It was a cold and windy day...

Frank writes...

Sunday was quite chilly and windy out at IRM, though not as chilly and windy as Saturday had been. When I arrived, most of the car shop crew was out working on the project to decorate the interior of the newly leased Metra bi-level (see below) for Happy Holiday Railway, which starts in just a few days.

But another high-priority project is clearing the space east of Barn 4 so that work can continue toward construction of the new barn extension, so I helped Joel with that. This week, the task was to empty out one of our storage containers and move the spare windows in it to a new storage unit. The guys built a loft for the storage unit over the last couple of weeks, as shown in the photo above (that's Joel on the left), so that's where the windows went. We moved 100 or so windows using one of the museum's pickup trucks. The things in the foreground are the motors for our CLRV, in case you're wondering.

As for HHR, after sunset I stopped up at the depot to check out the train, which has grown to five cars. This photo shows the bi-level cab car we're leasing from Metra, and in the foreground are the transformers that will be installed Monday or Tuesday to provide "shore power" for the train when it's sitting in Station Track 2 overnight. A lot of work has gone into making shore power available at this location on fairly short notice, so a huge thank you goes out to our AC and DC Line volunteers!

I wasn't out on Saturday, but fortunately our intrepid freelance photographer Bill Wulfert was there when the bi-level arrived to document the action. Thanks for sending these photos, Bill!

This is the first time IRM has ever leased a passenger car, but it gives us extra seating capacity and allows us to accommodate ADA riders for the holiday event. Greg reported that the car was built in 2003 (and just recently overhauled) making it 40 years newer than the next-youngest passenger car on the property.