At the Illinois Railway Museum. we are starting to correlate the late Pullman orders in the Pullman Library and wish to notify the rail conservation community of our recent activities. There have been a number of requests for Pullman-built high level commuter cars such as those for the Chicago Northwestern. If those requestors are following this forum, I would suggest that you contact us in early December, when we will have some late Pullman specifications in the collection in place and the drawings organized. We have also have had a request for CTA specs & drawings here in house. This is the result of having received the final shipment from Bombardier Transport of Canada and our starting to organize the material. For those in the preservation community please be aware that we are talking about 63 pallets of drawings including most of the Budd Company drawings going back to the first Pioneer Zephyr and its successors including the B&M's Flying Yankee, now under advanced restoration in New Hampshire. A storage facility is nearly completed to accept these materials, allowing them to be accessible for the first time in a number of years. Note we are still missing the Budd specifications which are critical to locating a specific drawing. Please help out there! Be aware that our huge team of volunteers includes just three people, myself, Bob Webber, and Al Johanson plus interested volunteers. Security is tight to preserve this for future generations and to avoid the depredations of "collectors" after the fact of honest people saving our railway heritage for their heirs! I am one too, just having noticed the leather arm chair in our bedroom inherited from my family has little projections on the front to fit into a hole to keep it from moving while the car is in motion!
All material is furnished under Bombardier Transport license. In that manner, the copies are to be used for educational purposes only by the original requestor or by designated agents under the license.
We are pleased to be able to offer this educational service and wish to acknowledge the very significant support by Bombardier management and staff in making available this resource for generations to come.
Sincerely, Ted Anderson volunteer curator at the IRM Pullman Library