Van Dorn Coupler View

Regular IRM videographer Steven Jam just posted a pretty neat video: a view of the couplers between the 309 and 319 during a trip on Showcase Weekend 2025. Enjoy seeing the magic of Van Dorn link-and-pin couplers in action!

Tuesday Report

Practice may not always make perfect, but it usually makes things go faster, at least.  Here's a few projects that are making pretty good progress.

Tim has gotten both sides of the (1)268 repainted as seen here, and he's working on the doors and end platforms.

Gregg and Jack have completed the south side of the 109 (not shown, but it looks great) and today they were busy installing the trim pieces on the north side, among other things.

3142 was over the pit for inspection.  Think Bunny Hop.

I was able to essentially complete the next summer beam in a day.  Now I need to speed up the paint drying somehow.

The 460 train door needed a quarter-round molding piece, seen here.

And Steve continued to work on the piping and wiring on the 306.

Just another productive, satisfying day at the old car shop.

Curve-Sider Combo

Frank writes...

Sunday was a beautiful day to work on CA&E curve-siders. But then, what day isn't? As it turned out, all three of our curve-siders were the subject of work.

Let's go in numerical order and start with the 451. During the week, Greg started working on mounting the flag brackets back on the #2 end of the car, and on Sunday, he and Richard completed the job (though we still want to take the brackets back off and paint them before they're permanently attached). Here, Greg lines measures to position a bracket. As with the rest of the CA&E fleet, these were originally mounted about halfway up the end windows but were relocated about 8-10" lower around 1950. This is one of those little things that not everybody notices, but we do our best to get the details right. In other news, Ashtin continued his rapid progress wire-wheeling the baggage racks, a job that is nearly done. And I made some more progress needle-chipping the ceiling in the main compartment.

Then there's the 453, which hasn't gotten much attention recently. It was switched from track 131 to track 132 on Saturday (more on switching later), and on Sunday, I went out there with Dan and Jimmy to take a look at the #2 end coupler. This will need to be removed and either rebuilt or replaced, as it's missing some important components. We removed the little keeper bolts that keep the main coupler carrier bolts from turning and Jimmy got the anchor pin out as well. Next will be to remove the coupler itself. Stay tuned!

Most of my time was spent working on the two doors for the 460 that my father repaired. The goal was to get to work painting them, thanks to some nice red paint that Jamie and the Diesel Department guys procured for us. Thank you! Above, a light touch-sanding with 220-grit sandpaper shows how noticeably the original red paint has discolored over the last 70 years or so. This is the side door.

Here are the train door (left) and side door after sanding, spot-priming, and masking. I masked off the original lettering on the train door to preserve it, since it's in pretty good condition.

Good Nick spent a couple of hours after dinner mixing up the paint, spraying both doors, and then cleaning up. A huge thank you to Nick for all this work - the doors look spectacular! Unfortunately, I forgot to get a "finished product" photo, but I should be able to do that next time.

This photo was taken by Brian LaKemper and shows a 3D printed test for new "adjustment plates." CA&E third rail beams had these cast plates mounted to the back of the beam where they bolt to the truck; they were designed to make it simple to raise and lower the beams in small increments to account for wheel wear. Ideally, if we can scrounge up the funds, we'd like to get new ones made to replace the ones that are missing, so this print was the (successful) trial of the 3D file I had drawn up. Many thanks to Zach and Robbie for printing these up!

In other news, Brian also took this photo of Joel holding another test print, this time of a trolley shoe insert. We're planning to get some of these made and wanted to see if the 3D drawing was accurate. Fortunately, it fit perfectly. Rapid prototyping does indeed come in handy!

Of course, there was plenty going on in the shop besides work on CA&E cars. Brian was doing more work on S governors, and here we see several components with fresh Glyptal.

The 3142 was on the pit, with Joel, Jimmy, Richard, and Brian among others working on the car. Here, Brian reams out a hole in one of the car's brake beams.

And now for our ever-popular recurring feature, Joel's Saturday Switching Round-Up! Many thanks for our indefatigable investigative reporter, Joel Ahrendt, for sending us photos from the south yards that he took during switching on Saturday. (There was switching going on Sunday, too, but it was the Diesel Department's turn that day.)

Here, CTA 6125-6126 have been towed out into Yard 13. This is the only preserved pair of 6000s that actually had trolley poles mounted in service. (Thanks to Scott for the correction!)

The two "Met" cars, 2888 and 2872, make an appearance outside.

Our South Shore "picture window" car, the 28, also made a rare appearance outside. This car was acquired from TWERHS back in the late 1980s and has never run at IRM but is complete and in reasonably good condition.

Here's a shot of North Shore 172, with its orange paint looking rather nice in the bright sunlight.

Rio open car 1889 made more trips in and out of the barn. I'm not sure who the ground man here is, I'm afraid.

Part of the South Shore fleet is spotted in Yard 14: coach 8 and package trailer 504.

Since I wasn't there to confirm that Joel's crew didn't kick the 640 all the way from South Junction around the curve and into the yard, I'm going to go with the story that that's exactly what he did, and this photo depicts the car free-wheeling merrily along instead of simply sitting still. The next time you see Joel, tell him to quit kicking cars through the yards.

Speaking of switching hijinks, occasionally bad things happen to good display signs. This veteran Kevin McCabe sign fell off THI&E 50 while the car was in motion, and although the crew saw it happen, the sign fell on the rail just a foot or two from the truck, too close to stop before running it over. Oops. I think we'll need to call up Dave about a new sign.

Help Wanted -- Hop To It!

IRM's Bunny Trolley Hop is coming up this weekend and next, and there are several operating crew positions that still need to be filled.  You can check on VSP to see what's available, but in particular I need a conductor for the North Shore train on Saturday.  And be sure to talk it up with anybody you know who has little kids!  You'll be glad you did.

Disclaimer: Train does not actually go to Chicago.

Saturday Summary

Today's first project was to process the wood for the next third-rail beam -- jointing, ripping, and gluing -- and clamping it up for the glue to set.  Buzz later helped me move the two finished beams out into the barn to provide a lot more bench space for other projects.  It's our "Good Neighbor" policy.

Most of the rest of the day I spent working on the sign boxes for the 451.  Joel ordered the right machine screws (1/4" fine thread) for the job.  Most of the holes at both ends needed to be retapped, and that took a while.  But all of them should be OK.  That's a relief, because otherwise I would probably have to remove the glass from the wooden frames and then put it back in.  

This is the west (#2) end; you can see all of the screws in the holes.  Same thing at the east end.

This box still has most of the roller parts, but they need a lot of work.  The two light sockets are there, but need rewiring and reattachment.  The gears for the roller mechanism are frozen.

Here Bill Wulfert is Kroiling the gears to free them up.

At the east end most of the mechanism is missing.  But we may have spare parts -- stay tuned.

Sorry -- we're not done with CA&E third rail beams yet.  Joel proudly showed me the plastic mold for the cast iron plates at each end that allow the third rail beam to be accurately adjusted up and down.  So he is planning to get quotes on how much these will cost.  

As usual, lots of other things were going on.  The only thing I got a picture of was Buzz's work on doors for the Ely.  

   So as always, you just had to be there in person.  Sign up today!

Barn 4 Coach Update

Joel was despondent at the thought that everyone's favorite railroad passenger coach, Green Bay & Western 109, might be departing the Barn 4 Electric Car Shop soon for "Pullman greener" pastures. We told him he really shouldn't worry! While he recovers his composure, our favorite freelance photographer, Gregg Wolfersheim, has sent along a progress report.

We have Ralph on his knees applying a coat of varnish to the lower baseboard area.

Once the varnish was dry, I started priming the floor. First was doing the edge by hand.

Then I followed with a roller doing the middle.

An hour later, and it was done.

A couple of days later, the same routine with Tile Red floor paint. The edges are first.....

And, again rolling the middle.

This was after a second coat was applied. There's just a little bit left to do at the far end behind our partition and around the stove.

The demonstration gas light fixture is up on the ceiling. Unfortunately, the part that attaches to the stem in the middle is not around. We had one we thought would work, but it has a different set of threads that won't screw into this bracket. So, we're trying to locate the correct one.

These are the trim pieces we had made for the arched windows. The thin straight pieces at the left go between the right and left hand curved pieces.

Some of the precut pieces before priming.

Jack was busy today installing these trim pieces on the south side of the car. Soon they will be painted green to match the rest of the car.

To Be Continued

On Thursday, work continued on several of the current projects in Barn 4, and due to our nice new facilities the work can continue almost every day.  And that's important.  Did I ever tell you that a continuous function has a defined derivative at every point?  That means we can determine the rate of change...  well, let's get to the pictures.  I want to be paid for lecturing. 

Frank continued working on sign frames.

Tim continued on the gold leaf lettering on the 268.

Fred continued to needle-chip the 28.  He's a better man than I am, I can't stand needle-chipping.

Jack and Gregg (not shown) continued attaching trim to the arches on the Green Bay car.

And I finished painting the next two third-rail beams.  And sorted parts.  To be continued.

Tuesday Snapshots

 Time for another brief report from Barn 4, Beehive of Activity:

I do not now recall why I took these first two pictures....

Fritz was working on the 28, but I failed to get a picture of it.  Sorry.

On the other hand, Tim has been doing astounding work on the 268.  This and the 24 will make a train like no other in preservation....

The 306 guys were hard at work again on the piping and wiring.  It's getting close.

Jack and Ralph spent much of their time installing arched trim pieces over the upper sash on the 109:

And here they are priming the next dozen or so arches.

Tim cut out a piece of glass for the next sign box frame that I made for the 451.