Simms Collection -- Waterloo Cedar Falls & Northern

WATERLOO CEDAR FALLS & NORTHERN

The captions are usually taken verbatim from the prints.

Waterloo Cedar Falls & Northern #32,
on Waterloo turn table, 1912

WCF&N #33

(RH: McGuire-Cummings builder's photo
WCF&N #80)

Waterloo Cedar Falls & Northern
#100 Heavy Int. on street at Cedar
Rapids, Iowa    7/22/39

Single end
Two Man
Color: Red & Yellow

WCF&N #101

WCF&N #101

WCF&N #102

WCF&N #142

Simms Collection -- Crandic

The Simms Iowa collection covers most of the Iowa interurbans.  We'll start with the Crandic.

All captions are taken from the prints unless otherwise noted.  Most of them are from a fan trip in 1939 using car 109.  

Iowa City    May 29 1939     WCJ

Regular Pass. meets the
109 we didn't have the face
scorching meets we had on the
Indiana RR.  These boys really do
a good job of railroading

[RH: Regular car is 117]

[Also, I am guessing that "face scorching meets" means that on the Indiana RR the extra would pull into the siding, and the regular car would fly by at full speed.  On the Crandic they evidently had time to stop and say hello!]

This was taken on our fan trip on
the Crandic.  I don't know the name
of the station.

[Coralville, Ia.  --  see first comment below]

We stopped at this substation
so that the M. M. could cut
it in.  A storm from the night
before had knocked it out.

extra 109 goes in the hole
for a freight.  The crandic has
some cabooses but they never use
them.  I don't blame them either they
sure are off the list.  They use
a three man crew, so they really
don't need 'em.

Crandic #51
Cedar Rapids    July 1939

Cedar Rapids   May '43   (GK)

Tuesday Report

Tuesday was another busy day in the car shop, and I have a few pictures.  

As mentioned last time, two of the third rail beams on the 319 need to be replaced.  If one of them were to break in half in service, it could be disastrous.  I went to Owl and got the wood for two more beams this morning, and brought them out to the Museum for cutting, planing, and gluing. 

 Here we see the two halves of a beam being notched for the sleet scraper.

And by the way, Steve Keller joins the illustrious ranks of our photography pool:

Finally, they were glued and clamped.

Meanwhile, several of the guys continued work on the 306.  I believe we have here Gerry and Steve installing piping and the gong.

Tim and Frank K. were working on L car parts, and Jack on the 109, but I don't have any pictures.  Just too busy.

Work is progressing on Barn 7.  Name those cars!

Finally, Ron Seavers was running the 431 as a one-man car all day.  That's not ideal; it would be good to have a two-man crew for an interurban car like this.  We always need people to sign up for weekday service.

The Horn Blows at Midnight

Frank writes...

To echo what my father wrote, Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend was a terrific day on the railroad, and a good time was had by all.

But the festivities didn't end when the CA&E train went back to the barn! The aptly named "second shift" crew was just getting started. First off was a cookout. Many thanks to Joel, the founder of the feast, and Richard, who did the grilling; below is a shot of some of the gang gathered around the grill in the car shop parking lot.

While this was happening, a car that hasn't been seen out and about much recently was doing test trips on the streetcar line. Sand Springs 68, which has been out of revenue service due to air leaks and a few minor miscellaneous issues, was being worked on by Brian and some of the other guys during the day. The below photo was taken by Zach of one of the test trips.

It's good to see the 68 out again! It will need more work before it's ready for prime time, but the guys are on it, and we fully intend to have it back in revenue operation once volunteer time and resources permit. I snapped the below photo after dinner of another "only at IRM" scene, with our 1918 lightweight interurban car in the foreground and our SD70MAC in the background.

Several of the guys spent the evening working on the CTA 2600s, but for a bunch of us, the priority was Shaker Heights 18. You may recall that the last time the car was in service, in September 2024, a problem cropped up: the car was climbing the frog at the South Junction switch. This issue kept the car out of service all through 2025. Fortunately, though, our friends in the Track Department had a few ideas for possible fixes.

The first idea, trying to tighten the guardrail on the inside rail, was taken care of by Mark and the track guys last week. Thank you!! So, Zach took the lead on bringing the 18 out of the barn after dinner for a test trip, as shown above.

Good news, the car is no longer climbing the frog. However, the wheels are just far enough to the outside of the curve that the flanges are striking the point of the frog and being "kicked" over slightly. That's not ideal. So, the next suggestion of the track guys was to put grease cookies in the car's center bearings to help the trucks swing more freely. This was done alongside Barn 2, so we could place the jacks at tie level (the jacks themselves are too tall to lift the car from railhead height). A huge thank you goes out to Zach, Brian, Steven, Scott, Ashtin, Will, Joel, and everyone who helped with this!

Here's Zach using one of the motor inspection hatches to insert grease cookies into the center bearings...

...and yours truly, in a photo taken by Zach. This job went on past the fall of night, and when complete we took the car out for another test trip or two. We may need to make some further adjustments, but we are hopeful that the 18 will be back carrying passengers - on occasion, at least - at IRM before too long.

Mikey helped put the car back in the barn with me; I snapped the above photo of the 18 on the tail track before it went to bed. Thanks again to everyone who helped, especially Zach, who kept things moving forward late into the evening! It was really nice to see the 18 back out on the car line for the first time in a while.

Spectacular Sunday

On my way to the Museum on Sunday morning it was raining heavily, and I was doubting the weather reports that predicted clear weather.  Are we ever going to be able to get out of the barn?  But by about 10 it had all passed, and the rest of the day was magnificent.

The first train out was the North Shore 749 and 251.  It was still cloudy early in the morning, but the sun soon came out.  The 251 has the important advantage of allowing us to carry wheelchairs and provide access for passengers with limited mobility.

And then there was the CA&E 319 and 309, with our 48-star flags for Memorial Day.

The Shay was running all day.  

Finally, Zach has been promoted from the North Shore to the heavyweight train, with the luxurious parlor car Pawnee on the end.

You might notice that the 319 has been wyed.  This puts the oval window on the visitor side.  It also makes two other third-rail beams more obvious.

These are the two we got from the 315 about 25 years ago, and they have some rotted wood. So these will be next in line to be replaced.  At least I have all of the parts; only the wood has to be changed.  I'm never going to get away from this project, I'm afraid.

And here's the crew.

We had a full train on almost every trip, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.  Another rewarding day at IRM...

And there will be even more spectacular equipment running on Monday!  Don't miss it!

Friday Prep Work

 There weren't very many people in the car shop on Friday, but quite a bit got done anyhow.

My first task was to get the CA&E train ready for operation on Sunday.  This requires getting under the car and getting dirty, so it's not something you want to do in your spiffy uniform, and it's best to get it done beforehand.  I had to connect the air hoses and control jumper, check and fill the compressors, test the brakes and buzzers, and so on.  Then I ran it back and forth a few feet in the barn to check that both cars were motoring, etc.  All is well, so we should be ready for service early on Sunday.

Going Uphill?

When we first got the 36, it seemed to be going downhill.   I thought we had that problem solved, but I guess not.  Now it looks like it's going uphill, at a worse angle than before.  I just don't understand how these things happen.  Maybe someone else can solve this conundrum....

Having given up on that, I went back to work on the third rail beams.  I painted most of the one in front black, as seen here.  Then the one in the rear, the last of the current set of summer beams, got the bottom surface and most of the rest of it painted black also.

Here we see Fritz proudly standing in front of the Michigan Electric 28; this paint job looks superb.

Fritz also helped me by using the impact wrench to free up some bolts on the third rail scrapers, so I could clean up the fuses and reinstall them.  And they all get brand new metal clips for holding the fuses out from the wood, so it doesn't catch on fire when a fuse opens, I suppose.  This beam should be ready for installation once the paint dries.

Tim is always hard at work; here he's cleaning up some more wood for the 268.

This is something I didn't know before.  Since the 268 is a trailer, it doesn't have ordinary electrical cabinets like most cars.  So the door controls are located in a small compartment right at floor level next to the sliding door.  You have to get down on your hands and knees to turn things on or off.

Finally, the B&G department was very busy today.  Contractors are replacing the south wall of Barn 7.  Dave points out that the barn is now more than 40 years old (inconceivable!) so this is scheduled maintenance.  Barn 8 will be done next year.

And then Dave and Carl were working on installing the magic bridge for the trolley wire over track 41, so that when the rolling door is open cars can pass through without a problem.

I hope it works!