Soggy Showcase Saturday

Frank writes...

IRM put on quite a show for Museum Showcase Weekend on Saturday, as we usually do. The festivities were dampened a bit (quite literally) by the weather, but on the whole, things ran smoothly and I'd say that everyone had a great time.

When I arrived in the morning, plenty of prep work for the day's activities had already been done. A ceremony to reveal a painting by railroad artist Robert West was planned for the afternoon, and since the painting depicted a Milwaukee Electric car and a C&NW caboose, we obliged by providing both as a backdrop for the ceremony. The 972 ran itself over to Yard 4 West and the caboose was brought over by a Car Department switch crew.

Randy adds: Compare this view to a picture taken by my father 50 years ago, as it happens:

Up at the depot, it was clear we weren't going to be going into service too early because all three tracks - both station tracks and the main - were occupied by long trains! The Zephyr, on Track 1, was by far the shortest. Over on track 2 was a very impressive heavyweight train with two modern diesels, Metra 614 and BNSF 6976, on the head end. The consist included the dynamometer, Santa Fe combine, Galt House, Dover Strait, Villa Real, and the Inglehome bringing up the markers. It was really nice to see the Inglehome out again; for many years this was our go-to observation car, but it had been out of service for several years until completion of repair work recently. The third train, over on the main, was an impressive six-car bi-level train with a pair of E-units as power.

If we thought our entry into service might be delayed, we didn't know the half of it. When we did our initial brake test in the barn, the 319 was overcharging the train line, pointing to an issue with the feed valve. We would have swapped it with the feed valve off the 308 as an expedient, but they're different styles, so the 319's valve was brought into the shop to see if we could quickly clean and service it. It turned out the valve had water in it, which obviously isn't good, and needed a very thorough cleaning. A huge THANK YOU goes out to Greg (shown above) and Joel, who worked for a couple of hours on getting the feed valve repaired. It will need a bit more work, but shortly after 1:00 we installed it and left the barn.

We also owe a big thank you to the dispatcher, Andrew Ossler, who immediately got us out of the yard and up to the station for a 1:30 trip. Including us, there were six mainline trains - the three shown in the earlier photo, the Shay with its caboose train, and CRT 1797 running shuttle service out of 50th. Of those, the heavyweight and bi-level trains could only fit in Station Track 2 and couldn't fit on that track together at the same time, so they were going out at :15 and :45 to avoid each other while the "short" trains - us and the Zephyr - used Station Track 1. We had time to make two full mainline trips, at 1:30 and 2:30, and were loaded for a third when the dispatcher called us to let us know rain was expected in about half an hour. Oops. Rather than offload our passengers, we made a streetcar line trip, let everyone off at Depot Street, and ran for the barn. (I should mention that my father was running and I was the conductor, but we failed to get a crew photo - sorry.)

We got the cars inside about five minutes before the skies opened up. I observed the rain from the west end of Barn 8. It was quite a spectacular cloudburst, but after 10 or 15 minutes the rain slacked off.

We even ended up with quite a nice rainbow. The biggest effect, other than our train going back to the barn early, may have been to delay the BBQ dinner by 30-45 minutes. I believe the BBQ crew had just started cooking the pork chops when their grill got completely doused by the downpour. But in the end, dinner was good, and night operations commenced at 7pm or so.

My assignment for the evening was "car host" on the 229. The original plan was to run the D13, the dump motor, but there's a lot of setup and take-down associated with running that, and the rain made that work impractical. So, the 229 was the alternative. We put a few stools inside the center section and carried people around the streetcar line for a couple of hours with riders in both cabs and riding as "freight" in the middle. I was assigned to the middle of the car while Zach operated and Will served as conductor. Above, we're stopped at Electric Park with some riders from other museums in the center section. We had visitors from Hoosier Valley, Northern Ohio, and FRTM, among others.

Here's Zach in the 229 at Central Avenue with the 2200s behind him. These cars have been out of service for a few years, but recently the motor shop completed rebuilding a replacement motor, so this was their first foray back into revenue operation for a while. From what I heard, everything ran very smoothly. As for the 229, we only loaded at Central Avenue because there was a set of stairs there to access the baggage door; we then did "express trips" around the loop and unloaded again at Central.

Another "only at IRM" moment: the 19 and the 229 are held at Barn 9 North while the bi-level train heads south down the connector track to the south yards.

And after I departed the 229 crew, I stopped over at 50th Avenue to see the 2200s. These cars actually took over for the 1797 in "Jefferson Street Shuttle" service midway through the afternoon, so they were making trips both before and after dinner. Other trains in service after dinner were the Shay and its caboose train, the 92 pulling the heavyweight train (with all the cars lit, no less!), IT 101, and the Zephyr, which was providing dessert service in the dining car. The 19 and 3142 were also making trips on the streetcar line along with the 229.