Friday Brief

Friday was a quiet day.  Most of the time it was just Tim and I in Barn 4.  Here Tim is spraying the rebuilt springs for one of  the bench seats in the 268.  This is in the west part of the barn.

And back behind the 451, I was stripping the wood molding strips for the interior.  

Outside, I was able to catch one of the steam guys disassembling the 1630's tender.  You can just see his head above the truck; he was running the crane by remote control.  I didn't want to bother him, of course, so I don't know his name.

And here's another set of bench springs in the shop being cleaned up.  Just like truck design, these have a combination of leaf springs and coil springs to provide a smooth ride.

And the many of the wooden strips for the 451 have been stripped, but there's more to do.

The Hall Closet

Everybody needs closet space, but in most electric railway cars that's hard to come by.  In many cars the toilet compartment doubles as a closet, but in cars without one there's usually no closet space at all.  But the last order of CA&E cars included five cars (451-455) with a small storage closet.

Anyway, here's the closet on the 451 with the door removed.  Inside, on the left you can just barely see the big ice breaker pole, the coat hooks, and the third rail slippers are on the floor, with various other things.  The door itself is only about 14" wide.  Don't open that door, McGee!!

But it needs to be stripped, so here it is on the operating table.  

And later, after some work with a heat gun, scrapers, and steel wool, it's down to bare wood.

Meanwhile, the other weekday projects continued.  Here Gerry is working on assembling the pilot for the Fox River 306.

And Jim is grinding some of the parts into shape.

And John (not shown) is making great progress on assembling the electrical controls at the east end.

Another project I need to work on is stripping the paint from the wooden molding strips attached to the ceiling of the 451.  

Tim is back from another cross-country bicycle ride, and he was working all day on woodwork for the 1268, but I didn't get any pictures.

Finally, over in Barn 8 Steve Smunt continues restoring the interior of the 277.  The rear vestibule is rather cramped, and so when I stopped by he was unable to open the door.  But looking through the window, you can see that most of the interior is now in white primer.  He's making good progress.

Saturday Evening Post

Frank writes...

To echo what my father wrote, Saturday was a great day with terrific weather and a good crowd. Assigned to the evening shift, I didn't arrive until about 1:00.

I ran into a familiar face running the 3142.

While I was over at Barn 4 to pick up kerosene for fueling the marker lanterns, I encountered Dan, who was hard at work wire-wheeling one of the wheels for the air compressor wagon, AX545. A huge thank you goes out to Dan for all his work to move this project forward!

When I stopped by later, Dan had completed his work and palletized the four wheels that are being shipped west to the shop where new solid-rubber tires will be fitted. The top two wheels are all cleaned up and ready to go; the third will require the shop to remove some stubborn rubber remnants; and the bottom one is purposely being sent with its original tire so that they can authentically replicate the profile. That tire, too, will be removed by the shop.

When it was time for the "shift change," Zach, Fred, and Steven brought Shaker Heights 18 out of the barn. This was the car's second regular service day of the year.

The above photo by Zach Ehlers is aptly titled "A Rainbow of Traction." You can see CSL 1374, CTA 22, IT 101, CCW 300, and CTA 4391, all viewed from inside SHRT 18. Only at IRM!

Another view from Yard 7: Shaker 18, CTA 4391, the 3142 barely peeking out in the background, CTA trolley bus 9631 passing on Central Avenue, CA&E 431 in the background, and of course CA&E 319 and 309 on the Yard 8 lead.

We went into service just after 5pm. Due to last-minute scheduling changes, we ended up with three different conductors over the course of the evening. The above crew photo includes Mike, the trainman all evening; Steven, the conductor for the second trip; and Ted, the conductor for the first trip. Aaron (not pictured) was the conductor for the third and fourth trips we made. Many thanks to all of our conductors for jumping in at the last minute to help out!

Here's the train in the center berth of Station Track 1 as the shadows lengthen. The west berth is currently under reconstruction; all the ties have been replaced by the indefatigable Track Department, so that means next up is new asphalt and concrete.

The only three mainline trains during the evening shift were our train, Amtrak 231 pulling a rather impressive heavyweight train, and the Shay with its caboose train. Here, the 231 passes westbound just before our 7:30pm departure. The lanterns have been lit!

Welcome aboard the 309!

...or, if you prefer, the 319!

Here we are toward the end of the night. All four markers remained lit throughout the evening; it's always gratifying when none of them blows out! As usual, we ran with markers at all corners and flipped them from red to white, or vice versa, when changing ends. You'll also notice that the heavyweight train over on Station Track 2 is nicely lit up. I'm not positive, but I believe they've started using LED light bulbs with built-in batteries, which allows for several hours of illumination without any modifications to the car itself. Pretty nifty!

As an epilogue, Ted Kuhn, our conductor on the first trip Saturday, was back at the museum on Sunday, but this time wearing work clothes. He sent two photos of the wire-wheeling he did in the main compartment of the 451, cleaning up the needle-chipped panels on the partition.

This is a huge help! Thank you, Ted!

Saturday Afternoon Variety

Labor Day Weekend is always a huge operation at IRM.  Saturday was busy all day.  I was running the 3142 and barely had time to take a break for photography.  But here are some quick shots.

Here we see, from left to right, the streetcar, the CA&E steel car train, and parts of the heavyweight coach train.  And while all this was going on, note that the municipal Department of Heat, Light, and Power were working on the electrical grid.  They never stop!

This is even better.  In the foreground, the huge LGB layout, and behind that, the Shay with its caboose train, the North Shore cars, and the CA&E cars.

The coach train is very impressive.  This is only a part of it: the Galt House, the Villa Real, the DM&IR 84, and more.

Also in operation were our 1898 gate car Northwestern Elevated 24, the 4391, and one or more trolley buses.  Stay tuned for what appeared in the evening after most of these cars were put away.

And if you can, be sure to come out to the Museum sometime during  the weekend to see for yourself!

UP M-35 Update

We extend our thanks to our redoubtable roving reporter Gregg Wolfersheim, who sends along the latest news concerning the restoration work on Union Pacific "doodlebug" M-35.

Work has been sporadic on the doodlebug this summer. Most of our time was spent on the Ingersoll Rand 91 painting. However, the rear of M35 was slowly needle chipped and then sanded.

The upper part is in primer. Lower is bare and shows where the UP patched the skin. After welding a piece in, they finished it with lead. Then some sort of early Bondo to smooth it all up.

The left side before primer.

After the primer. The bottom still needed more Bondo work. This was eventually fixed up.

The inner rear door was sanded down and the hardware cleaned up.

Now in primer. The other side is stained and varnished. That will need some help too.

Still Chipping Away

Frank writes…

My update from Sunday isn’t terribly exciting, but what can I say? I spent most of my afternoon needle-chipping in the 451’s main compartment. I basically finished the partition, which had been started back in the winter, and got through most of the window posts. The good - very good - news is that after one or maybe two more days of needle chipping, that task should be completely done, and I can move ahead to wire wheeling. Oh… joy.

The CA&E wood train was out earlier in the day, but just like Saturday, impending rain meant the cars were put in the barn and the 460 was brought out. Thank you to Gregg, the day's motorman, for his work taking the cars out and also making sure to keep them dry! The other big project for the day seemed to be more switching, in this case because the crosswalk just inside the west end of Barn 7 is being repaved, so all the equipment needed to be pulled back five or ten feet from the west end of each track. Below, we got a better-than-typical look at the left side of Shaker Heights 63 following its paint job.

Out in the yard, one of the pieces of equipment that doesn't see open sky very often is SEPTA 55, our ponderous Broad Street subway car.

After dinner, additional work included tracing "PLEASE KEEP YOUR FEET OFF THE SEATS" off a 451 trim piece for the files, setting aside some advertising "car cards" from the car for possible scanning and reproduction, and removing some random parts from inside the car. And so it goes.

How To Check Journals

The subject of checking journals came up recently, and in particular whether you should allow the spring-loaded lids to slam shut.  I was told many years ago by several people that Henry Cordell in particular, the master mechanic of the North Shore Line, was very adamant about not allowing the lids to slam.  And I was taught to let them down gently.  It's not hard to do:

So this was the Car Dept. official policy, I believe.  But I'm afraid I don't recall exactly what the bad effects of allowing the lids to slam shut might be.  Constructive comments are welcome!

Saturday Operations

Due to the threat of rain, Saturday had a smaller than usual number of visitors, and we had just two mainline trains running.  But everything went well.

CA&E 309 and 319 were operating with myself as motorman and Chris Buck as conductor.   We never got around to a crew picture, but you've seen us before.  

The 7525 was pulling the coach train.    This is an SD-45, which makes it, I believe, one of the largest operational locomotives at IRM.  And they say this was a unique paint scheme.

The Track Department continue to make good progress on rebuilding Station 1.  They were nice enough to arrange things so that we were able to run the CA&E cars through the work zone, at slow speed of course.  But operations would have been much more difficult to arrange otherwise. 

Later, when it appeared that heavy rain might be approaching, we put the two wood cars away and switched over to the 460.  Our thanks to the expert shop guys who got the 460 ready for us, so we were able to switch over to a new train without delay.  Just like it must have been at Wheaton!

Thursday Snapshots

 Here are some pictures from yesterday's work in the car shop.  Steve K. and Fred Z. continued work on wiring up the 306.  Here's the big crimper at work:

A lot of  it has to be done under the car, looking straight up.

And here's the controller.

These metal plates will be attached to the ends of the 1268 to replace the rusty originals:

And I continued to strip the interior doors for the 451.

The third rail beams for the 451 are pretty much complete.  We need to get some new parts cast, and the recently cast hangers need to be machined.

The 309 and 319 will be in regular service this weekend, so stop by and say hello!

AND WE STILL NEED CREWMEN!