Macomb Industry & Littleton

This has practically nothing to do with anything we normally discuss on the blog. It involves the Macomb Industry & Littleton Railway, a short line railroad in western Illinois that is close to my heart because when I was going to college in the railroad's hometown, I spent many hours at the university library poring over railroad company documents and old newspaper articles about the MI&L.

Anyway, I recently purchased a few photos on eBay and figured I'd post them here just to make them more accessible.

The railroad between Macomb and Littleton was built in 1903 by the Macomb & Western Illinois (M&WI), but that line went into receivership in 1909 and was sold to a scrapper in 1911. It was partly torn up in 1913 but a group of locals bought it and renamed it the MI&L. The first new engine purchased was 2-6-0 number 5, shown in this well-known Davenport builder's photo from 1914.

But the neat thing about this particular print is what's written on the back: "Macomb Industry & Littleton #5, Macomb, Ill. I was General Manager of this line and junked it in 1931." It's signed by the line's last GM, whose last name was Andrew, but I'll need to dig through some of my old research to figure out his first name because I can't read it. 

Here's a shot of #5 late in life - back at Davenport for repairs, according to what's written on the back of the print. This could be before or after the railroad was abandoned, I don't know. The disposition of this engine is uncertain but I've never been able to find any evidence it wasn't scrapped around 1931.

The last engine bought by the line was this 4-4-0 that was purchased in 1915, MI&L #6. It was built by Pittsburgh in 1884 as St. Louis Vandalia & Terre Haute #182, then became Terre Haute & Logansport #302, then Vandalia Railroad #302. The PRR, which owned the Vandalia, considered it a class D-22. This picture is said to have been taken at the CB&Q Galesburg Yard and most likely shows the engine on its way to the scrapper around 1931.

Here are a couple of letters I bought a few years ago, written to the M&WI GM from the guy who was selling them crossties. This was when the railroad was initially being constructed.

And here's the only photo I've seen of the second Littleton depot. The original depot, which was a more elaborate frame structure, was torn down in 1913 when the scrapping company starting tearing up the railroad starting from the south end. After the locals bought it and relaid the tracks to Littleton, they built this replacement depot around 1914. This photo is dated 1953; the building lasted until 1980, when it was destroyed by a tornado. Figures. The potbelly stove from this station is preserved in the history museum in Rushville.

The MI&L was an unusual little railroad that was intended to be an interurban; I'd never heard of it until Bob Bruneau loaned me his copy of CERA Bulletin 99, which called the MI&L a "mystery line." The railroad also operated one of the very earliest diesel locomotives to see common carrier use in the US. Interested in learning more about the MI&L? Here you go.

Green Bay & Western car update

Our intrepid investigative reporter, Gregg Wolfersheim, has discovered something entirely unexpected - a railroad passenger car in the Electric Car Shop! Sure enough, some journalistic sleuthing reveals that it is Green Bay & Western 109, everyone's favorite wood coach, making its usual rapid progress. Gregg, over to you for the full story!

Our stencil expert has been measuring the letter board to make sure everything is correct. That's Buzz with his trusty ruler!

The west end of the car has been getting sanded and prepped for painting. Lots of epoxy to smooth out the surface, too.

Inside, Jack and Ralph have been making oak trim pieces. When they are ready, they get stained, along with the new sash replacements. Here, the wood is getting varnish.

Where the bay window had been, oak panels have been applied. This is right after Jack stained them. Next will be varnish.

The other stove has been painted, too.

While the epoxy is drying on the corner posts, the deck and steps got some red primer.

Door Repair, and Much Else

Today was another productive session in the Car Shop.  I have lots of photos, but still managed to miss several things that were happening.  

My current project was repairing the #2 train door on the 460.  After rechecking the measurements, it was slightly trimmed on the bottom and then painted.  This is the outside, and most of the patched area is covered by a steel plate, so it still matches.

Meanwhile, Tim was hard at work making new maple flooring for the 1268, which will soon be backdated to the 268.   Tim continues to move forward into the past.

Here he's ripping out the ribs for the floor.

And he wants you to notice that they're not square.  Everything has to be historically accurate.

And another interesting project is getting ready to letter the 28.  If Norm is satisfied, it must be correct.

And here we see Fritz carefully tracing a number from the car.  As we have noticed before, since the numbers were often done by hand, they are not all the same, and we need to come up with a pattern that  minimizes the average deviation, based on the central limit theorem.  (Of course, in practice we just rely on skill and artistic ability, rather than mathematics.)  

And Gregg continued to work on the Green Bay car.

Ralph from the Steam Dept. was helping on this, by making new wood moldings for the interior.  I can tell you these are not easy to do.

After lunch, I got help from a couple of the guys in carefully turning the door over so I could paint the inside.  The paint here is a little faded, but it still has the original railroad lettering that I'd like to save, so maybe we can work on matching it at some point.

This door is too heavy for us old guys to be trying to install in this frigid weather, so I'm hoping maybe some younger volunteers can get it into place.

Monday Report

As usual, the Car Shop was busy on Monday with a variety of projects.  I was working pretty intensely on the train door, so I didn't get many pictures of other people's progress.

The 460 door is now assembled with screws and epoxy, but it still needs some minor adjustments and more paint.  Matching the old paint, especially on the inside, may be a challenge.  But I'd like to keep the authentic lettering if possible.  Here's the outside.

It's not ready for installation yet, but I hope to finish it next time.

Buzz was making the final few clerestory windows for the Sand Springs 68!  We haven't seen or heard much about that car for a long time.  And he also has a 144 window to fix.

Cars that have been in service for a long time will always have various little problems like this.

Meanwhile, John was working on wiring up the 306...

More painting on the 28: as you can see here, the front of the car...

and the north letterboard have gotten a new finish coat of orange.

And then several other guys were working on their projects as always.  I can't be everywhere at once.

All Ahead Full on the 451

Frank writes...

I was out of town last weekend, when the 451 was switched over to Barn 4, and by the time I got out to the museum on Sunday, work was already well underway.

Greg has been heading up interior work and has made a ton of progress, even taking some time off during the week. He needle-chipped the panel over the windows on the north side of the car, visible above, and removed the light fixtures in the smoker to make it easier to chip and paint the ceiling. He also took down the wood trim strip below the ad rack, which you can see at the top right corner of the above photo, and on Sunday he was working on removing more wooden trim so that those pieces can be stripped on the bench. I was only able to stick around for a couple of hours and spent much of the time needle-chipping, including chipping the partition panel visible above.

Ted was working inside the car, taking paint off the partition as well. The color isn't real vibrant, but you can see here that underneath the end-of-service tan is medium blue paint, the same as what's in the 460. It seems the 451 was built with a blue interior and the CA&E later repainted it tan. Since this car is being backdated to its condition around 1947-1948, the interior will be repainted blue.

Here's Ted after the partition panel was wire-wheeled to nearly a mirror finish. Behind his head, you'll note the panel over the south windows in the smoker is in primer; this was stripped and primed by Charlie way back in 2010, at the same time the 451's exterior was painted.

By the time I had to leave, we'd gotten both panels on the smoker-main compartment stripped and I had started needle-chipping the ceiling in the smoker. Working over your head is never fun, but all things considered, it's going quickly. Fortunately, all the steel in this car is in very good condition. In the photo, Greg is unscrewing wood trim around the door while Ted is wire-wheeling the partition.

Outside the car, Ashtin was working diligently on wire-wheeling baggage racks for the car. Most of the racks don't have any paint underneath the tan, so they were likely removed from the car when its interior was repainted, which makes sense. In a few spots, there's light green evident underneath the tan, but none of the 450s had green interiors. My best guess is that it's some kind of primer. We'll need to look closely for clues on whether these were originally painted silver, as the ones in the 460 are now, or blue.

Here are the next two racks to be wire-wheeled; these were all removed from the car by Greg during the week. In other 451 news, there were a handful of seats in the car - both originals and re-upholstered ones - and I removed those. A few will go over to the 453, and those were put on a pallet so we can take them over to Barn 13 when the weather is no longer in the single digits. Progress is also being made on the car's air compressor, which was removed in August 2020 for valve work. Dan was working on this on Saturday, while Greg has fabricated a new handle for the air compressor cover. And a few other miscellaneous to-do items were being checked off, like Greg finding replacement gauge lights for the air gauges at the ends of the car. He also said those gauges had been calibrated, so that's good.

I'll just take a moment to point out that the work being done on the 451 right now is possible in large part because it's in the heated portion of Barn 4, something that didn't exist a year ago. Because of the investment in heated shop space, we're able to make rapid progress on this car despite the single-digit temperatures outside. In addition, keep in mind that the impetus for this work on the 451 was the successful "Take a Seat" fundraiser we ran. The rest of the seats for the 451 are at the upholstery shop now - they told us earlier this month that they're aiming to have them done by the end of February - and one of the big reasons to repaint the car's interior now is so we can put those nice, newly upholstered seats back in their frames. Thanks to everyone who has contributed!

Signal Department Update

We've received an unexpected, but very welcome, update from our Signal Department. Many thanks to our distinguished Signal Department Bureau Chief, Bill Wulfert, who sends along photos of work that Bob Olson, Dave Diamond, and Tom Opolony performed Saturday despite the particularly frigid temperature.

It may not be immediately obvious what's going on, but the Signal Department has evacuated the south end of the office building. This is the oldest IRM-built structure on the property. For a time in the 1970s it was the only heated structure at the museum and served as the restoration shop for both departments, steam and electric car. For a couple of decades it has been the Signal Department's shop, but it is now being repurposed again: this end of the building will be improved and will serve as additional office space. Included in the work will be a raised concrete floor to bring the floor level up to that of the office in the north end of the building.

Replacement Door Rail

The past couple of weeks have had especially brutal weather around here.  Twice I've set out for the Museum, and then turned around when the driving was just too dangerous.  But there are usually a few things that can be done at home.  The bottom rail for the 460 train door was a good project.  

The old rail had all its tenons broken, so that's been fixed, and the new rail fits perfectly into the patch piece for the hinge-side stile, which will be attached with screws and epoxy.  And I will make sure it clears the threshold so this doesn't happen again.  Much less frustrating than trying to repair the reverser on an AF wide gauge locomotive, for instance.  Everything's riveted together, so it can't be disassembled.  Postwar designs were much better, but I digress.  

I've also checked the train doors on the 451.  The #1 end seemed fine, but the #2 end was rubbing slightly on the threshold.  That will be the next focus.  It also needs new weatherstripping.  It's always nice to have productive things to do at home.

 

Wednesday Workshop

 Another busy Wednesday, and we have pictures of just some of the progress that is being made.

We'll start with the 28, since it's closest to the door to the shop.  Painting continues, inside and out.  Here we see the orange, and our paint experts are continuing to perfect the green.  If you thought there was just one Pullman Green, you thought wrong.

And they're making good progress on putting the front compartment together.

Next track over, the new side doors on the 1268 look great.

And from the other side, notice that the clerestory windows extend out quite a ways in order to catch as much fresh air as possible, I guess.  Must be Spanish Flu season....

Work has started on the interior of CA&E 451.

They've set up tables and so forth so the walls can be stripped and repainted.  I'd like to have the names of the people working on this project so they get the credit they deserve.

Looking into the smoker.  The ceiling here looks worse than the main compartment.

Since I'm working on a 460 train door, I also checked the train doors on the 451.  The #1 end seems fine; the #2 end rubs a little on the threshold plate, and needs new weather stripping.  I'll get to it.

And then, Gregg continues work on the Green Bay car.  Here he's applying Bondo to parts of the body posts that are somewhat rotten at the bottom.  He says there's not much else he can do, there's nothing behind them.

Finally, I was working on the end door for the 460.

Here's the new bottom rail, which I made at home.  The tenons needed to be trimmed.

The side which goes into the complete stile was finished and fits perfectly.

Then I started fitting the patch piece for the inner stile.  It and the rail were taken home, since I can fit them together in my shop.

But wait, there's more!!!!

The Horn Blows at Midday

As a special treat, Norm brought out the horn for the Michigan Electric 28, which was unique to this car, and tested it for the first time.  It works!  

(And for those of you without perfect pitch, I'd say that's roughly a C#.)