Building Tour

Frank writes...

I was out Saturday but didn't get many photos of what I was working on. I was able to switch the 18 with CSL 1374, which was behind it. Many thanks to David and Mikey for their help with this switch move. We're still looking for any manufacturer info on National BB2 air compressors - part lists, maintenance manuals, specifications, anything. If you know of any paperwork on these air compressors, please let us know!

The other news on the 18 is that Dave Diamond and his crew created the above display sign for the car, which is a vast improvement over the small printed-and-laminated piece of paper it now has. Thanks, Dave! My next job is to figure out the best way to mount this. Besides that, I did some masking in the smoker of the 460 and briefly helped my father uncouple the 451 following its successful test as a control trailer. It was a busy day: Nick and Greg were working on air brake components for 'L' cars, Zach was working on Operating Department stuff, Richard was training a new volunteer to drive trolley buses, John was working on the 306, Tim was working on the 1808, Mikey and Jimmy were working on IT 415, and Joel was buzzing around doing Joel things.

And now, to switch gears, let's go on a building tour! Everyone at IRM is thrilled that our new neighbors on the property, the Chicago & North Western Historical Society, just got the occupancy permit for their new building on Main Street. They're going to start moving in next weekend, but Jeff from the C&NWHS was out on Saturday and offered a group of us IRM volunteers a tour through the complete, but empty, building.

I threw together this drawing to help you orient yourself. It is not to scale and the numbers have no significance whatsoever - I just added them to make it easier to write captions for the photos below. The northwest side of the building faces onto Main Street. The building is about 8,000 square feet in total, of which about 5,000 square feet is the big, open archival storage room (#6) taking up most of the back half of the building.

The tour started at the back; this photo is taken from the south corner looking north. Jeff is in the green shirt at left. In the far back right corner, at the east corner of the building, are restrooms. From front (northeast) to back, rooms #1 and #2 are at the front of the building, #3 and #4 are in the center, and #5 and #6 are at the back.

Here, the tour group troops through the doors into room #3. The second doorway goes into room #1 at the west corner of the building.

Here we are looking southwest in room #3. This is going to be part of the organization's offices, I believe. Behind the photographer is room #4, which will be a break room.

This is in room #3 looking at the doorways into room #5, which will be a storeroom.

Between room #3 and room #1 is this nice window, to which will be added some original C&NW ticket window grates.

Here we are at the front of the building in room #2, which will be the organization's museum. This room will be open to the public on some special event days at IRM and/or when they have staffing. The unfinished wall at the back right will hold inscribed tiles that were "sold" as part of a fundraising effort to construct this building. I think that Jeff said there's about 11' from the floor to those air ducts, so there will be room to display some pretty large artifacts.

And this is room #1, which will be an archive work area. This also looks out onto Main Street but probably won't be open for walk-ins. You can see that ticket window on the left beyond the door.

Thanks to Jeff for the tour, and I think I can speak for everyone at IRM when I say "welcome!" to the C&NWHS. It's wonderful to have this organization and the Milwaukee Road Historical Association on the property.