The Blue Brothers

Today was the first day of public operation for the two-car blue train this year; the train was made up last night and both cars operated successfully for five trips today with Jim Nauer operating and myself as conductor. The day was not without incident, though. The 308 had some issues with a finicky triple valve that did not always release when a light brake application was taken (there were no problems with heavier applications). Other than a few hard stops there were no real issues, but this will be addressed. Fortunately we currently have a functional spare M3A triple on hand and will probably swap this in until the problems with the triple valve on the car can be fixed.

The other issue was that one of the springs on the 308's #2 end trolley base broke, as shown at right. This didn't affect operations at all; since the two-car train is bused together we simply used the poles on the 309 all day. This should be a straightforward and, hopefully, fairly simple fix.

After the end of operations I changed into work clothes and went over to Barn 4, where Joel Ahrendt, Joe Stupar and Stan Wdowikowski, with help from Dan Mulvihill, were working on reassembling rebuilt components for North Shore 757's type DH-25 air compressor. I mostly just sat around and watched (and took photos) though I did lend a hand for a few minutes.
Shown here, L-R: Joel and Stan tighten down the crankshaft; Joe, Joel and Stan working on lining up the reconditioned armature (foreground); and Joe replaces the top cover after installation of the field coil assembly (foreground, around the armature).

309 In Operation

The 309 returned to service today. Early in the morning, I made a test trip, helped by Stan, Charlie, and Joel. The oil problem appears to have been solved, and the car was released for service.

Since I only had one trainman, Joel Ahrendt, and the attendance seemed rather limited, we ran all day with only the 309. We made a total of six revenue trips, and all went well. I was too busy to take more than one picture! Mostly we operated out of 50th Avenue again. We had many compliments on the car and on the ease of boarding from the high-level platform.

Also today we started picking up train orders from the new hoop frame near Spaulding Tower, which was a first, at least for me. The orders are caught by the conductor, of course, and I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of this, but I'm sure some will be posted soon. Among other things, we got a chance to talk to Tom Hunter who was visiting, and he took a lot of good shots.

We learned that our friend Bill Thiel had had serious health problems; after a liver transplant he was in hospital for six weeks but was scheduled to be released tomorrow. Several of his friends and relatives visited the Museum, and Frank Sirinek was showing them around. Here's wishing Bill a complete recovery!

We made up the two-car train at the end of the day, so tomorrow both the 308 and 309 should be operating.

In Memoriam

Oliver James Sturdee Hicks, 1914-1941

May 30th was the traditional Memorial Day to remember those who gave their lives in the defense of freedom. This is my father's cousin Sturdee, who was a seaman on the cruiser HMS Calcutta. The Calcutta was sunk in the Mediterranean while covering the evacuation from Crete in May 1941. Thousands of men like him died to protect the freedom and security we enjoy today.

Rest in peace!

Platte Valley Trolley

The Platte Valley Trolley is an operation of the Denver Rail Heritage Society. At present it has just one car, a Gomaco-built open car powered by a Diesel generator. It runs along the Platte River through Denver from downtown, past the football stadium, along a mile or so of an abandoned railroad spur. The two volunteers shown here, a man and his wife, were taking turns running the car and providing commentary as we rolled past various places of interest, such as a children's museum.

Here the car is approaching its terminal under a major downtown highway bridge. The Gomaco car is an excellent replica; it uses trucks, motors, etc. from Melbourne. The society, as you can see from the webpage, has big plans: they want to build a carbarn and museum, install overhead wire, and move their Denver & Interurban car there when it's restored. (In the background is the Elitch amusement park.)

This waycar currently serves as an office and workshop for the operation. Unfortunately, the open car is stored outside, behind the chain link fence, and is showing its age. But it's an interesting and enjoyable ride, and demonstrates another facet of railway preservation in contrast to the two I already posted from our trip to Colorado.

New IRM Recruiting Posters

Dateline East Union, Illinois -- Today, the Illinois Railway Museum unveiled some new recruiting posters. The posters are to recruit new volunteers to the museum. It's unclear whether the posters will have the intended effect. The posters, designed to capitalize on the popularity of a certain politican from Illinois, were unveiled at a ceremony at the East Union Depot. Details are sketchy, but the following images were released to the assembled media:

Happy Birthday, Frank!

Here we are celebrating Frank's birthday in 1985. This must be IRM, but a lot of things have changed!

Oil and Water

My highest priority is to get the 309 into revenue service, so today I started by removing the excess oil from the #4 armature bearing with a siphon; I then cleaned the commutator with special solvent to remove the oil and gunk which had been deposited on it. I then tested the car by running it out to the road and back a couple of times. I didn't want to go any farther because I was by myself and didn't want to be stuck if something went wrong. The commutator was still clean after these brief runs, but that's not much of a test. We'll need to do a main line run before deciding the problem has been fixed. Thanks again to Stan for his help on this.

After that, I started installing the new piece of canvas for the 277 I purchased yesterday. First, I rolled it out on the grass and soaked it on both sides with the hose.

After a thorough soaking, I managed to get it up onto the roof of the car and started to stretch it in place as well as I could. It's not easy to do, since this is just a patch piece. My primary objective was not to fall off the car and die. Actually getting the canvas tight is relatively minor. I'm hoping it will shrink somewhat as it dries. To the right is a picture before I really started stretching it.

After that I turned to the inside of the 277. I removed a piece from the ceiling so I can get the ceiling paint matched. That will be the next step. Joel is helping by repainting the baggage racks, and I will need to roll the ceiling before they can be reinstalled. I then put another coat of white primer on all the parts already installed, as seen here. It's looking good, I think.

Tim Peters continues to make good progress on the 1268. Here he is painting the sides.

Finally, for this week's scenery on the IRM campus, we have a nice view of Schneider's Grove.

Forney Transportation Museum

The Forney Museum of Transportation is located in a large warehouse-type building in downtown Denver, right across the street from the Coliseum. The collection is mostly antique automobiles, with many bicycles and other things, and it includes a small number of well-preserved railroad cars and locomotives.

The most impressive item is of course the UP Big Boy 4005. The cab is fenced off, but you can look in and see the labels on many of the valves and controls.

There is also a UP rotary, a C&NW 4-6-0, and a Rio Grande dining car set up and well lit so you can see both the kitchen and dining areas.





The Forney museum has exactly the opposite preservation philosophy from CRRM. Everything is stored inside a large climate-controlled building. Lighting is kept low so the upholstery won't fade. As a result, photography is difficult, especially of the railroad equipment. (I should have brought a tripod!) But the artifacts should last forever. Of course, most groups don't have the funding to be able to afford a building like this.

One amusing thing is the large number of wax figures displayed in and around the cars. This happened because a Denver wax museum went out of business and gave their entire collection to the Forney. I'm told there's still more down in the basement awaiting placement.

On the left is Denver Tramways #77, pretty much an empty shell. The cable grip, on the other hand, is complete and in excellent shape.

This museum is well worth a visit if you're in Denver.

Memorial Day Operations

I was planning to operate the 308 and 309 today, but there's a problem with one of the motors on the 309, as explained below. We're hoping this is only because I put too much oil in one of the armature bearings, but we'll see. So instead I operated a two-car North Shore train, 251 and 714. The 251, a combine, doesn't operate very often, so it was something different for most of the visitors.

Here's the crew: myself, Joel Ahrendt, and Randy Allegrezza. Thanks to Max and his crew, 50th Avenue station is now open for revenue service, so we spent all day operating from there. It's an interesting change from the depot. Adam Robillard did an excellent job as dispatcher, and nearly every trip was different in some way. Several times we operated through station track 2, for instance, while the Zephyr or coach train loaded on track 1. The two car CTA singles also used 50th Avenue as a base. We occasionally used the west track, which has a wider spacing from the platform, without incident.

Here's our train next to the Electroliner, which was on display on the west track. I'm sure there will be more and better pictures posted of the North Shore cars.

At 3PM, we observed a minute of silence for Memorial Day, while a bugler from the West End Jazz Band played taps in honor of those who gave their lives for their country.

Motor Issues

I went out to the museum on Sunday to try and finish up the 309's inspection in preparation for operations on Monday. Charlie Strong and Stan Wdowikowski had completed most of the inspection work on the car, leaving me with only the contactor boxes and controller to examine. I did this (more information on contactor operation can be found in the next post down), finding no real issues, and sequenced the car successfully with help from Tim Peters. (Sequencing involves visual inspection of all contactors in operation - obviously with the motors cut out - to ensure proper operation.) The work wasn't quite done, though; Stan had found that the #4 motor had some oil on the commutator, which if left alone can lead to a flashover. He had cleaned up all of the oil during the week, though, and we were planning on taking the 309 out on a test trip on the main line to see if the problem was solved when something else caught our attention.

CTA streetcar 3142, which is our standard service streetcar and sees use virtually seven days a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day, suffered a motor failure in service. The failure occurred at Car Line Junction, tying up operations out of Station Track 1 until IT 415 was able to push 3142 onto the tail track. This deals a tough blow to the museum's streetcar operations; stay tuned for information on plans to get the motor sent out for repair.

Anyway, following this incident we did actually take the 309 out on the line for a trip, even carrying a full load of passengers. Upon our return the #4 motor was inspected again and more oil was found on the commutator, meaning that the car shouldn't be put into service until the cause of the oil leakage is found and repaired. The timeline for this is unknown since we don't know exactly where the source of the oil is, but the motor has not had any electrical issues so the fix ought to be something we can do in-house. Outside of the Car Shop, there was a lot of interesting stuff happening. The Nebraska Zephyr made its celebrated return today; the Electroliner was on display on the west track of 50th Avenue Station; the Track Crew was hard at work tamping and leveling the east track (pictured, L-R: Frank DeVries, Adam Robillard, unknown (back to camera), Tom Hunter, Steve L., John Neglich); and the last two C&NW-painted diesels owned by the UP even made a cameo appearance in Steamland.

Contactor Operation

Annual inspection work on the 309 provided a good opportunity to document and explain the operation of the contactors on this car. First, some history: the first successful multiple-unit operation was in Chicago, in 1898, using a system designed by Frank Sprague for the South Side Rapid Transit. Three years later, General Electric developed the first widely-used form of electomagnetic contactor control, known as Type M. Type M was a system which used a master controller to energize different high-voltage, low-current circuits which in turn activated large contactors under the car. These contactors were activated in combinations that routed motor current through different sets of resistance grids, thereby controlling motor speed and, hence, acceleration.

The first widely-used Type M system consisted of DB-15 contactors, DB-20 reversers and C-6 controllers designed in 1901 for the electrification of the large Manhattan Elevated system in New York. When the Aurora Elgin & Chicago (predecessor to the CA&E) was built a year later, the most modern MU system available for heavy electric equipment was the system developed for Manhattan. The AE&C wanted four GE 66 motors per car, though, and since the DB-15 contactors were only designed for two of these motors, the early AE&C cars were basically two two-motor cars back-to-back. Each car had two complete sets of contactors, reversers and grids. Car 309, though built five years later after the development of more modern Type M systems, was equipped with the earlier DB-15 contactors - probably because it was fitted with electric equipment at Wheaton Shops, which likely used whatever spare parts they had lying around.
Pictured above is one of the contactor boxes under car 309. Each of the two sets of contactors consists of 13 contactors, carried in three separate boxes. Shown above is the third box for the #1-end contactor set. In the background left is the second box, on which the cover is closed. DB-15 contactors had doors on the arc chutes that could be opened; the two contactors nearest the camera have their doors opened and the two further away have their doors closed. This was an unusual feature of the DB-15 not used on later contactor designs.
Here we see an individual contactor. The arc chute, which was designed to sheild the arc created when motor current was shut off from anything metal that might provide an electrical path to ground, has been painted with red insulating varnish. The contactor is closed by energizing a solenoid, behind the arc chute and next to the assembly frame (1), which raises the contactor arm (2) attached to the lower contactor tip (3) and brings it into contact with the upper tip (4). The motor current passes through whichever contactors are raised at the moment via heavy cables (5). To shut off the motors, power to the solenoid is cut, dropping the contactor arm and separating the contactor tips. The resulting arc is extinguishes safely with the help of a blow-out coil (6) and, on this design, "horns" on the contactor tips (7). During normal operation, the arc chute door (8) is closed to assist in containing the arc.

I also recorded a brief video demonstrating the components and operation of the DB-15 contactor, including interlocks. Interlocks are safeguards incorporated into the design as separate circuits that prevent various bad things from happening accidentally, like activating the reverser while motoring or energizing series and parallel circuits simultaneously.

Colorado Railroad Museum

While on vacation in Colorado, mostly to visit relatives and hike in the Rockies, we paid a visit to the Colorado Railroad Museum. This is a volunteer organization located in Golden, a Denver suburb. It has a superb collection of equipment, both standard and 3' narrow gauge.

Limited operation takes place on a loop of narrow gauge track around the property. I spoke to a volunteer there named Steve Lee (not the same Steve Lee who runs the UP steam program, I suppose) who was very helpful and informative.

You may notice that there are no barns, only a small roundhouse. The CRRM board has made a deliberate policy to keep everything outside so that it can be viewed and photographed in its natural environment. That's nice, but as a result the entire collection is slowly being destroyed by the weather. I, of course, could not disagree more with this policy, but so it goes.

In any case, the museum is an excellent place to visit and is nicely arranged. It has several informative displays and a large model railroad in the depot. It's highly recommended for anybody travelling through the Denver area.

Up in the Air

I took the day off of work and went out to the museum with the intention of finishing up the inspection on the 309. When I arrived I moved the car over to the inspection pit in Barn 4, but as it turned out a crew was gathering to replace the overhead wire on the west station leads and I joined them instead. Spending the day working with Adam Robillard, Charlie Strong, Stan Wdowikowski, and Henry Vincent to help Line Department Head Max Tyms was a change of pace and quite an education. It was also quite enjoyable since it was sunny, in the 80's, and breezy!

We started out by detaching the 1/0 round wire between the west end of Station Track 2 and the West Switch, about 1,000 feet to the west, and hanging it off to the side with rope. The hangers were replaced with "dollies," or pulleys, and a guide rope was threaded through these, taking the place of the old wire. (In the photo at left, taken by Adam Robillard, Max is replacing the round-wire hanger with a pulley and I'm about to hand him the guide rope.) When finished with this, we went and got a reel of new 3/0 grooved wire, which was connected to the end of the guide rope and pulled through the 1,000 foot's worth of pulleys.

I had to leave early, but later on the line crew connected the new grooved wire to the frog at the West Switch and started hooking it up to the hangers heading eastbound. The intention is to replace all of the 1/0 round wire on the west station leads, including installation of brand new frogs on the Station 1/2 switch and Station 1/West Wye switch. This will make it unnecessary to "hop" the pole over the wire gap at the Station 1/West Wye switch and will be a big improvement! More photos taken by Adam of this work can be seen here.

While I was out with the line crew, Gerry Dettloff (right) was back in the shop doing inspection work on the 309. He was able to get all of the motor and truck inspection work done on the car, which is some of the toughest and dirtiest work of the inspection process. Thanks, Gerry!!

Inspecting the 3142

I was hoping to do inspection on the 309 today, but due to the intermittent rain and the need to finish inspection on the 3142, it didn't get done. But it will soon, I hope.

So I helped Frank Sirinek and Stan Wdowikowski with inspecting the 3142 for a while. No problems were discovered, and the car should be ready for service.

Here we see Frank and Stan looking at one of the motors. The entire motor inspection can be done from inside the car once the hatches are removed.

Here is a closer view of Stan inspecting a motor. His right hand is pointing at the commutator and one of the brush holders. His feet are resting on the motor case; to the right of his shoe is the gear case, and below it, one of the axle caps. This is so much easier than on the interurban cars.

Frank also purchased two gallons of canvas paint for the 277 for me, which are now in storage. Thanks, Frank!!

After the 3142 was done, I did most of the lubrication on the 309 over in Barn 8. I also did some more interior work on the 277, as seen here. (L)

(R) Another view, same camera without the flash. Weird, isn't it?

In other news, Tim Peters was painting the letterboards on the 1268, and they look great.

Bob Kutella is his usual cheerful self in spite of the continuing problems with his right hand. We discussed the steps needed to start turning out new corner posts and other large molding pieces on our "new" shaper which is nearly ready for service. It will be exciting, to say the least.

ERHS

THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY

This narrative is based on information from Nick Kallas and Charlie King,
former members of ERHS, plus information from the late Glenn Andersen provided by Roy Benedict.

All photos are courtesy Charles S. King and may not be reproduced without permission.

___________________________________________________________

The ERHS was a Chicago-area group that was started about 1952 to publish historical documents about electric railway history. For 15 years, from about 1958 to 1973, they had their own collection of Chicago streetcars. Although there were never more than about seven active members, they managed to accomplish a great deal, and preserved many important pieces that are now in the IRM collection.

Unfortunately, the exact origin of the society is lost in the mists of the twentieth century. The first two bulletins have no date; Bulletin #3 is dated December 1952. This is well before Howard Odinius organized the Illinois Electric Railway Museum to preserve one car, Indiana Railroad #65, in late 1953. Bob Gibson was probably always the driving force behind ERHS.

In the early days, the Illinois Electric Railway Museum (i.e. Howard) had established a policy of only acquiring one car from each of the local electric railway companies. When the last Chicago streetcar lines were abandoned in 1958, Howard decided that they were only going to get one car, the 144. (Dick Lukin, who is still active at IRM, purchased CSL snow sweeper E223 and moved it to North Chicago at his own expense -- see below.) Bob Gibson, Bob Selle, Glenn Andersen, and Bill McGregor were all members at that time, and they were very unhappy about this, saying to Howard that one or two cars really couldn’t represent a system that had over three thousand cars and so many different types of equipment. And so the mission of ERHS grew from just publishing historical bulletins to preserving CSL equipment.

Here is the E223 being unloaded at North Chicago. Behind it is one of the CNW wooden baggage cars we inherited from Frank Sherwin.

In late 1957, Bob Gibson had gone to the 77th Street barn thinking that all of the old red cars were gone. To his great surprise there was a small group of work cars in one corner of the barn; these had been converted from the older types of streetcars. He realized that this was the last chance to save something besides the 144 and E223. Bill McGregor had a friend whose mother, Mrs. Lena Gnas, owned a farm south of Downers Grove on Plainfield Road, so they talked to her about bringing a streetcar out to the farm. She said okay, and so Bob Selle and Bob Gibson and Glenn and Bill went and bought the “Bowling Alley,” the 1467. That was the first car in the collection of the Electric Railway Historical Society. And after the 1467 was acquired in early 1958, a new member joined the group: Nick Kallas.



Sunday, Aug. 10, 1958: the very beginning of construction. CSL 1467 was the first car acquired, and here it is being used as a platform by Bob Gibson to help raise the first pole of Bill McGregor's new barn into place, using only muscle power.

Jan. 1, 1959: unloading rattan seats from the dump truck into the 1374, the second car acquired.

In the first few years, work concentrated on acquiring new pieces and then building a barn to house them. The second piece was the “Matchbox,” the 1374; the third piece was the 2846, then the 2843 and the West Towns car, the 141; then the PCC (4391), the 3142 and the F-305; and finally the trolley bus, 84. ERHS actually owned more cars than were at Downers Grove; the other two cars they owned were the 9020 and the X-4. These both eventually came to Union also.

Saturday, Dec. 6, 1958: The 2846 (renumbered as AA-98 when it was in salt service) has arrived at the farm on a trailer.

A week later, the body is off the trailer, and ramps are in place to unload the trucks and move them under the body. Behind the 2846 is the Matchbox. Note how poles are going up at the rate of about two per month.

Most of the equipment was purchased with money that Glenn Andersen loaned the group. ERHS would then publish monographs and sell them to railfans and libraries. There were a lot of libraries that had standing orders for all the ERHS publications. The money that was raised by selling books was used to repay the loans from Glenn.

The barn was built to a unique design by Bill McGregor. He planned it out by drawing sketches of the barn on the sides of the cars with soapstone, then supervised the construction. The building was entirely supported by a grid of telephone poles, many of which had become surplus during construction of the nearby interstate. The poles and then the roof trusses were raised into place by block and tackle, using a combination of muscle power and members’ autos to raise them. This was still a working farm, and the streetcar barn was hidden from view behind the farm’s barn, machine shed, chicken coops, and so on. Wiring for the lights was run on crossarms still attached to the poles, through the barn. Most of the work was done with muscle power. The work force in the 1958-1964 period was basically Bill McGregor, Bob Gibson, Glenn Andersen, Bob Selle (until 1960), Nick Kallas, Bill Richmond, and Charlie King.

April 28, 1960: The F-305 was one of the last cars to arrive at the ERHS site. Two years later, the framing of the barn is complete, but no roof or siding yet. The F-305 was unloaded by Bill, Bob Gibson, Nick, and Charlie.

Later that day, a wider view of the ERHS barn. The corn crib is to the left and the farm barn to the right.

While IRM was amassing a collection in North Chicago, stored outside, ERHS actually built a building over all of the cars. It was completed about 1963, almost ten years before the first carbarn was built at Union. It was quite a feat for very few people. ERHS was a very small organization; there were only enough members to satisfy the Illinois Not-For-Profit Act, namely five. Each year they had to submit paperwork to the state, and because there were no formal meetings, the president and vice-president were just chosen at random for one-year terms.




Two years later (Oct. '62) the roof is in place and the siding is being finished. Bill scrounged up the materials for the barn from a number of sources.



Because it always was an informal organization, there was no need for formal meetings. They would gather in Gibson’s basement on Wednesday nights and fill book orders. Glenn would pick up the mail and bring it to Gibson’s, and they would fill orders and answer questions. So Wednesday night at Gibson’s was the ERHS “money night,” and then Saturdays and Sundays were the work times out at the farm. ERHS made no attempt to publicize its collection and tried to keep its location a secret. And in this they were very successful. (I was growing up in Downers Grove about five miles away at that time and never heard about it. - RH)


The X-4 was the last piece of equipment to arrive at ERHS, and because the barn was not planned for it, it sat outside. This side of the barn looks much more professional than the end seen above. It just depended on what was available.


ERHS eventually published 49 monographs. A lot of them were reprints of Brill bulletins; some of them were reprints of other publications, but there were a lot of originals, mostly by Jim Buckley, a devoted and hard-working historian. Some of these are still available in the IRM bookstore. Bob Gibson’s intention was to eventually raise enough money to buy a warehouse of some sort in the city and have all the cars on display there, with pictures on the walls, lights on in the cars, and have school groups visiting this museum of Chicago transit. This never happened, but the book publishing went on, as did some work on the equipment.

This continued through the sixties, until it was necessary to move the collection. Lena Gnas had died, and her son Bud was running the farm, and was also a successful water-well driller. Along came the Texas oil boom, and drilling oil wells is basically the same as drilling water wells, so he decided to move down to Arkansas and went into the oil and gas well drilling business. He seems to have been quite successful at it down there. Meanwhile Bill was living in Illinois and he would watch the farm, until Bud decided to sell the property in Downers Grove to a developer for a substantial sum.

Little restoration work was done at ERHS. These pictures are somewhat distressing; they show Bill McGregor looking at the inside of the still-complete 1467, and starting to disassemble the car by removing the tongue-and-groove siding. He single-handedly reduced the car to a skeleton, which is now on display in Barn 8.

So ERHS had to move, and a decision had to be taken on what to do with the collection. That created a big schism between the five members. When the crisis came Bill McGregor happened to be the president of the organization, and Bob Gibson was vice president. At the first formal meeting, the members voted three to two to give the collection to IRM at Union. Voting in favor were Bill and Glenn, who were still IRM members, and Nick. Bob Gibson had left IRM and wanted to move the collection west to some similar location farther out and build a new barn. Jim Buckley preferred to concentrate on the book operation; he wanted to sell the collection to the highest bidder and put the money into the publishing business.

So at the first meeting, Bill, Glenn, and Nick voted to give the collection to IRM. ERHS had about $12,000 in the treasury, so they would pay all the expenses of moving the cars to Union and any money left over then was split up evenly amongst all of the cars, into their car funds. And the only thing the Illinois Railway Museum had to do was to accept the ERHS members as Members. That was contrary to IRM’s bylaws, so at a special meeting they voted to make the ERHS members, upon the payment of dues, regular members at IRM without having to go through the probationary period. Bill and Glenn were already members, and Bob Gibson and Jim Buckley were opposed to the merger, so Nick was the only person who joined in this way.

Bob Gibson was furious at this decision, so not long after the first meeting he called another meeting in his garage. He was so mad he wouldn’t let the others into his house. Obviously it wasn’t a legal meeting – the vice president doesn’t call a meeting, the board calls a meeting. Bill was the president and so was supposed to be chairing the meeting, but he was hard of hearing, tended to mumble, and was often in a world of his own. So Gibson essentially ran the meeting himself. He had invited two friends of his to attend, and first he said “We’re now going to take nominations for new members to ERHS.” Glenn objected that the whole procedure was not legal, but Bill was still talking, and so although the vote tied at two to two Gibson declared these two friends of his elected as new members. And then Bob Gibson made a motion to throw out McGregor, Andersen, and Kallas, and the new majority of four voted to throw them out of the organization! All along Glenn was objecting to the procedures, and Bill was mumbling. As Nick says: “It was a stitch.”

So the three IRM members left and proceeded to move the cars to Union. This was possible because the farm still belonged to Bud Gnas, Bill McGregor’s old friend. The new ERHS brought suit against them in DuPage County court to cease and desist, but the suit did not succeed, and the equipment transfer took place. They took it to court again to appeal, but by the time it came up in court, the move had been completed.

After the cars had been moved and the land sold, all structures on the farm were demolished. (Bill’s barn turned out to be more indestructible than it looked!) The property was then redeveloped, and there is no trace of ERHS at the Plainfield Road location today.

After that, ERHS was allowed to continue on as an organization. IRM got the cars and the cash, and the remaining members of ERHS got the rights to the name and the inventory of books and the books in process. And so Gibson and Buckley took over ERHS as an organization, but they never did publish anything after that. So all they did basically was sell down the inventory, and Gibson wound down the affairs of the organization. After his death, the remaining books came to IRM and are in the Used Book Store.

Bob Gibson died in 1999 of a sudden heart attack, the same day the 3142 was operated for the first time after its restoration. Charlie says that later on, after all that had happened, he was pleased to see our dreams for the cars finally come true.

The major legacies of ERHS are of course the series of books which are still highly regarded, and the equipment, all of which is now preserved at Union. Cars 144, 3142, and 4391 are in regular operation, and the others are on display. West Towns car 141 is being restored and should be operational soon, as well as the trolley bus 84. The ERHS cars form a core component of IRM’s electric collection.

Finally, Charlie King says: “The story had a happy ending. All the stuff found a good home at Union. It continues to educate the younger people about the Chicago Surface Lines as well as delighting us older folks who fondly remember the cars and riding on them all over Chicago in our youth. Also, a wealth of information was saved and recorded for all time in the bulletins. Every one who had a hand in ERHS can be proud of what was accomplished. I know I am. It will be a source of joy the rest of my days.”

APPENDIX A
ACQUISITION OF INDIVIDUAL CARS

CSL 84 (Trolley Bus)

Charlie King: This bus was acquired in the summer of 1962. Glenn (Andersen) mentioned that the last of the old cracker-box type TBs was at 77th and going to be scrapped. I immendiately wanted to save it even though Glenn thought it was junk and too far gone. It was a basket case to a degree, but it was complete as far as motors, control, and compressor. It was unusual for a trolley bus to still have the “guts”; work busses were normally motorless and towed from site to site. They must have been in a hurry and no time to take the stuff out. I went to the Merchandise Mart where the CTA offices were, and our dear friend and helper Mrs. Benson sold me the BL (“bus locker”) #1306 for $100. It cost me another $100 to get it towed to Downers.

The interior of CSL 84 at Downers Grove.

CSL 4391

Glenn Andersen (via Roy Benedict): The 4391 was one of the last of the 600 Green Hornets (postwar PCC streetcars) to be sold. A few had been wrecked in streetcar service, one had gone to Pullman and one to St. Louis for examination whether the bodies could be reworked as rapid transit cars, 570 had been shipped to St. Louis Car Company for salvage of components to be used with entirely new body shells as rapid transit cars, and that left twenty-some of the Green Hornets stored at the South Shops.

CTA offered for sale a group of 18 cars believed to be in operating condition and two cars not in operating condition, and invited bids on all or part of these 20 cars. For the price which a buyer offered, the shop would load the car on a railroad flat car and secure it ready for shipment via the track connection to the Belt Railway of Chicago.

The ERHS wanted to purchase one, and Glenn could assess which one would be the most promising. First he looked at the maintenance record, and that ruled out about half of the 18 cars as good candidates. Then he went under each of the other cars where they stood "on the flat" (not over inspection pits) in the yard at the South Shops, dropped the equipment covers and checked to see that all the components were intact and in good condition. His inspection ruled out some more cars, such as if an electrical fire had burned out any of the equipment compartments. The result: the 4391 was the best available car.

ERHS did not have railroad access, but preferred shipment by truck as had been done with the cars already at Downer’s Grove. ERHS used Helders, which was a heavy machinery trucking service on 26th Street. They didn't normally handle rail cars but could do it with assistance from Willie McGregor of ERHS, a practical man who could determine how to lift, load and secure streetcars, even by use of jacks without any cranes if necessary. Therefore there would be no need for the shops to load a car for ERHS. Glenn found out how many man-hours it took when the shops loaded one, so they could judge the basis by which an ERHS bid for a car on its own wheels would be compared with anyone else's bid for a car aboard a flat car.

When bids were submitted, the two high bids were ERHS's bid for car 4391, and a bid by a dealer for all the cars (which of course included 4391). The dealer hoped to resell the 18 operable cars for operation in Mexico City. His bid was higher (after adjustment for loading the car) by ONE DOLLAR per car! Glenn went in to see Miss Benson, who received the bids on behalf of CTA. She couldn't do anything for him. The dealer's bid was higher, even though by only a dollar, and the rules of the game were that the high bidder wins. But she told Glenn who the winner was and suggested that he contact the winner.

Glenn phoned the dealer and had a good conversation with him. Glenn cautioned him that the Chicago cars were probably too large to fit the clearances in Mexico City, which the man apparently hadn't considered. The dealer said he would get back to Glenn if the Mexico City deal didn't work out. After six months Glenn called the dealer again. It turned out he was right about the size of the cars, which didn't hurt his standing with the dealer! But the fellow had another idea for sale, this time components. Again he said he would get back to Glenn if he didn't make the sale.

Another six months, and the cars still were clearly visible to any passerby along 79th Street. Glenn dropped into Miss Benson's office. She said that CTA was about to remind the dealer to get his cars off the property. But before Glenn could reach the dealer, the dealer phoned Glenn. He did indeed need the whole 20 cars for components to be resold to a customer of his in Belgium. But the rest of the car didn't matter for that purpose; he was going to scrap them (which eventually was done at 67th and Cicero by Merchants Steel & Supply Co.). So he proposed a trade to Glenn: If ERHS could buy another wrecked car, it could be an even-steven trade. ERHS could have the 4391, and Belgium could have the components from that 21st car. It turned out to be another St. Louis-built car, maybe 7118.

Back to Miss Benson. There's another car that was never on the bid list. Can we buy it? She said she'd talk to Graybiel: "I'm sure he'll let you have it for the price of the others, less the loading cost."

So the deal was made. Bob Selle at ERHS very much wanted the car and did some quick and ambitious fund-raising. Glenn paid a little more than half of the price out-of-pocket as a contribution to ERHS. The ERHS treasury paid approximately the shipping cost. Willie McGregor got the carbody onto a Helders trailer.

One reason why the 4391 (or some others) was a good selection was a byproduct of its assignment over the few years of its life. It was a pure two-man car; hadn't been retrofitted for part- or full-time one-man operation as some had. Much of the time it had been assigned to 69th station, which supplied half of the cars for the 49-Western line. That was a long line, but didn't have the extremely heavy loads for much of the day and night the way Clark Street did. Moreover, Western Avenue at that time was operated on weekends with one-man buses, and 69th had plenty of indoor storage space. Even after Western was all one-man in 1955, the 4391 was over at 77th station because it could no longer be used on Western, so again it was indoors all weekend. Therefore it was a fairly low-mileage car and had been well protected from weather. Had it been at Devon with more than half outdoor storage, it might not have been so desirable.

Like all of the Green Hornets, the car had been delivered in Mercury (or Colorado spruce) green with a swamp holly orange belt. Like some others, this one had been brush-painted at South Shops in the new, darker Everglade green covering the Mercury and the orange on the lower sides, belt and the band through the standee windows. But because the Croydon cream top was in fairly good condition, it came to ERHS still with the original paint up there. It also had mostly the original leather seat covers, all but a few that had been replaced with vinyl because they had gotten cut or something. Bob Gibson and McGregor went out to South Shops and swapped out the vinyl seat backs and bottom cushions into other cars, getting enough leather ones for a full car set for 4391.


CSL 7001

(Note: This was a one-of-a-kind experimental streetcar built by Brill in 1934. It was not preserved.) Charlie King: In the summer of 1959, Bob Gibson and I went to 77th and sat in the 7001 and debated getting it. It was complete except for motors and seats. It had a controller, original trucks, CSL logo, and was still in “Blue Goose” colors. The handle and key were even there and I cranked up the controller. It was a drum type in a cabinet like Milwaukee #972. We decided not to get it, as it was not complete. We agonized for an hour or so. Bob said, “Well, Charlie, what do you think?” The ‘incomplete’ was the final judgment. So we got the F305 (a CSL snow sweeper) instead. Later, of course, we got the 4001 which was far less complete than the 7001.

APPENDIX B
MOVING THE ERHS COLLECTION TO UNION

by Dennis Storzek

When the ERHS voted to give their collection to Union, IRM's "body snatchers" went into high gear. Obviously Glenn, Nick, McGregor, and the IRM Board of Directors had been aware of what was going on for some time, but when the news was announced to the active IRM membership, it was presented as… "They gave us the cars, but there is a lot of sour grapes, and some of the ERHS members are going to court. We need to move these cars NOW, because if they get an injunction, the developer will likely scrap or burn them to get them out of his way."

The decision was made to truck the cars to the museum and unload them in two separate locations; one with access to the back of Barn 4, and the other on what was the proposed alignment of the lead to future higher number barns (this plan was subsequently changed, and that track alignment was never used). In retrospect it was not the wisest decision, but hindsight is always 20-20.

Dave Shore and I were put on the payroll to move the cars; Dave to provide the brains… me the brawn. Nick just borrowed a bit more time than usual from his day job to make arrangements and negotiate the oversize load permits, and McGregor was present for his expertise and as a source of never ending irritation for Shore. Red Top trucking of Hammond was hired for the trucking; they had a low level deck telescoping trailer that we had used before, it had air bag suspension and three axles at the rear of the trailer.

The order of loading was worked out to move the most significant pieces first, constrained only by the order which the cars stood on the tracks at the farm; we only had access to one end of the building, and there was no track to switch things around; the only track at the farm was what was under the cars. An appeal went out, and about a dozen members gathered at the farm on a week night to build a ramp in front of the PCC. The next morning the truck showed up, and we were off and running.

Nick had not been able to get the route he wanted, which would have made use of a county road; the county engineer hadn't signed off on it, and we were stuck using all state routes. I don't think a longer route could have been found. We went from Downers Grove to Union by way of DeKalb, first making a stop on highway 31 in front of the R.E.L.I.C. museum in South Elgin. The drive alone must have taken five hours.

The next morning we didn't get one truck length off the museum service road before we were royally stuck, it was late spring, and the new gravel that had been spread for access was not up to the task. We spent about a half a day with a wrecker to fight the trailer into position at the unloading ramp. It never did get any better; we just learned to call the wrecker, or a Cat, or both in advance to meet us at our ETA. At least subsequent moves went via Virginia Road in Crystal Lake, and our transit time fell to about two hours.

When we hit our stride, we were moving two cars every three days. Nick was organizing work parties as needed to move the ramp from track to track at the farm. When the court date arrived and the judge asked where the cars were presently, the attorney was able to state that they were all secure at IRM, which is where the judge ordered they should stay until the legalities were sorted out.

Links to Photos of ERHS Cars

141 today

1374 1374 today

1467 today

2843 today

2846 2846-2 2846-3 2846 today

3142 today

4001 4001-2 4001 today

4391 today

9020 9020 today

F305 F305 today

X4 X4 today

84 today

Early IRM Photos

I'm working on a history of ERHS, and Charlie King has provided me with several great photos which I've scanned in. It'll take me a little to process them all, but meanwhile here's a teaser: a couple of pictures of IRM members about 1963.

A group of guys from IRM went on a field trip. Here they are standing in front of the ERHS barn near Downers Grove. From left to right, Ray Neuhaus, Bill McGregor, Bob Gibson, George Clark, Bob Rayunec, Ken Stendler, Ed Mizerocki, Glenn Andersen, and Bob Bruneau.

On the same day, they visited the Material Service branch to evaluate it as a possible permanent site for the Museum (I wrote about it here.) They're standing in front of an overturned ore car near Lockport. George Clark, Bob Bruneau, Bob Rayunec, Ray Neuhaus, Ken Stendler, and Ed Mizerocki.






Finally, here's the 972 being unloaded from its flatcar at North Chicago, on Saturday, Oct. 11, 1958. That's Don Leistikow on the roof, cleaning the glass on the route sign. The man to the right in the white Kromer and motorman's overalls is Gordon Geddes. The others are hard to identify.

Thanks, Charlie!!!

Duplicated Doors Done Despite Delay

The big news on the 205 today, news over two years in the making, was that the new door leaves were finally installed!

On the left is a view of the doors open, showing the varnished interior of the center-right door leaf complete with grab-iron to assist people boarding the car; on the right is a view of the doors closed showing both newly-built (and recently painted!) door leaves. The doors were mounted without incident after installation of the last piece of glass and the final remaining "window sticks."

The only remaining work to be done on the doors, other than painting the outboard (old) leaves, is to install the rubber molding along the inside edges where the left and right pair of door leaves meet. This molding will have to be ordered but we have a couple of potential sources for the material. In the meantime, I did some imitation woodworking to fabricate replacements for some missing wood inserts. Each door had a short (about 5" long) half-round screwed to the door edge at both the top and bottom, the purpose of which was to "form" the rubber molding. Shown below is one of the two remaining originals, plus the two new ones.In other news, I also sprayed the backs of the two retrievers (see previous 205 entry) with primer and removed the original doors from the 205 from storage in the car shop paint room. One of the doors basically disintegrated (after salvaging what I could I donated the remains to the Chock Department) and the other was deposited at the 205. I also hung around for a switch move, mentioned in the below post, involving both the 308 and 309. Shown here is a somewhat rare side-by-side view of the two cars which shows some of the minor differences in design between the Niles and Hicks products.

277 Progress

Frank helped me switch the 308 and 309 so the 309 is now to the east. This is the position we will want them for the two-car train in revenue service, and we also need to complete inspection on the 309 this Wednesday. Anybody who wants to help will be most welcome!

I then helped Frank install the new doors, as detailed above, and carried a couple of baggage racks from the 277 over to the shop for repainting.

I found and replaced one bad bulb in the 277, and then closed up all of the bull's-eye lighting fixtures. This keeps dust from collecting on the lenses and also prevents the fragile cork insulation from falling out, and just looks better, as seen here.

One of the "croquet hoops" was broken, so I mixed up some epoxy and glued it back together. For this, I needed to borrow a pipe clamp from the woodshop which would extend more than five feet.

I also painted another upper sash piece.

Mystery Car (Updated)

The date is April 17, 1982. We were in Pennsylvania on our way from Strasburg to Orbisonia when I happened upon this streetcar body spanning a small creek; I just don't remember exactly where this was. Does anybody recognize this car?

Update: That didn't take long. Our friend Joel Salomon at Rockhill identified it as Harrisburg Railways #811, a 1917 Brill steel car which was acquired by Seashore in 1991, where it is now stored, probably under tarp. I can't find any current pictures of it, but Joel forwarded me a couple of photos of Harrisburg #710 at Rockhill, a 1914 Brill wooden car. Thanks!

Dave's Depots - Carbondale, Illinois

Today's installment takes us to Carbondale, Illinois. Carbondale, better known to some as being the home of Southern Illinois University, hasn't been the same since Nick Kallas graduated and left town. Carbondale is also located on the old Illinois Central's "main stem." Back in the day, Carbondale saw a lot of passenger and freight activity. Today, the town sees Amtrak in the form of a Chicago-Carbondale "Illinois Service" trains, and a healthy amount of freight from the Canadian National.

The depot is located in the heart of downtown. It is of brick construction, and of a good size. The depot is currently used by a local community development agency for office space. Amtrak passengers have to use the "Amshack" down the street. On display in front of the depot is an IC "Paducah Rebuild" Geep, and a caboose.

Local citizens also erected a statue honoring Carbondale's railroad past. Also of interest, is the war memorial plaque the IC placed on the depot.

Our Spring Has Sprung

Today we finished inspection and lubrication on the 308, so it's ready for revenue service. Stan Wdowikowski helped a lot, so thanks! In the morning Stan and Charlie ran the 160 off the pit and onto the car line so I could put the 308 over the pit. Stan did the motors and and some of the truck work while I inspected the electrical systems and various other things. This included testing the air system and adjusting the slack adjusters on each truck. We then switched places, putting the 160 back on the pit and the 308 outside, so Gerry and Stan could finish inspection on the 160 while I did the remaining lubrication.

Here's the trailer truck on the 308; I was too busy to take many pictures.

One problem we already knew about was that the return spring inside the 308's brake cylinder was broken. After lubrication was done, I looked at our collection of spare brake cylinders, and opened one up that looked like it might have been from the 318. Fortunately, it turned out to be exactly the right size. It's 5" in diameter and about 24" long, as seen here. It pushes the piston back into the cylinder when the brakes are released. I cleaned off all the rust and dirt, but we certainly didn't have time to install it today. I ran the 308 back into Barn 8 about ten minutes before the first of several thunderstorms passed through. I believe we should be able to replace the spring in the barn; we won't need the pit. It's really nice when we have spare parts like this. You'd never find a spring this size at your local home center! By the way, the trucks have return springs also so there should be no problem with operating the car this way.

Here's the work product from the inspection. This is page 3 of 4. Every item has to be either initialled or crossed out if it's irrelevant. For instance, our cars don't have any door motors or MG (motor-generator) fans. Oops, we missed one, but our calibrated gauge is broken.

After the rain started, and what seemed like half an hour to clean all the grease and dirt from my hands and arms, I painted a couple of parts from the 277 and sorted parts. We're hoping to do the 309 next week.

Dave's Depots - West Frankfort, Illinois

Here is a nice little depot, nestled in the community of West Frankfort, Illinois. After checking my May 1952 copy of the Official Guide, and other evidence, I think this is the former C&EI depot.

Take the Throttle

You may have heard rumors that IRM's "Take the Throttle" program had to be cancelled due to the great difficulty and expense of replacing all those throttles the visitors were taking. Not true! It's still very much active; for $150 anyone can sign up to run a train for an hour or so. Days when the 308 and 309 are scheduled to run are listed here, so those might be good days for you to sign up if you're interested. Call the IRM office for information. (Illustration by an unknown artist from an old issue of Rail and Wire, but after Don Martin, obviously.)

Wood, glass and steel

I managed to get a lot of work done on the 205 today; the weather was absolutely perfect, about 70 degrees and sunny all day. I started off working on the two new doors. Last weekend, David Wilkins and I had test-installed the glass in the first door during a break in the operating meeting action, and today I installed all but a couple of the "window sticks" - the trim strips that hold the glass in place - on that first door. A few of the shorter window sticks had been lost at some point so I made a few more and primed them; these will be installed next week. Jeff Brady gave me some instructions on glass cutting, which I had never done before, and I was able to cut a piece of glass to fit for one of the windows in the second door. Both doors are pictured below left; the upper window in the left door is the only one yet to be done, and I plan to procure glass for this during the week. Once this is completed, both doors can be installed! Below right, the Michigan Electric 28 crew, L-R: Jeff Brady and Norm Krentel work on a test installation of roof Masonite while blog reader Walt Stafa gives me the finger.

After this, I built a doorstop for the 205 for after the door leaves are installed. This will be placed in the step well of the car and will keep anyone from pushing the doors open to gain access to the car; a similar system is used on some of our other streetcars. The carpet will protect the finish on the insides of the new doors.Finally, I got out the two retrievers that we had fished out of a parts container a few weeks ago, needle-chipped and wire-wheeled them, and spray-painted the upper surfaces of the retrievers. Readers from other museums note: the 205 originally had Ohio Brass catchers, and while the retrievers pictured are similar, we would be interested in obtaining a pair of (working or non-working) correct-type OB catchers for the 205. If anyone has a couple of spare OB catchers please contact me - thanks!

Lights! Camera! Progress!

I had thought that the light circuits in the 277 were defective, but I was mistaken. I called Bob Bruneau earlier this week about various questions I had, and he was sure the lights worked. And, of course, he was right. I connected my resistor stinger and voila! they worked. This is a great improvement over a couple of work lights. One circuit evidently has a bad bulb, but I can replace it at some point. The resistor reduces the voltage to about 500V. The bulbs are not as bright, but they last much longer. Since these are special street railway bulbs, they're very difficult and expensive to replace.

Here's a view of the smoker. The smoker/baggage compartment still has the original ceiling and light fixtures. At the top of the bulkhead is the exhaust port for the air conditioning duct. The ceiling needs repair, but this is similar to the 309 and I will get to it eventually. In the main compartment the old ceiling was covered over by a new sheet metal ceiling with bull's-eye lighting. The lenses are opened just to make it easier to find and replace bad bulbs.




I started by gluing up a couple of places in the first "croquet hoop" where the veneer was loose, as seen here.

After the epoxy set, I put on a first coat of white primer.

I also opened the can of finish paint for the interior walls. After running it through the department's antique paint shaker, which always adds excitement to one's day, I painted the upper sash for the first sector.

I'd like to thank Frank Sirinek for his help with the roof project. He will order the canvas for the 277 whenever he can catch the awning company at work, and he will order the canvas paint for me as soon as I can provide him with a usable sample.

While the paint was drying, I helped Stan and Charlie with the project of removing Nick's spare trucks from the car line. Along with a couple of steam locomotives, we received two freight car trucks and two six-wheel passenger car trucks from Monee last fall. These were unloaded onto the car line at Electric Park because that was the course of least resistance. But they were still in the way of revenue operation.

The freight car trucks weren't much of a problem. Here we see Stan pushing them across the diamond at South Junction towards Yard 14. The passenger trucks were, however, an absolute nightmare. They are long, stiff, and derail easily when there is no carbody sitting on them to hold them down. We wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the help of Frank Devries and the Model 50 Burro. Still, after a couple of hours I decided that my contributions were doing more harm than good, so Jamie took over. By the time I left, one truck had finally been moved to the material yard and dumped in the mud where it belongs.

I was able to install the first croquet hoop, upper sash piece, and the second piece of plywood in the 277, as seen here. It looks good, and this is encouraging, if I may say so myself. (The yellow parts are the L car across the aisle. This had me puzzled too for a minute.)

I also did the parts of inspection on the 309 that were feasible in the barn. It is now planned to finish inspection on the 308 this Wednesday. Anybody who can be out there to help would be most welcome. Thanks!

Finally, here's a couple of signs we really ought to have at IRM.

(I'm joking, of course. The sign to the left is in the Petrified Forest in Arizona. The sign to the right is from the Joliet Iron Works site just north of downtown Joliet. This is a fascinating place to visit for anyone in the Chicago area.)