I figured I would give everyone an update on where we are at with getting things ready for Diesel Days, which is this Saturday and Sunday. It should be the largest Diesel event in IRM's history. If everything continues to go as planned, we should have 15 locomotives operating, from 7 different builders, those include Alco, Baldwin, EMC, EMD, Fairbanks Morse, General Electric, and Whitcomb. There will also be a few in tow for display purposes.

The operable fleet includes:
Burlington Northern 1
Burlington Northern 2
Burlington Northern 3
Burlington Northern 5383
Chicago Burlington & Quincy 9911A
Chicago Milwaukee St. Paul & Pacific 118C
Chicago Milwaukee St. Paul & Pacific 760
Commonwealth Edison 15
Davenport Rock Island & North Western 121
Joy Manufacturing Company 2
Metra 305
Metra 308
Minneapolis Northfield & Southern 21
Nekoosa Paper 14
Southern Pacific 1518

Others, in control, or dead in tow:
Chicago Milwaukee St. Paul & Pacific 1603
Dardanelle & Russellville 14
Illinois Terminal 1605
Union Pacific 6930

We will attempt to operate all these for the parade on both Saturady and Sunday, with a mix of various passenger and freight cars. We will operate the parade as we did on sunday of last year. the station tracks will be empty for the most part, trains/locos will stop on the mainline in front of the depot, Nick will give his speech, and then they will highball east. Good photo spots will be where they are stopped in front of the depot and when accelerating east towards the east end of station track 2, and also along the grass next to barn 2 (on the barn side of the ditch, please).

I'm not sure what cars will be with what locos yet, but we are thinking of something like this for the loco lashups...

- BN-1, BN-2, 118C, 308
- 9911A, BN-3, Nebraska Zephyr
- 6930, 1518
- NP 14, 1603
- 121, 1605
- 305, bilevels
- 5383
- 2
- 21
- 15, D&R 14
- 760

I don't know if we'll find enough engineers for all of these too, so we may combine a few more on the list, or recycle some engineers.

It'll certainly be a neat show, hope you all can make it on one or both days, as we may have some things changed slightly so its not the same thing on both days. Oh, the time of the parade, we are thinking, will be about 1:30pm, but we'll see how things shape up.

Check out the IRMlist on Yahoo Groups for more details, or, if you want, I can try to update everyone here too.

Thanks,
Jamie


Illinois Railway Musem