In 1922 the bankrupt Aurora Elgin and Chicago was split into two parts, the third rail division and the Fox River division, and the third rail division was sold to a new company, Chicago Aurora and Elgin, which started operations on July 1, 1922. (The whole complicated process is detailed in Plachno's book.) As part of this process, an eight-page inventory was compiled for each car in June 1922, and we recently received copies of these sheets from the Wendell Dillinger collection for our three cars. (The 431 was built in 1927 and so is not included, of course.)
There's a huge amount of data here, some of which is quite interesting, some of it is just puzzling. Who outside a couple of shop guys would care about the dimensions of truck live levers or swing link shafts? The information on painting is valuable. The 308 was repainted green in Jan. 1919, while the 309 was painted red in July 1921 and the 321 in Dec. 1921. I hadn't realized the red paint scheme started even before the Conway group took over.
There's a huge amount of data here, some of which is quite interesting, some of it is just puzzling. Who outside a couple of shop guys would care about the dimensions of truck live levers or swing link shafts? The information on painting is valuable. The 308 was repainted green in Jan. 1919, while the 309 was painted red in July 1921 and the 321 in Dec. 1921. I hadn't realized the red paint scheme started even before the Conway group took over.
In 1922 the cars still had "cash registers." A couple things I didn't know about were coasting clocks and disinfectant holders. To see the documents, go here. And there it is: everything you ever wanted to know about CA&E cars, and more!
5 comments:
coasting clocks?
A "coasting clock" is a device which measures how long the car is not drawing power, or coasting. It was used to encourage motormen to coast as much as possible. They were common on streetcars, and some of our CSL cars still have them, although I don't think they still work. I wasn't aware they'd ever been installed on the CA&E.
Randy, what you're thinking of on our CSL cars is actually a watt-hour meter. Chicago's streetcars did not use coasting clocks, but the "L" did.
CRT used them on certain cars (it's been said they were on no more than a quarter of the fleet) until the CTA takeover in 1947, when their use was discontinued. Most were subsequently removed; CRT 1797 is the only remaining Chicago "L" car that still has a coasting clock.
Scott Greig.
OK, thanks for the correction, Scott. The watt-hour meters would have the same basic purpose, to discourage wasting electric power.
Next, how did those disinfectant holders work? :)
Note also that, in the 308's file, it still has four motors! I don't think it's known definitively when the car was changed to a half-motor but we had speculated that it was likely the early 1920's; this suggests that it was sometime after 1922, at least.
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