Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Another Busy Tuesday

We have lots of exciting action to report today, so pull up a chair.  Work continued on the usual weekday projects.  Here we see Jim the new guy continuing to needle-chip underbody equipment on the 306.


And here's what a newly-cleaned EIB (Elliptical Integral Bolster) truck looks like:


Meanwhile, Gerry and Norm were investigating the wiring some more, among other things.


And Frank K. spent most of the day wire-wheeling the seat frames on the 1808.


I continued to paint the roof canvas on the 460.  A second coat on most of the top:


And then pretty much all of the north side of the car, for a first coat.



This requires a lot more care than the 453 did, because the car already has a beautiful paint job on everything below the roof.  But it's going along well.


But now let's see what was going on outside, or at least some of it.  Bob was in Yard 4, cleaning up junk and collecting OTM.  What's left in this area should disappear soon.



And then, Yard 5 has been reshuffled.  The big UP rotary is now at the end of track 51, sort of a bookend to the UP turbine on 54.  You have to admit it's rather more impressive than the RDC.


Next to it is the AEM-7.


And I was told that for HHR they're going to put lights on the rotary which will make it look like it's spinning!  That should really be fun to see.


And finally, let's check on progress down south, which we haven't done for a while.  Here we see the contractors hard at work preparing the location of Barn 12.  This barn will be used by the Track Dept., the Trolley Bus Dept., and I don't know what else.


Here two dump trucks are depositing their loads side by side:


And the grading is more or less complete for Yard 16.  The single track with all the cars will eventually be the new car line extension, and Yard 16 will be just south of it.  And on the right you can see the South West Storehouse.  Yikes!  We've run out of room!




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randy- The Bus Depts. won't be in Barn 12. Our new garage will go in a location which is unusable for rail equipment due to track radius considerations. The plan for us to go in with the Track Dept. was sub-par, and when the new spot was identified, it supplanted the former.

R. W. Schauer

Richard Penn said...

Just the fact that there are so many barns at IRM is incredible. Doing some basic measurements off of Google maps, with 4(ish) more barns/roundhouse everything at the museum would be under cover.

It's great to see the progress that's been made over the last couple decades at the current location. Looking forward to seeing what the museum does next.

Matt Maloy said...

Hang on, is Yard 16 going to be a barn, or is it just going to be an open yard? I thought I read somewhere on here [in the comments] that it was going to be a barn.

-Matt Maloy

Randall Hicks said...

Well, I was misinformed, and besides that, plans keep changing behind my back. Barn 15 will be the next one constructed, and 16 will remain a yard for the near future. That's according to Zach, who is much more of an insider. I should just stop prognosticating.

Anonymous said...

Is track 41 also going to be pulled up and redone?

David S

Anonymous said...

Track 41 East isn't in bad shape. It was rebuilt when Track 40 was installed, in 2002. See R&W issue 197, pages 13 and 16.

R. W. Schauer