Dear Pioneer,
I wonder why a baby exhibit wouldn’t make a good postcard? People seem to love taking pictures of babies.
It seems like I learn about a new exhibit at your museum every time I write. When they told me your museum was in the city, I could only picture the warehouses and tall buildings I used to see from the rail yard. You can imagine my surprise when your guides sent that postcard and I saw you and U-505 outside with the museum in the background! I suppose it makes sense for the MSI to have so many exhibits with a building that big to keep them all in. Do you know how many exhibits you have all together?
I was told a long time ago that the IRM used to be in the city too and it shared the grounds with the Chicago Hardware Foundry. Originally they were called the Illinois Electric Railway Museum, and were founded to preserve just one interurban car, Indiana Railroad 65. Apparently creating a museum was the best way to save her from being scrapped. And they didn’t stop with her, either, they started acquiring lots of cars! Eventually they got so many that they had to move the museum all the way out to the country to hold them all, which is why we’re in Union now.
IR 65 is like our founder in a way! Without her, none of us would be here. I’ve never met her myself but from the stories I hear, she seems nice and not at all stuck-up, even though she’s a bit of a yard celebrity. When she was built in 1931 (even earlier than you!) she was very modern, comfortable, and quiet which made her very popular and must be why the man who worked with her wanted her to be preserved. She gets some special treatment from the staff and volunteers for being the IRM’s first car, but even she’s not operational yet. It just goes to show that no one’s playing favorites when it comes to restoration, I suppose!
The weather’s nice enough now that we’ve started running our steam engines again! CE 5 is handling the bulk of the work, since the price of oil means keeping Tuskegee 101 in steam is a little too expensive. They said the high price of oil might also be why we’ve seen fewer visitors too, as it affects gas prices. Probably a good thing I’m not operational right now! Tuskegee 101 said she feels a bit guilty when they do take her out. None of us wants to be a financial drain.
CE 5 has been doing a great job though. Lower ridership means shorter trains, but it also means we get to spend more time with individual visitors and answer their questions when they have them. The Burlington heavyweight cars are a little cranky about the lack of riders because it means they don’t get to hit the main line as often as they’d like, but Vesta just sniffs at them and tells them at least they get to run. That usually cuts off the complaining pretty quickly.
No word yet on the Goddesses’ air conditioning, but there’s talk of trying to get us running before Members Day again this year. That’s a ways off yet and there’s a lot to do before then and not just on our train, so I’m not counting my chickens – to use a country expression. Venus calls this being ‘cautiously optimistic’.
If the weather is as nice by you as it’s been here, maybe your visitors can walk to the museum?
Your friend,
Pilot