Later That Day...

Frank writes...

I was out on Saturday, too, but stayed later than my father did.

After the safety meeting, I spent a little while cleaning inside IT 233, shown here. The plan for the Illinois Traction Society meet next weekend is to have this car open for walk-through tours, which I believe is the first time we've done this - or, at least, the first time in three or four decades. The car is very complete inside and has a pretty unusual layout, which I hope to cover in more detail next weekend - with luck (read as: no rain), the car will be outdoors and the light will be better.

One thing that was needed to switch out the 233 and the 150, which has been spotted just east of the 233 for years, was removing the scaffold. We'd already told Joel that this could be disassembled and taken over to Barn 4 for use however is most beneficial for the greater good. Here, Nathan and Jimmy have already taken down the wooden tool tray and grating and are starting to unbolt the X-braces. I think we've been using this scaffold for a little over 25 years - at least, 1998 or 1999 would have been about when we grabbed that tool tray that Glen Guerra had built - but there's no obvious need for it in Barn 8 in the foreseeable future.

After that came dinner and then the annual membership meeting. It's Chicago, political signs directly outside the polling place are the least of your concerns.

I took this photo at the afternoon safety meeting, but other than the big screen having come down, the evening membership meeting looked about the same. It finished in near-record time, I believe about 51 minutes start to finish. The usual "congratulations and condolences" go to Zach Ehlers, who was reelected to the board; to Conn McCarthy from the Steam Department, who was elected for the first time; and to Marcus Ruef, who was elected a year ago but has now succeeded the term-limited Jason Maxwell as President.

Afterward, I hung around talking with the car shop guys back in Barn 4 for a few minutes. This interesting item was pointed out. It's a door bridge to allow the trolley wire to pass through the new roll-up door at the east end of track 41, and will be the first we've put into use at IRM. The barns at the south end (10, 11, 13, and 14) all have roll-up or aircraft hangar-style doors, but none of those barns have trolley wire going into them. And this will be the only one we use with this project, since the wire won't extend out the east end of tracks 42 and 43. But track 41 is the inspection pit lead, so this thing will see plenty of use!

ADDENDUM: Many thanks to our intrepid freelance photographer Joel Ahrendt, who sent along photos of the switch move taken on Sunday!

Above, track 84 is completely clear end to end.

And here's Lake Shore Electric 150, out in the sunlight for the first time in quite a few years. I'm not certain but I think it may have last been outside around 2015 or 2016. Among other things, the other side of the car has since been painted (though obviously I missed that front corner - oops) and tack molding was added to this side of the car for appearance. Anyone snap a photo of the other side of the 150 while it was outside?

This is a really nice photo of our two out-of-service orange cars, business car 233 and sleeping car 504, coupled together on the ladder track. Of these two, the 233 is in pretty good condition but lacks motors (the IT removed those a few years before retiring and selling the car) while the 504 is rough, but certainly restorable. Both should be available for viewing, both inside and out, during the ITS meet next weekend. Interested in attending? You need to be an ITS member - get more info here.

Annual Meeting Day

Frank writes...

Saturday was the date of the annual operating rules test, operating safety meeting, and general membership meeting. So, there was a lot going on. I still managed to get a little bit of work done.

After taking the rules test in the morning, I returned to the property and removed all of the masking tape from the smoker of the 460, so it now looks a lot better. We also got the baggage racks installed - many thanks to Good Nick, Jimmy, and Lee Evans from the Diesel Shop for their help, plus I think there were a couple of other people who helped carry the racks over from inside the shop.

The result is shown here (I later cleaned up the drop clothes and junk on the floor, but failed to get any photos after that point). This is certainly a big improvement! As usual for the Annual Meeting, there were some out-of-town visitors around, and people who stopped by to tour the 460 included Randy Anderson (along with Norm Krentel) and Steve Iverson.

Other than removing the masking tape, I swept out the smoker and then spent a while scrubbing the chromed covers to the baseboard heaters to remove some overspray that we inadvertently got on them. We'll also want to repaint the floor, whose paint is pretty worn down anyway, but that can pretty easily be done after the seats are installed. And, of course, work is progressing on the bulkhead door.

In the evening, it was time for the annual meeting. Both the rules test and the annual meeting were held in swanky new digs at Marengo High School, the rules test in the cafeteria and the annual meeting in the auditorium, seen above. We extend our usual congratulations and condolences to Chris Chasin and Nick Espevik, who were reelected to the board, and to Marcus Ruef, who was elected to an open seat.

Annual Meeting 2021

Frank writes...

I was out at IRM on Saturday, for a change, because it was the date set for the 2021 IRM Annual Membership Meeting. As with last year's meeting (which was in September), it was held outdoors at the Central Avenue Pavilion. Fortunately, as with last year's meeting, the weather was nice.

The usual congratulations and condolences to Jason Maxwell, who was reelected, and to Zach Ehlers, who was elected to the board for the first time.

I then spent most of the afternoon working on inspecting the 309, doing brake adjustment and checking the motors. I needed to clean some gunk out of the comm on the #4 motor, which has had the least amount of attention of the motors on the car (#1 and #2 were totally rebuilt in 2003 and #3 was extensively cleaned up by IRM volunteers in 2006), but other than that things seemed pretty normal.

I did put the four newly-painted windows for the 18 in the car and brought four other windows back to the wood shop, though I didn't get a chance to paint them. In the above photo, the middle window is one of the rebuilt and repainted ones. Many thanks to Richard and Joel for their help with getting these painted!

Tim Peters was in the 2872 so I got to take a look inside the car. He's already started removing some of the more deteriorated wood from the outside of the car that will be replaced.

Tim found this fascinating relic in the attic at the west end of the car, over the platform ceiling in the end of the monitor roof section. It's the Chicago Daily Tribune from April 4, 1921. Tim's supposition is that this was probably the date that the car's roof was rebuilt and its roof-mounted headlights were removed.

We haven't been posting a lot of updates on Michigan Electric 28, but the crew working on that car have been making steady progress on the front end. The dash panels and various metal trim pieces have mostly been riveted back together at this point. It's really starting to look like itself from the front again.

And in case you were wondering, when comparing Type M systems, most of them seem to have the control resistors mounted to the contactor box - on the DB-131 they're on the back of the box, on the DB-260 they're on the end of the box - but on the pioneering DB-15 system the control resistors are mounted in their own box frame next to the motor resistor grid boxes. Here it is. So now you know.

The changing of the board

 Frank writes...

I was out for part of the day on Saturday. The weather was spectacular, a clear sunny day in the upper 70s with a nice breeze. It was a great day to hold an outdoor membership meeting, the first I can recall since a special meeting held in the same spot by Kevin McCabe back in the early 2000s on the occasion of a proposed deal with a county agency that ended up falling through. Anyhoo...

The dais was on the 50th Avenue station platform with the voting membership sitting on picnic tables just to the east of the Central Avenue streetcar stop. Above, recording secretary Ray Piesciuk is at the left end of the platform with the old board: Marcus standing and speaking, Ray behind him, Nigel to the right, and Jason and Thomas sitting past the canopy. This meeting took the place of the regular annual meeting normally held in April but cancelled because of the state lockdown. Due to a confluence of coincidence and resignations, five of the seven board seats were up for election.

And here's the new board of directors: Marcus standing, Nigel (no longer on the board but still treasurer), Jason, Thomas, Chris, Larry, Good Nick, and Dave standing at right. The usual congratulations and condolences to all of the new board members.

After the meeting ended, I rounded up our CA&E markers, fueled them, and test-lit them. They're shown above showing the successful results. Because there's rain in the forecast for tomorrow and we're not sure whether the wood cars will run (if not, we'll just run the steel cars in to the evening), Harold suggested we bring them out this evening. I had to depart mid-afternoon but my father arrived to answer any questions the regular crew might have. Photos should be forthcoming.

Tim is seen showing off the absolutely spectacular interior of the 1754, which as I understand it is nearly complete except for the truck work that has commenced back behind Barn 4. Later in the day the 1754 was brought out and put on display but I had to leave before I got photos. Stay tuned!

I did not, however, leave before seeing the four-car train of 4000s leave the barn on track 41. This is the first time anyone, anywhere has run a four-car train of 4000s for the public in 30 or 35 years (and of course that last time was still us, and was probably these four cars). We now have four-car electric trains of CRT woods, CTA 4000s, spam cans, "high performance" CTA cars, and CA&E woods, with four-car trains of CA&E steels and North Shore cars likely in the near future.

The museum didn't open until 2pm because the annual meeting was held in the morning, so that was different. Here Jack is getting the 415, our longtime stalwart that has been "taking it on the chin" more than usual lately, out of the barn to start the day in the early afternoon.

Stay tuned for more photos from Saturday evening, and then later on we should have photos from Sunday as well.

Safety First

"Safety First" is the essential principle for any type of railroad operation, and IRM takes it as seriously as any Class I railroad, if not more so.  Today was the Annual Meeting day, and therefore also the date for the rules review, annual safety meeting, rules test, and so on.  Here we see Harold Krewer, our Superintendent of Operations, during the rules review part of the program.

I suppose there's no point to going into detail about the festivities.  If you're involved in IRM operations, you should be there in person, and if you're not, it would probably be too much incomprehensible information.  However, if you are part of the operating crew and were unable to be there today, there's good news!  The rules review and safety meeting were videotaped by our technical department, and will be available on the members' website for your viewing pleasure.  If you watch the videos and send in an email following the secret instructions, you'll get credit for attending the safety meeting.

The Annual Meeting is proceeding even as I speak, and Frank is there and will be reporting on the results later.

Frank adds...

Indeed, the Annual Meeting went off more or less as planned. It took four ballots to elect two directors from a slate of nine candidates. Congratulations - and condolences - to Jason Maxwell and Tim Peters, who succeed term-limited outgoing board members Dave Diamond and Bob Olson. Jason is Assistant Curator of the Steam Department while Tim, of course, is our full-time volunteer wooden 'L' car restorer.

No offense to the candidates, nor board president Norm Krentel who managed the meeting, but one of the more interesting parts of the evening was a display set up in the corner of the room showing some views of the soon-to-be-built archive/model railroad/Pullman Library building planned for Main Street. This will be the first new-build structure on Main Street and will sit on the south side of the street immediately to the west of the existing Schroeder Mercantile Store. As seen above, it will include a "false front" implying several adjoining structures, generally similar in concept to the planned appearance of the Entrance Building which in the future will sit across the street from this structure.

Unfortunately I failed to get a picture of the floor plan. Oops! But the building will incorporate a large space for the Pullman Library, which will allow that enterprise to evacuate the old bank building at 1 North Main; a space for the model railroad display; several rooms for the archives of the Milwaukee Road Historical Association, which is providing financial support to build this structure; and also a small event space that can be used as a display gallery or meeting room. The steel for this building has already been ordered and groundbreaking is expected for sometime during 2018. Exciting times on Main Street, East Union!

Meanwhile, before the meeting I stopped by Barn 4 and viewed painting progress on the front end of our Veracruz open car, number 19. Someone (Tim?) has done a very nice job of sprucing up the front of the car, which was looking pretty tired. All it needs is a classic Chicago silver-with-black-outlining number under the headlight and it will be shipshape and Burnside fashion!

And this has nothing whatsoever to do with traction preservation but one of our volunteers brought a rather impressive O scale model in to the shop. So there, now you can say you've seen a GWR Autocoach on the blog.

Saturday postscript

Frank writes...

My father covered most of the interesting stuff from Saturday in his posts below but I took a couple of photos in addition.  First, one of the final grid box to be installed.  Fascinating, no?

And then in the evening, masochist that I am, I attended the annual membership meeting.  Congratulations to Paul Cronin on his election to the board and to Norm Krentel on his election as museum president.  There were the usual speeches, some brief "bylaw abatement" (as Hicks Car Works counsel David Wilkins would say) and that was about it - we were out in roughly 45 minutes, a commendably short meeting by IRM standards.  Kudos and thanks to outgoing president Joe Stupar!  Below, some of the speechifying: Nick and his biggest fan.

IRM Annual Meeting Live Blog!

David Writes.......

Once again, Frank and I are going to attempt to live blog the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Illinois Railway Museum.  This year, the meeting is being held in Chevelle's Bar and Grille, which is the former American Legion Post building in downtown Union.  We have somewhat of a tortured history of attempting to live blog the annual meeting.  However, we now have WiFi access, so this should be easier.  

The meeting is set to begin at 7:30PM CST, so sit back and be entertained.


7:30PM

The Meeting has been called to order, the first order of business is the approval of the minutes of the 2011 Membership meeting.  Next will be the election of directors.  There are two seats open.  Jim Nauer and Nick Kallas are the incumbents running for re-election.  Dave Diamond is also seeking re-election.

7:35PM


While ballots are being collected, the various officer reports have started.  IRM President Jim Nauer has began his report, inviting IRM Treasurer Fred Ash to come up and give a report.

7:51PM


The votes are in.  Congratulations to Jim Nauer and Dave Diamond who won seats on the Board of Directors.

8:02PM


Officer reports have completed.  Now various motions are being considered.  

2011 Annual Membership Meeting-Live Blog

7:23pm Frank and I are at the meeting, everyone is milling around. Let us hope the live blog internet connection holds up.

7:34pm Jim Nauer calls the meeting to order.

7:35pm Meeting minutes from 2010 meeting approved.

7:36pm Election of Board of Directors. 3 seats open, 1 incumbent is running (the two others are term-limited).

7:37pm The candidates for the board are: Joel Ahrendt, Steve Jirsa, Harold Krewer, Rich Schauer, Bob Sunderlein, and Jim West. Ballots are being collected, vote totals to follow.

7:38pm Jim Nauer, President is giving his report. Votes are being tallied. Jim's report focuses on the challenges of attracting new visitors.

8:02 pm The vote tallies are in! The three positions were filled on the first ballot. It took 54 votes to get elected. The vote totals are as follows:

Joel Ahrendt 70

Steve Jirsa 27

Harold Krewer 46

Rich Shauer 84

Bob Sunderlin 22

Jim West 62

Congrats to Joel, Rich, and Jim!

9:15pm Before the meeting adjourned, Charlie King, who holds museum seniority number 1 presented a special Illinois Terminal-related gift to the museum. Charlie was in possession of the black bunting that adorned the last Illinois Terminal intercity train in 1956. Thanks Charlie!

Annual Meeting and Rules Weekend

It is that time of year again, time for the IRM annual meeting, and rules class/safety meeting. As I write this, I am on Amtrak #302, part of the Lincoln Service heading north from St. Louis. Our long time blog readers will know that I attempted to do live updates from the annual meeting a few years ago, without much success. I have better mobile technology now, and let us hope that Union is now on the cell phone map for AT&T.

Besides the meeting and rules/safety meeting, Frank and I have a little project lined up as well, which will be the subject of a blog post. See everyone on Saturday!