Thomas Day 1

The first day of Thomas was busy as usual.  I didn't get a chance to take many pictures during the day, but in the morning here he is ready to start pulling the train.  I note that he seems to have a new paint scheme.

I was the conductor on the 4391.  While waiting to go into service, I noticed this historic flag in Barn 7.  The Museum has been putting up various patriotic displays in honor of the 250th anniversary of our nation.  And I must admit I wasn't familiar with this particular flag, although I remember reading about John Paul Jones as a youngster.  

You can learn something new every day at IRM.

And here's the required crew picture: Jeff Obarek and me.  Operations went smoothly all day.

And among other things, the Electroliner made a stunning display on the ladder track.  

The main reason seems to have been so that new ballast could be dumped on track 71.

Property improvement never stops.

And of course, Thomas tickets are still on sale!

Simms Collection - Pacific Electric Wood Cars

The Pacific Electric collection is large, but I'll start with the wood cars, which are fairly limited in number.  There is little information on these prints.

246

952     West of Sierra Vista    3-5-41

979

995     LA 8/41

1054     Temple City

1430  12-42

00151

00195 --  Weed Burner

Puzzles Everywhere

Today, let's see how good you are at solving yesterday's puzzles.   

To begin with, Tim spent much of his time carefully cutting out this piece of wood.  What in the world is this for?

Next, we see Fred and Steve solving the electrical problems at the east end of the 306.  This is much less puzzling the second time you do it.

There's no puzzle about what I was doing -- installing the second beam on the 319.

But wait, something seems to be missing!   What could it be?

Aha, the air hose.  Much better.

Finally, we see Tim putting together the slats on the floor for the 268.  It's a giant jigsaw puzzle.

And the kingpin is inserted through this hole in the magic piece we saw earlier.

Our final puzzle: what mysterious masked figures arrived on Thursday and were quickly led into one of the storage barns to hide until Saturday?  Hint: tickets are still on sale!

Union Pacific M35 Update

Many thanks to our indomitable investigative reporter, Gregg Wolfersheim, who sends along this update of his recent progress on Union Pacific doodlebug M-35.

In spite of having to help on another project, some progress has been made in the vestibule of M35. Here is the left side all in tan paint. The ceiling panel with its platform light is also in.

The center ceiling panel was partially sanded and painted. However, the next day much of the paint looked like the hide of an alligator. So, I proceeded to totally strip it to bare metal. It was interesting to see what was below the tan and earlier gray primer that I applied earlier. Some sort of box car red, Pullman green and finally black.

This was after everything was removed, leaving only the bare aluminum.

Meanwhile, Jack has been creating a side door in the wood shop. This is the early stages of it.

Last week he finished it by glueing it together and putting it overnight on the clamping table.

He also finished making  windows for the rear door. This is the lower sash.

Wednesday Snapshot

This will be brief.  I didn't get any pictures of what the others were doing.  But I managed to install one of the new third rail beams on the 319.  I hauled it over to the car on a wagon, and raised it into place using an old car jack.

... which you can see sitting on the fan.  The fan makes it all possible!

One down, one to go!

Simms Collection - Utah Interurbans

The Utah interurbans, of course, are best known for their garish paint schemes which seem to have been inspired by the camouflage on WWI warships, but which were meant to avoid collision with civilian automobiles rather than German torpedoes.  I'll present them here more or less in geographical order, north to south.

UTAH-IDAHO CENTRAL

UIC 503   Logan, Utah

UIC 504   Near Hyrum     6-17-44

UIC 512   6-16-44    Mendon, Utah

UIC 515   Wellsville, Utah     6-16-44

UIC 517

BAMBERGER

Bamberger 323     North of Lagoon    6-18-44

Bamberger 324    North of Lagoon     6-18-44

Bamberger 325   Farmington, Utah    6-18-44

SALT LAKE GARFIELD & WESTERN

SLG&W 503      Salt Lake, Utah

The SLG&W is probably best known for its open trailers, used for the busy excursion traffic to the Saltair pavilion.  Three of them have been saved in poor condition.

 

SALT LAKE & UTAH

SL&U 601-702     Granger

SL&U 608      Curtis, Utah

SL&U 751     at Payson     Sept 1939   (GK)

This car alone of those pictured has been preserved and restored to excellent condition, and is occasionally operated at Rio Vista.

 

In Memoriam John McKelvey

We regret to report that John McKelvey died on July 4th at a VA hospital in Florida.  Also, he was born on July 4th, 1944, which I hadn't known.  Services will be private, for family only.

I remember John from my earliest days at IRM; he was always active in the Steam Dept., also on track and anything else that needed work.  In recent years he concentrated on upholstery, and spent much of his time in the Barn 4 Lean-3 doing work for any project that needed upholstery.  He will certainly be missed.

Simms Collection -- Sacramento Northern

Ted and Jim, we finally get around to presenting the Sacramento Northern.  These pictures are for you!  They were all taken by W. C. Whittaker and have dates and locations (except for the 605) on the backs, which is fortunate because I would have no idea where any of these scenic places might be.

SN 603 and 604   Montclair    2-8-44

SN 605   8-18-43

SN 1006    6-15-40   Valle Vista

SN 1008   Broadway Terrace   2-19-39

SN 1008 and 224     Sacramento
(Note: that's what the print says, but it's actually Oakland)

SN 1011    Havens    6-19-39

July 3rd Abandonment Post-Mortem

In spite of some rather unpleasant weather, the annual CA&E abandonment festival went off pretty well.

The first train out was the wood car train, with 319, 308, and 309.  On each trip we actually needed three cars to handle the crowd of passengers.

And then the steel cars 460 and 431.

To reduce expenses, since we're on the brink of insolvency, we have here two crews in one picture:

(L to R)  Steven Jamrog, Aaron Sucharewski, Drew Beveridge, Will Knogl, and me.  The younger generation all did a great job of running the trains.

At noon, the wood cars unloaded our passengers at Seemann, as we usually do, and then ran extra back to Wheaton.  The passengers were soon picked up by the North Western bilevels, who did an efficient job of rescuing them. 

And since heavy rain was approaching, the wood cars had to rush to get back into the barn before the deluge.  It's not easy changing ends, throwing switches, and doing it all in a hurry!  And it was so hot, I really didn't mind being thrown out of work.

Besides the CA&E cars, of course, there were several other trains operating all day.

If you missed the first day of Independence Day Weekend, there are still two more coming up with different consists each day.  Don't miss it!