I am looking for contact at the Illinois Railway Museum. I have checked their website and cannot find any listing of officers to contact. I have located one of the builder's plates from one of their locomotives and would like to work out an arrangement to get it back to them. Any information would be appreciated.

Try Nick Kallas at the museum phone number. He is the general manager.

Ron,

Nick is no longer the "General Manager", and does not currently hold a seat on the BOD.

James (Jamie) Kolanowski has been "General Manager" for a while now, among a variety of other titles. Although Jamie is not currently on the BOD, he would probably be a good person to contact. You can try the museum main phone number, and ask a human if he is available, or ask to leave a message for him.

If you want to go thru the BOD, try the general board of directors e-mail address, "bod@" followed by the obvious domain name, as found at the end of the museum's web site address. Or send a paper-copy letter addressed to the Board of Directors at the museum PO box address. FYI - Joe Stupar is the current Board President.

Contact with a Department curator by phone is an option. Once you reach a human being, ask for the appropriate department shop - Diesel, Electric Car, or Steam. For the Steam Department curator, I'd recommend after 2pm on a Saturday or Sunday. I don't have recommendations for the other departments. Again, a paper-copy letter addressed to the appropriate department curator at the museum PO box address.

Perhaps the most reliable, if not fastest, is to ask someone in the main office to leave a written message in the appropriate department's mail box, or in the President of the Board's mail box.

I can possibly provide more direct help getting you in touch with the right person(s); p-m me if you would like that help.

Regards,
Bob Milhaupt
(Occasional) Steam Department Volunteer
Illinois Railway Museum

Out of curiosity, which locomotive in the IRM collection have you located the builder's plate for?

Nick currently holds the position of "Executive Director", and can be reached at Nkallas@irm.org

Jamie (General Manager, Internal Combustion dept curator, webmaster, etc, etc, etc) can be reached at jamesk@irm.org

A generic Board of directors email is Bod@irm.org

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff!
I would recommend to our friend, to starting with Nick Kallas. Nick has an office right next to the secretary and spends a lot of time at the museum. He is aware of what is going on daily, and is involved in a lot of activities. Then I would move on to whom you have to contact, either James Kolanowski head of the Diesel Department or Tom Schneider head of the Steam Department. A letter to the museum usually gets a reply. Please keep in mind that we are 95% staffed by volunteers and try our best to respond to inquiries. As curator of the Pullman Library I get a lot of inquiries totally unrelated to what I do as a result of being accessible via email to the Pullman Library, set up several years ago after a lot of quiet leaning on Jamie who has run the website in addition to his leadership of the Diesel Department and other activities. We are all heavily committed! That explains a lot. Problem with the request, it did not specify whether it is a builders plate for a diesel, for a steam locomotive, or for another piece of equipment. Though we very much appreciate the offer (don't get me wrong, it is a tremendous offer), a little more specifics would speed the request to its destination. As a volunteer at the museum and heavily involved in restoration both through paper and through working on 100 year old cars, I can appreciate the whole shebang. Unfortunately, I am usually only there onsite on my special day, Wednesday, and cannot speak for the weekend folks. Good luck and thanks for the offer.
Ted Anderson, Pullman Library curator

Many thanks for the very prompt reply to my inquiry. I can proceed on this project by contacting the proper people. I knew that I could depend on the members of this list to come through for me!