This year's Trolley Pageant was another great success, and featured the débuts of four of our recent acquisitions from Trolleyville: CA&E cars 319, 409, and 460, and the Vera Cruz open car #19.
We'll be adding more pictures as we go along. Here are two submitted by Randy and Betty Anderson:
For the pageant, we had a three-car train of CA&E steel cars. We ran the three wood cars together on the main line, but split them up for the pageant. Frank ran the two blue cars, and I had the 319.
Some taken by Frank:
At left, it could be Batavia Junction but it's actually 50th Avenue during the morning. At right, six cars line up very nearly in order of construction. What a sight!
Left, Julie Johnson operates the three-car steel train on the car line to queue up for the pageant. Right, the very first public run for our (new) three-car wood train loads at the station while in the far right distance, the three-car steel train rounds Barn 2 and crosses the east switch.
And several submitted by Andrew Cornillie:
The three wood cars waiting on Schmidt siding before the pageant.
Interior of the 319
And the 409 and 431 at 50th.
And here is the three-car steel train: 409, 431, and 460, being operated by Julie Johnson. You have to see it in person. It is stunning.
And the Vera Cruz open car!
Andy Sunderland, motorman.
11 comments:
just curious , will the 36 MU with either the blue cars or the 319?
RSS
Yes it will, once the control system has been put back together.
gave me a good chuckle to see Andy, undoubtedly the "gorilla" of the car department, at the helm of the smallest operable car in the parade....one question I found myself with after looking at all the amazing pictures....was the decision made intentionally to run the cars with all trolley poles up, or did the cars come lacking 600v bus jumpers? The cars are beautiful guys ... three cheers for IRM!!!
Conspicuous by its absence is the 321.
Will it ever appear in the parade again?
Edward J. Maurath
edwj@hotmail.com
Not just Andy running the open car, but paired with Bob Opal as conductor. And I heard the last trip in the rain was a race to the barn.
The department decided to operate with all poles up on the cars since the shoes on the single poles were being burned up, and there was increased wear on the wire. There was also a jumper socket failure on the steel cars, which is a concern too.
The 319 is riding on the 321 trucks, making the 321 inoperable at the moment. A 5 car wood train would be really neat someday though.
Joe
The open car appeared to be a real crowd-pleaser as it looped the trolley line several times. Every time I saw it go by, it was filled with happy passengers.
Randy,
You and the rest of the crew certainly have much to be proud of! This is some job of cleaning, prep work and painting is such a short time!
The cars look wonderful. even that little open car seems to have been spiffed up! thank you Mr. Brill!
days like Sunday make me proud to be an IRM member; even though a distant one!
Ted Miles
thanks joe, and hats off to the electric car department! Been a while, hope to come pay Wheaton....oops I mean East Union a visit sometime
Hat's off to Everyone for the successful Trolley pageant. And yes it is definitely starting to look like Wheaton at IRM! By my count, CA&E has passed the CNS&M, in both the number of Interurban cars, AND operable Cars. 9 CA&E cars, 6 operable, compared to 8 CNS&M cars, 4 operable! I spy an IRM trip in my future!
Out of curiosity, did the cars of the 319 vintage have any sort of globes over the interior lights, or were those always just bare bulbs?
There were globes over the center ceiling clusters, and two of them are still there, but not over the side lights. See an early interior photo here:
http://hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2009/10/319.html#Paint
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