There has been a lot of effort to upgrade the website, www.irm.org, with photos of the equipment in the collection. For freight cars alone, almost 500 new images are available. These are not all roster shots, or only of restored pieces, and include many as-is where-is shots even if sightlines are poor, or lighting not the best. Many shots are included of details such as trucks, lettering or ends.

Other departments are also adding shots including the passenger equipment and electric traction. On the IRM homepage click on ROSTER and then browse through.

Also on the homepage is more info (with pics) of the next diesel repainting project where an ex METRA F unit has now returned, largely, to its C&NW yellow scheme. I believe the plan is to use this locomotive to create a matched consist with our three restored bi-level cars.

Bob Kutella

Bob,

Interesting photos of the equipment. Great concept. Looked at only a few of the entries.

I did find a oops. Santa Fe caboose 1400 I doubt was built in 1323.

Au contraire, in an effort to subvert the unionization efforts of its shopmen and to achieve ever greater effencies - the Santa Fe's industrial engineer Harrington Emerson used a recently side-lined 2-10-10-2 to allow shop work to be contracted out to medieval craftsmen who literally would work for bread and water. Numerous quality control issues (akin to those found in the other attempts in contracting shop work in the early 20's) rendered the cost savings minimal, however, and the experiment was not repeated.

Tom Cornillie

For those that cannot read between the lines, that would be 1923. Thanks

Bob Kutella

Re the recent F-Unit rebuild/repaint..
I beleive the photos with the new paint are in the WSOR shops, who did the paint work, after IRM's volunteers did the rebuild work, yes ?

Also, please forgive the ignorance here,, I notice the bell placement in what would normally be a headlight housing. I would guess this to be a "commuter" rail configuration, I can't imagine any benefit to this positioning given the locomotive's original designed for purposes.

Can anyone elaborate ?
Thanks !

Yes, the CNW repaint is/was being done by WSOR. In commuter service, many carbody deisels had a gong type bell installed at what we might think of as a second headlight spot. In push pull service on crowded platforms and with the CNW running left handed, it seems riders never caught on completely. As a result, there were always frantic dashes in front of the train, almost daily when I was commuting on the Northwest line.

The other two re-paints of diesels this year were done and are being completed on site at Union.

Bob Kutella

there is also a large collection of equipment photos in the "Members Gallery", with a link on the right side of the IRM web homepage. The roster is not completly linked yet, but at least for now the passenger department and the freight department are both completly represented in sections of the members gallery