The Horseshoe Curve is known worldwide as an engineering achievement by the Pennsylvania Railroad. This landmark, located just west of Altoona, opened to traffic on February 15, 1854, and it enabled a railroad line to climb the Allegheny Mountains and the eastern continental divide.
Through vintage photographs, Horseshoe Curve chronicles how this marvel remains one of the vital transportation arteries linking the east and west coasts of the United States.
In 1915 Baldwin delivered a Mikado for the Fort Worth & Denver City Railway. It was eventually donated for display in the city park in Marshall, Texas in 1963.
After many years of outdoor storage, and little upkeep, the discovery of asbestos emerging from beneath a rotted jacket resulted in a steel building being erected over the locomotive in order to keep the public at bay. In time though, the locomotive would come to need a new home, resulting in a move to the city depot for display. This is the saga of that move.
In recent years the Illinois Railway Museum has steadily been expanding its facilities for disseminating news and information about progress at the museum on the Internet. The first outlet for this was the museum's website which since its earliest days has included news items on its homepage.
Starting with a site redesign in 1997 which links to news pages for different departments, IRM has continued to develop new and meaningful ways to significantly increase the amount of information that can be communicated online to interested parties, both in an effort to further the museum's educational mission as well as spur interest in the museum from both internal and external sources.
