tracks east of the building were used to store freight cars.
Dennis Storzek
Hi Dennis,
You may be right, but I don't know - wouldn't Barn 3 have had wire over the yard in the 1980s? From this vantage point I also think you'd see Yard 2 in the foreground.
Frank Hicks
Hi Frank,
I see from other recent pix that Barn 3 has had its doors replaced... but they originally were green. The photographer is standing with his back to Station 1, just about where the the car line switch comes off, pretty much where the old "fish truck" that ended its days as a tool shed for track tools used to be. Yard 2 is behind him, to his left. As I recall only the south track of Barn 3 had wire and that would be four tracks over, out of sight.
Dennis Storzek
#209 - CTA 6461-6462 & 52 in Belvidere (Sat) 8-23-86. Arrived at IRM (Sun) 8-24-86 @ 8AM. Worked on ramp (Sat) 8-30-86. Cars 6462-61 ran down the ramp under their own power 8-30-86. CTA 52 unloaded itself on (Sun) 8-31-86 and ran itself into yard. Unloading was done on the west end.
Picture 278: TM 1129 is numbered as 1111, the "4 Aces" as Bill Nedden used to call it.
Picture 281: Both Met Cars were painted on one side only with both ends painted. This was done on the blind side. Later on the cars were wyed and the other sides were painted, except for the area that was missing siding.
Picture 284: CTA 4290 still has only one window in that door. Only the motorman's door on the #1 end of each pair had the second window.
273 - I'm going to say the man on the left is Al Simms.
That "Hooverville" across from 50th Ave. in photo 318 used to be the track department headquarters during the eighties. The sheds used to sit about four rail lengths west of Olsen Rd. on the north side of the main line; very inconvenient as the property started to develop. I believe they were ex North Shore Line buildings; two crossing shanties and a tool shed with a low pitched roof. They were moved about the time the original junk rail was replaced on the west end; the better crossing shanty was rebuilt and became the admission booth, still in use, and the other two ended up here.
Dennis Storzek
Picture 290: Yes the 4253 did still run from the complete end, until it was scrapped at IRM. The missing end was grafted onto the Baldy (4146), as noted in a previous post.
Picture 293: The 4321 isn't exactly a Baldy. It has a complete set of roof vents. The roof boards and poles were never restored.
376 - this is probably the tank to the B&LE 2-8-0 restored for the Ford Museum. Hucksdorf was around painting a lot of stuff during this time. and 377 when it was pictured was often on the Steam Shop lead and was the weekend lodging for the Beard family for a long time. O anderson
380-409 appear to be taken in 1987 when I worked as a B&G leader of a summer crew for Nick. If this is a correct memory, that year we had to rebuild CB&Q 7128 into a place where Al Capone could be filmed within his special parlor car. There was a lot to remove from work train service. It was also modernized with a drop ceiling for A/C as a commuter car. The project ended before completion because they cut the scene from the Untouchables. I think the only IRM scene from that film was the snowplow truck being used to crash through a building. My last work on the car, while parked in front of barn 8/10 was to remove an oil tank hanging in the ceiling and sending it out the end door. Which I did with an acetylene torch and elbow grease. I was hoping after that, the car would be restored as a proper CB&Q coach, or at least something nice for the service trains. Not to be, I guess. O. Anderson
Regarding photo #386 of ICG 199458, the Centralia caboose. Perhaps it is at Belvidere on the CNW in transit to Union? The area around the Belvidere yard has modern industrial buildings like what is seen in the background here.
Robert
Photo 415- It was the 109 that was the unplanned acquisition. From R&W 118, page 3, the 100 (C&NW 7700) and 103 (DM&IR 84) were picked out of the offerings as being recommended for purchase. On the day of the auction, the 110 (GB&W 109) was available for "quite a reasonable price" and was also acquired.
R. W. Schauer
We managed to disprove the myth with why 9695 was painted two colors. We took some of the paint off the Pullman green side and managed to find the CN black and white scheme. I believe Johnson painted it shortly after it arrived but I have no proof of that
Regarding Union Pacific 1366 / Southwest Portland Cement 409 - it did operate at IRM. I remember riding it during a Members Weekend event, probably not long after it arrived. Believe it ran again after that but soon had issues with it's radiators.
Robert - IRM member
#422 this was taken in the last days of Yard 1 before it became 50th Avenue. Probably around 1985. I think the CGW obs still had Johnson's old bedding in the interior, as it was used for a place to crash, and it needed a good cleaning.
O. Anderson
#444- I show Milw 37A arrived in March, 1985.
R. W. Schauer
#453- The Plymouth was unnumbered, but was serial number 4065, so that's what it became.
R. W. Schauer
458 - The IC 2-6-0 sat on a spur for either Yard 10 or 11, southwest of barn 8 (9). I think it was under restoration by a steam shop member that died a bit too young for our preference.
O Anderson
Post a Comment