Spectacular Sunday

Sunday was another spectacular day at IRM, with a lot of trains in operation.  Frank and I were running the 36 and 319, so I wasn't able to get many good pictures of all the action.  But we can tell you a little about it.  Here's our interurban train:

 

There was also a two-car North Shore train, which was on the opposite side of the hour and therefore never in the station at the same time, and the 714 running the Union shuttle.

We had a good crowd of visitors, including many photographers.  Everyone was having a great time.

Perhaps the most spectacular part of the operation was the eight-car heavyweight train, with an ABA set of E units and the Milwaukee Road dynamometer.  The train was just too long to get a good picture of, but I'm sure some will show up elsewhere.

Both steam locomotives were running, with the Shay on the caboose train and the 1630 with coaches.  You won't see anything like this between here and Strasburg!

Thanks to all the people who worked so hard to make all this possible, including the Car Shop guys who did the lubrication for us.  We really appreciate it!

And as I post this, you still have time to get in on Monday's action. 

Frank adds...

While the 319 and 36 may have been the big news on Sunday (ha, ha) we weren't the only news.

Progress on Yard 4 East is happening. In the background, tracks 42 and 43 have been extended east maybe 100' from the barn. In the foreground, these boards cover holes for setting posts for the barn extension that is going up soon.

And over on the grass across from the Hoffman Garage, this exciting sight: lumber and prefab roof trusses for the Barn 4 extension. It's starting to get exciting!

US Army 8537, our longtime switcher, is out of the Barn 2 paint shop in a gorgeous new paint job. It was on display in Yard 4 West for a Memorial Day Weekend public debut.

As my father mentioned, there were a lot of trains running. There were four mainline trains, two streetcars, and two different trains shuttling between the property and Jefferson Street: the caboose train (powered by the Shay), which ran out of the depot, and North Shore 714, which ran out of 50th. Larry Stone kept everything moving like clockwork by, among other things, utilizing Schmidt Siding as a meet location for the first time in years. On the main line, this is a view of the very impressive A-B-A lash-up of E-units that was pulling the heavyweight train. There were six heavyweight cars plus the dynamometer; in this shot you can see the Pawnee at the far end of the train around the curve at the east switch. The train faced west, which is unusual.

I stuck around late enough to see the L4 doing some testing. Monday it was scheduled to pull the caboose train, its first day in revenue service in several years following motor and center bearing work.

As a final aside, I should mention that as we pulled the 319-36 into the barn at the end of the day, my father pointed out that we didn't have a single dewirement the entire day. Not a single time during a full day of operations did a pole on either car take the wrong wire or pop off. Kudos to our DC Line Department!