Tuesday News

Let's start with the bad news first.  Buzz helped me get the #1 train door from the 460 up onto the operating table, and it turned out to be in worse health than I had expected.  Here on the inside there's a metal plate which the other door didn't have.  

It turns out this plate is badly rusted in a few spots and needs to be replaced.  It's just a rectangular piece of sheet metal, so that shouldn't be too difficult.

 

The main problem seemed to be that the bottom of both stiles and parts of the rail are partly rotted out.  It's actually worse than it looks here.

The lower few inches of both stiles are bad, and both tenons on the rail are completely rotted away.  The door was just being held together by the metal plates.

Not quite good enough for regular service.

I started by planing down a couple of spare pieces of wood for use as replacements, but there's a lot more to be done.  I'll do what I can at home.  So let's turn to what other guys are accomplishing.

Here Buzz is repairing a window for the CSL 144.  

Tim continued to work on the new pieces for the floor of the 268.  No pictures this time, but you just have to imagine the constant noise and sawdust.  That's the price of progress.

Speaking of noise, out in the barn Steve Keller was needle-chipping seat frames for the 268.

And Gerry and John were working on the wiring for the 306.

Finally, Gregg, Jack, and Ralph from the Steam Team were working on the 109 again.

Great progress is being made on the interior.

And we certainly welcome and appreciate inter-departmental cooperation!

Finally, this happened too early in the morning for me to get a picture, but several inches of concrete were poured on the floor in the south office room, to raise it to the same level as the rest of the offices and above mean high tide.   But I don't know how exciting a picture of a concrete floor would be anyways.

Chipping Away

Frank writes…

Work is progressing on the 451, and the car was abuzz with activity Sunday.

In fact, it was so abuzz that you'd have been unwise to get too close to the car without hearing protection for much of the day. That's because there were usually two of us needle-chipping in the smoker. Greg, who has been spearheading much of this work, traded off with Jimmy and me. The above photo was taken after we'd been working maybe an hour...

...and here we are at the end of the day. There's plenty left to do, of course, and we haven't even started on the main compartment, but it's really moving along nicely. You'll notice I taped up signs to indicate which side of the car is the "L" side and which is the "R" side. Per normal CA&E practice, these are reversed from what you'd expect: if you're the motorman at the #1 end, the "L" side is to your right and the "R" side to your left. But I digress.

Here's the view looking the other way. More than half of the smoker ceiling is done, which is good, because working over your head is always annoying. We also did a few miscellaneous tasks like taking down more interior light fixtures and tracing the "451" off the bulkhead. Greg removed more wooden trim pieces and started working on removing the partition door so it can be taken into the shop, stripped, and repainted on the bench.

Outside the car, Ashtin worked tirelessly on wire-wheeling baggage racks, which is a time-consuming but important task. Close inspection revealed that these baggage racks were painted blue, same as the rest of the interior. That will be a difference from the 460, which kept its blue interior until the end but had its baggage racks repainted silver at some point. Zach, Greg, and I removed a couple more racks from the car because Ashtin was making such rapid progress that he was about to run out of work!

On Saturday, Dan spent a while honing the cylinders in the 451's DH-25 air compressor, shown here. There's one valve that won't come apart, and we need to make a gasket for this thing, but the compressor is close to having a clean bill of health.

The 451 wasn't even the only CA&E curve-sider being worked on. On Saturday, a couple of the guys took the train door my father rebuilt over to the 460 and installed it. I tried it myself on Sunday; it works like a charm and doesn't scrape on the threshold at all. The guys then brought the 460's other train door, which sticks badly, back to the car shop for repair work.

In other news, don't get used to that brown and orange on the end of the 1268. As you can see, Tim has been painting the car with a fresh, shiny coat of Pullman green. With its semi-convertible windows, it's really going to be a unique and enjoyable car to ride in at the museum.

Here's something I didn't expect to see at the museum. This overgrown beetle-looking thing is a remote-controlled car mover, a battery-powered (I think?) critter that can move a car back and forth at low speed. It's essentially a hy-rail vehicle, so it can drive onto the tracks, lower its railroad wheels, and couple up. We got it for a song from government surplus because the FDA facility in Chicago is being closed and razed; the critter has a bad control module (or something) but is only a few years old and is supposedly quite fixable. The plan is to use this thing for moving cars around the car shop.

And in other shop news, the gantry inside the Track 41 East roll-up door is complete and the overhead wire troughs have been hung all the way to the door. The flip-up wire bridge isn't installed yet, but we're getting close to being able to re-hang wire all the way from the streetcar line to the inspection pit. That will be nice.

Brian and Will were working on rebuilding gauges and other things in the shop. Brian sent me the following three photos showing a peek into their work.

Brian was working on repairing air gauges for the 306. The one shown here had some damaged pieces, in addition to the bad rust, so was not repairable without extensive replacement of components.

Here's a view of the gauge showing the face.

And here's another gauge; I believe this was taken before rebuilding, but this one was repaired and tested. Will was working on repairs to a straight-air motorman's valve, including lapping the valve, as well as some other air-related projects.

Richard and Zach spent time over at the Electroliner helping that crew troubleshoot some wiring issues. They wanted to light up the A1 car, now that the entire ceiling is reassembled, just to identify any problems. Chasing down a disconnected wire took a bit of time, but afterward, voila! (Thanks to Zach for the below photos.)

In this photo of the end of the train, you may notice not just the new markers but also a white light in the center window. That light was a requirement of the 'L' system. On the standard cars, they'd hang a removable light from a chain, but that didn't work on the 'Liners. So, someone from Harrison Street went to Gimbel's and bought a quartet of desk lamps, which were duly affixed to metal brackets inside the end window. These disappeared when the trains when to SEPTA in 1964, but the 'Liner restoration crew has sourced lamps that match the originals and the first has now been installed.

Another milestone on the 'Liner is that the complete restoration of the A1 cab is just about complete. It looks every bit as good as new, and probably better. Kevin on the 'Liner team has been in charge of this work and he has really outdone himself. Hey, no spitting!

Here, we're looking over the controller at the center window. You can see the new white 'L' light to the left of the voltage meter for the battery system. Underneath the window is the emergency headlight, which could be flipped 180 degrees up to shine through the center window in the event that the main headlight overhead failed.

A look overhead shows snap switches for the emergency headlight and the rear white 'L' light, with the ammeter and air gauge to the right. The 'Liners ran a 110-pound brake pipe, because obviously more is better.

We're looking left over the emergency headlight through a little window that afforded a bit of a sightline to the left. The red box holds the changeover switch from trolley to third rail.

You know how the rulebook is written in blood? This sign is written in snapped hand brake chains.

The motorman's-eye view out the front window. Zach was telling us about the brakes on the train: "handle off" is the release position; then there's a quadrant that runs the electropneumatic self-lapping brake; then you get to the "normal" air portion, which is your backup in case your batteries are dead or your EP brake has some other issue. First is lap, then apply, then emergency.

There's even more, because there was a big switch move on Saturday and a couple of our fearless freelance photographers were there to take photos of the excitement, so stay tuned!

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.