Milwaukee Road Dynamometer Car (X-5000) Preservation

01/22/2026

Dyno car at Diesel Days Aug 7-9, 2025 at the Illinois Railway Museum.

03/13/2019

The railroad car project I have been working on got featured in the Illinois Railway Museum blog thanks to Roger Kramer.

The dynamometer car was built in 1930 by the Milwaukee Road railroad to measure steam locomotive performance. It was also featured in the movie Danger Lights (on YouTube) in the same year.

In the late 1960’s it was upgraded with modern electronic test instruments and used until 1985-87. My Father was in charge of the car during this time.

In 1992 the Soo Line Railroad, which acquired the Milwaukee Road, donated it to the Illinois Railway Museum. I’ve been working on it since with a rag tag bunch of folks like Chuck Trabert, Andy Greco, Brian Daniel LaKemper and others.

We hope to have the roof painted by IRM’s Showcase Weekend Sept 14-15 where we run it on a train open to the public.

If this looks interesting, we are always looking for volunteers.

Please don't ever say that the volunteers in the coach department are not devoted and tough in this cold weather. In spite of the extreme of this winter a new group of volunteers began removing old paint and rust on the X 5000. Here are a few action shots! You can almost here somebody's teeth ch**te...

12/27/2018

Volunteers removing paint from one side of the car. Location is in Barn 11 at the Illinois Railway Museum.

11/30/2016

A few first pix of the Dyno since being moved into Barn 11 recently.

11/30/2016

After 30 years of sitting outside, the Dynamometer car X-5000 is now inside its new home in Barn 11 at the Illinois Railway Museum, along with other Milw equipment. A big thank you to MRHA and IRM and all who donated to get the equipment inside and preserved.

01/15/2016

10/23/2015

Here's an update to the restoration efforts from Oct 2015...

http://www2.irm.org/blogs/archives/1865-Milwaukee-Road-Dynamometer-Painting-Project-Test-Day.html

On the morning of Wed. Oct 7, Chuck Trabert, Chuck Pomazal and Warren Newhauser set out to begin the long awaited exterior restoration of the the Milw Rd Dynamometer car. We planned to spend the day doing a small but complete test of sandblasting and painting on the roof in order to work out any iss…

09/18/2015

Video of IRM Showcase 2014:

https://youtu.be/huYz7xbbegI

A series of short clips showing the running the Milwaukee Road's Dynamometer car X-5000 at Illinois Railway Museum's Annual Showcase Weekend Sat 9/20 and Sun...