I just bought a new slide scanner and wanted to try it out. These particular slides are not very good technically, but I thought the subject matter might be of interest.
This is Fort Wayne and Wabash Valley car 504, the parlor car Talisman. After that line was abandoned, the body became a house in Indiana. Norm Krentel discovered it, and it was purchased and moved to IRM in 1993. Here we see it after it was unloaded from the trailer onto cribbing in the newly-constructed Barn 7. When you compare this forlorn wreck to the car's present appearance, it's hard to believe. Glenn Guerra certainly did an outstanding job in rebuilding this car!
And here we are jacking the car up by hand, so it can be lowered onto shop trucks.
Hey, you! Stop grinning for the camera, and work harder!
Update: And here, from the next box, are some pictures of the same car taken just four years later, in July 1997.
12 comments:
Randall,
I have not hear anything about Glen in a long time; do you know what he is doing these days?
He is an amazing craftsman. i think of him everytime I walk through our Visitor Center at WRM. He did some great looking windows in there. And his work in #1005 is wonderful!
So is his craftsmanship in the #504!
Ted Miles
Ted,
Glen is working on wooden cars, just in a smaller scale. His company Mullet River Model Works makes O, S and HO scale kits. I'm personally excited, as he is doing an L&N caboose. Website is here:
http://mulletrivermodelworks.com
David
Are there any plans on finishing the interior, adding motors and electrical gear, and operating the interurban?
I would say it's definitely on the back burner. There are a lot of missing parts that would have to be created, and the whole underbody needs to be re-engineered, such as the brake system. Furthermore, as a single-ended car it would be of limited usefulness. So for the time being it will probably remain as a fine static display. The Car Dept. will focus on cars that are more immediately useful, such as North Shore and various streetcars. That's my understanding, at least.
Are there any of this type car that are operable? I cannot recall any. The Northern Indiana and the THI&E rosters come to mind but I doubt any survived, let alone restored to an operable state. So..if this car was restored to an operable state..would it be one of a kind here in the U.S?
Bruce,
Several traditional ~60' long Midwestern interurban combines have been preserved, including four wood THI&E cars (three at IRM) and a number of steel cars at various places. Nearly all were preserved as bodies; notable exceptions are Illinois Terminal 241 at MOT in St. Louis and IT 277 at IRM, which runs. However if you're asking about cars built to 504's exact plans, then it's the only one; I think only about half a dozen of these coach-parlor-buffet-solarium cars were built.
Frank:
I think that the preserved car that is closest to #504 in general architecture is Lehigh Valley Transit #801 at Electric City. It is also in a similar state of restoraton, looking good from the outside, but with the interior and mecanical work yet to be done.
Artschwartz
Frank
Thanks for the clarification(s) on the inventory of preserved wooden interurban car bodies as this relates to the context of 1005, which I was ignorant of.
All this comes from an interest in Cincinati built wooden interurbans from what I consider to be the peak of a then a-building industry.
To me the experience of riding a proverbial stage coach from that era, with all of that craftsmanship ( Glenn's included)..would be second to none. The practicality of that extremely expensive and labor intensive feat is enough to give anyone pause. Is the 1005 designated a "historic artifact" making it qualified for transportation funding?
Bruce,
With regard to the "transportation funding" you mention, I believe most of those programs have expired, such as TEA-21 and its predecessor ISTEA.
David
Bruce,
One more thing, are you talking about the 504? The 1005 is the car at Rio Vista? The other issue is that even during the heyday of the TEA-21 program, the historic artifact had to be connected to the state in which your organization was based. The 504, a Cincinnati Car Company-built car, operated in Indiana. Thus, I think IRM probably couldn't have gotten the funding.
David
As the most representative Midwest interurban car, we might consider OPS 21 at Worthington, which was restored and used to be operational. I believe this might also be the first such car to be selected for preservation.
I can only hope that OPS #21 will be rescued by some organization that will provede a better home for it than it (and the rest of the collection)now has at Worthington.
Artschwartz
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