A New Home for the 321

We have big news about our CA&E collection. Car 321, which has been owned by IRM since it was purchased from the railroad in 1962, will be leaving for greener pastures. The car has been deaccessioned and donated to the Village of Villa Park, which will be putting it on display next to the original CA&E Ardmore station. Formal arrangements have only recently been finalized, which is why we haven't posted about this earlier. The car is scheduled to be moved soon, but the date hasn't been set.

CA&E 321 in 2009

Why is the 321 going to Villa Park? The reason is that we firmly believe it is in the best interest of the car, and of historic preservation and education overall. In Villa Park, the car will be housed under a specially build shelter and will be cosmetically restored. It will be seen by tens of thousands of people a year - and will be located on "home rails," so to speak, the only Chicago-area interurban car to be preserved where it ran every day in service. In contrast, at IRM, the car would likely just sit forever in a closed-off barn. It is a duplicate in the collection, it's incomplete, and its body is in very poor shape. It would likely take north of $1 million to restore the car, and there are dozens of other pieces in the collection that even we CA&E fans say would be better uses for funding at that level.

The Villa Park proposal includes a shelter for the 321 patterned loosely after this one.

We've also kept in mind that the 321 was originally purchased from the railroad by IRM members, not by the museum itself. It was donated to IRM for the purpose of being a parts source for other cars - chiefly the Milwaukee Electric interurban cars. The 321 already contributed its trucks and motors to the 319 back in 2010 (this also permitted us to put the 409 into service), and since it will be a static display piece in Villa Park, our volunteers have removed other electrical and mechanical components for use in the restoration and maintenance of our fleet. Besides being beneficial to our collection without impacting the 321's future use, this also aligns with the aims of the car's original donors.

The car has been in Barn 4 for the past few weeks for removal of electrical equipment and preparation for transportation off-site.

We realize not everyone will agree with sending the 321 to Villa Park, but we hope that even the skeptics will give the folks there a chance. We paid a visit to the 321's future display site, where the village has already built a short piece of track right next to the Ardmore station. It's a very nice area, with a bandshell a few feet to the west, a new condo building down the block, and a busy meadery across the street (I didn't know what that was, but it's like a winery, but for mead - you learn something new every day!). And, of course, there's the bike path on the old CA&E alignment. There are other cities, from Lynwood, Washington, to Corsicana, Texas, that have had interurban cars on display under shelters like this for decades. We hope that the 321 will prove even more popular and visible than the cars in those locales.

Tuesday Projects

Just a sample of what was happening on Tuesday:

I believe I have pretty much finished up the third-rail beam project for the time being.  The two currently on the bench can be installed on the 319, and that should take care of all our operating cars.  The 453 will eventually need a set, but that's far in the future.

I attached the scraper onto #2, nailed down the pentagons, and painted everything black.  They're both ready for service.

I also did some work on the CA&E service cars, but DC is temporarily unavailable in 8, so there were several things I was unable to do.  I'm hoping that gets resolved soon.

Meanwhile, Jack was working all day on woodwork for the doodlebug.  He made several of these parts using maple blocks left over from the third rail project!

Work continued on the 306: John was testing electrical parts, Gerry was doing body and fender work on the pilots, and Phil was working on the interior.  Tim, of course, was installing and adjusting the clerestory windows on the 268.

And then, Steve Smunt is doing a great job on the interior of the 277.  These are sort of action shots of him rolling new paint in the rear vestibule and the heater section.  It looks great!

And of course, there were several other things going on.

Simms Collection - Arkansas Valley Interurban

The Arkansas Valley Interurban operated between Wichita and Hutchinson in Kansas, and has an interesting history as told by Hilton & Due.  Passenger service ended in 1938, but freight service continued until 1942, when the rails were requisitioned for a wartime scrap drive.

None of these pictures have any information, except for the location of #202.

#2

#2

#12

#202
Oak Valley

Soggy Sunday

Frank writes…

Sunday was a productive day despite a light rain that fell constantly from noon onward.

I divided my time between a handful of small projects. First up was installing the last two third rail beams on the 409. These were completed by my father a couple of months ago, and they've been sitting alongside the 451 in Barn 4 awaiting installation. They're "summer" beams, so I was able to install them myself because the lack of sleet scraper equipment means they're about half the weight of the "fully equipped" beams.

The bolt heads as well as the fuse clips on one of the beams still need to be primed and painted, but there's no tremendous rush on that. All three of our regular service steel cars now have a full set of third rail beams (though admittedly the 409 is out of service at the moment for air compressor work).

I also sprayed the bolt heads on the new beams on the 460 black, as shown here - it may not be obvious, but that's the point! And there were a couple of other things I worked on that I failed to get any photos of. I did some inspection work on the 18, checking out the air compressor among other things. WANTED: a conductor for the 18 for this coming Saturday, June 27th, during Trolley Weekend. C'mon, you know you've always wanted to be a conductor on the Shaker Heights line! Go to VSP and sign up today!

I also spent a while working on fixing up a couple of spare air tanks for our spare parts supply - thank you to Zach for his help with this. There was plenty of work being done around the shop. Nick was working on inspecting the CTA 2200s; Tim was working on the 268; Jimmy was working on diagnosing the issues with the 600V power supply into Barn 8; Brian was working on air brake stuff; Richard and Steven were working on rebuilding a trolley catcher for Veracruz 19 that will replace the retriever currently on the car; and Zach was conducting line training. Joel and Steven also had a rare opportunity: a man who spent his childhood living in Fort Wayne-Lima 91, back when it was a house, came out to visit along with his kids and grandkids. The family toured the car, which is located in Barn 13, while Joel and Steven spoke with them and recorded some of their reminiscences. We hope to be able to publish some of this material in the future.

Busy Saturday

Saturday was one of the busiest days at IRM that I can remember, apart from special events such as Thomas or Vintage Transport.  And as luck would have it, there were some problems with the signal system early in the morning, which could have made efficient operation impossible, but these were fixed by the rapid response of our Signal Dept. experts.  Thanks, guys!  The Shay was pulling the usual coach/caboose train, the 6976 pulled the heavyweight special during the morning, there were Take the Throttle trips running, and the CA&E steel cars held down regular passenger service.  Am I missing anything?

Here we see a lineup of main-line power.

The Shay passing the heavyweight special.

The CA&E steel car train was busy all day.

For our first trip, we had a large group out from Chicago, and it was standing room only in both cars.  That's pretty unusual at IRM, but just the way it was at rush hour on the CA&E!

Our crew for the first half of the day: myself and Jeff.  Michael Miller, a newer volunteer, was the trainman all day.  Later in the day, Marcus Ray took over as conductor.  They did a great job, by the way.  We were busy, and had little time to get together for a second crew shot.  So being in a hurry, I handed my phone to a man who had never used a cell phone as a camera before, and the result was a series of pictures with his finger covering our faces.  Maybe we'll have better luck next time.  :)

Thursday Car Shop News

Thursday was another productive day at the Museum.

Brand new third-rail beams have been installed on the 460.  A couple of them still had the fuses unattached at one end, so they were sort of waving in the breeze, and might pose a hazard.  I was asked to fix that, as seen here.

Work continued on the 319's beams.  #1 got its sleet scraper attached, and #2 got its shoe assembly installed.  

Then there was more painting to do.   Yeah, I know, you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.

But you haven't seen this before: Jack is building a new vestibule door for the UP doodlebug.  On the table, it looks very short and fat, but that's because it opens over the stepwell.  And of course the doodlebug isn't designed for loading from high-level platforms like our L-compatible cars.

My next priority is to get new springs made for the 36.  Here's the crate I made at home, which is custom fit to a single leaf spring and will be shipped to the manufacturer as the guide to making new ones.

Out in the shop, the 306 crew (in this case, Fred and Gerry) were working on pilots.  They need some body and fender work.

The east end control stand is essentially finished and in its original configuration -- something nobody has seen for about 90 years.

Work continues at the west end of the car.

And last but not least, Tim is making sure all of the clerestory windows open and close properly.

The Doodlebug Evening News

Many thanks to our redoubtable roving reporter, Gregg Wolfersheim, who sends along the latest news on the restoration of Union Pacific M-35, our EMC doodlebug.

Work has resumed on the doodlebug with some fresh paint. This is the left side door.

The left side of the rear corner is in primer.

The rear door is painted and back in place.

More recently, tan paint has appeared on much of the area.

One of the trap doors has been cleaned up. Primer is next.

Simms Collection -- NY and Philly

Here we have a few pictures from the East Coast, and all but the first have interesting info written on the backs.  Their accuracy is not guaranteed, so constructive comments are welcome, as always.

RH: Not labeled, but obviously Red Arrow #78.  Exact location?

ERA's #1 leased From T.A.T. Corp
Mt. Vernon, NY   April 1944

Southern N.Y. RY.
Combination Interurban
at Hartwick, NY
June 20/36
Orange

10/3/43
P & W southbound as seen from Penna. RR
freight cutoff
CHARLES H. BRADY
CLARENDON HILLS, ILL.

10/3/43
LVT going W. on P&W near
Penna RR freight cutoff
CHARLES H. BRADY
CLARENDON HILLS, ILL.

International Rys.    Buffalo Lockport Int.

Pittsburgh near Monongahela River

Baltimore, West Arlington Barns

Photo by R. W. Merriman
Cap. City Transit No. 1234
At Girard, Ill.     On July 1940
New "PCC" car on way to
Wash DC from St. Louis Car Co (Snapped going thru
town on ITRR Train #202).

Monday Report

Things were busy as usual on Monday.  The west (front) side of Barn 7 is being replaced, and of course many other things around the property were happening.

But I'll stick to Barn 4, as usual.  I did a lot of wire-wheeling to clean up the various cast iron parts for the beams, and got rather dirty in the process.  But as seen here, the #1 end beam for the 319 now has a scraper installed.

And the cylinder for the #2 beam was cleaned up and attached.  I started mortising the holes for the bolts that support the shoe assembly, but that's not quite done.

Several of the 306 crew were at work but I didn't get any pictures.

Fritz helped me lift the cylinder onto the table, and showed me what they've been doing on the interior of the 28.  I guess it's no secret that the interior was stripped out when the body was made into a house back about 1929, but it can be replaced.   They are planning to move the storage shelves (seen at the left in this picture) from the smoker compartment to the coach area, so work on restoring the walls and ceiling can commence.

Meanwhile, the baggage compartment is starting to look great.  It's always difficult to get a good picture of such a small space, but I can tell you it's really nice.

Fritz is working on reproducing the various storage spaces in the front compartment, as seen here:

And here he is making a replacement wrecking tool box.  

Tim continues to work on the 268.  The hinged clerestory windows are very difficult to keep in operating condition, because the tolerances are very small.  It doesn't take much for them to become stuck and inoperable.  We have the same problem on the 150, but at least that's not an operating car.

Finally, I'm going to be helping with the 36's leaf springs.  Here's what a single spring looks like:

And I should have moved it to make it more visible, but that's one of the end castings in the upper-right corner.  Those should all be reusable.