The Bowling Alley

 

 I spent most of the day, as usual, working on the 36.  I finished surface prep on the window sections and end door in sectors 15-16, and painted them with white primer, as seen here.  After some body filler and a second coat of primer, these parts will be painted either red or light grey.  And I discussed the third rail beams we're making with Bob Kutella.

But perhaps a more interesting project was moving the 1024 from over the pit to the west end of track 42.  Here we see it out in the sun, at the diamond (L) and at Depot St. (R).  Rod Turner is running the locomotive.

And here it is in Barn 4, at the door.  This is our 1898 Pullman-built gate car, one of the first order of cars built for the Northwestern Elevated.

But hey, as long as we're here, let's look inside!  I hadn't been inside the car for a long time.  I can remember riding it a few times back around 1975, though.

 

 Of course, the interior needs some cleaning and straightening.  But I think you can get the general idea. Cars like this with longitudinal seats the length of the car were known as "bowling alleys".  This is the only surviving bowling alley from the Chicago L. 

 Because it has open platforms, the cabs are inside the car.  The cab at this end is larger than the other, because the compressor was located inside.  Being inside a GE locomotive with the compressor running is bad enough, but this cab is even smaller.  It must be awful.  I'm surprised the unions didn't demand this situation be changed.  Anyhow, we should be able to run the car in a train so this cab doesn't have to be used very often.

And it's just big enough so we can get a good view out the window.  Tim is planning to restore the car to the 1913 period, at the time of the consolidation of the four elevated companies into Chicago Rapid Transit.  He says that for a while the car would have displayed both its old number (24) and new number (1024).  Confusion like that always helps liven things up.

 

And here's a view of the other cab.  At this end, there's not even a window into the car, so the motorman would have no way of seeing back into the car.  As I recall, we would operate the car with the cab door open, so the motorman could actually communicate with the conductor when necessary.

Tim also says, based on his inspection of the underframe while the car was over the pit, that it's not as bad as he had feared, and he believes that structural repairs will be easier than we had thought.  There's no timetable for how long this restoration might take, but we'll keep you informed as it progresses.

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