Saturday, August 12, 2023

Diesel Days

This may be about the shortest report on a major festival at IRM that you'll see.  But I was busy -- that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Summary: Diesels were everywhere.


There were lots of visitors, lots of action, lots of photography, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

The one display I actually visited was this Burlington switcher parked at 50th Ave. with the cab open for visitors, and the doors open to show some of the mechanical features inside.  And the crew were standing by to answer questions.  This is quite good.





And over on the next track:


Luckily for you, if you missed it today (Saturday), it will still be going tomorrow!

And finally, the new ballast in Barn 4 looks quite nice.  Now all you have to do is wet all this dry plaster with a fine mist from a spray bottle, and you'll have an authentic-looking roadbed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How many diesels were on display and how many of them are working?
C Kronenwetter

Anonymous said...

Hopefully the diesel crew will update the IRM blog with a brief recap. Aside from them and the coach department, that media is unused. Sure Facebook is fun but it doesn’t stand up for longevity, yet they have many (ab)users.

Matt Maloy said...

Based on what I could see in some YouTube videos, almost every internal combustion thing IRM owned was on display during Diesel Days, including some locomotives that probably hadn't been outside since the early 2010s, like MILW 5057 and GTW 1951. About the only things I didn't see was Union Pacific M-35 and the Ingersol Boxcab.

I also wish the various museum departments would use the IRM blog a little more often. I used to know a few guys from the Diesel Department, and it seems they like to do a lot of gatekeeping and keep the various goings-on of the department from the general public.

-Matt Maloy