Strike Up the Band Organs

The weather was pretty grim this morning, so we decided to not to bring out the wood cars; I ran the North Shore train (714 and 749) instead.  And by the time the weather cleared, we were too busy to be able to switch them out.  With better weather, the crowd increased.  But everything went well.  Larry Stone was my conductor, and also did line training on the 3142 in an amazing feat of one-armed paper hanging, or whatever.

As mentioned before, this weekend is the "Band Organ Rally", and there were many different types of mechanical organs filling the air with sound.   This is just a small sample.

 

As usual, I met some new friends.  This is Allen Zagel, who was an IERM member back in the early days.  He later worked for the CTA and Metra, and has taken up cranking this band organ as a hobby.  He kindly let me crank it for a while between runs.

I also talked to a man who told me that he used to skip high school in Kenosha, take the North Shore down to Chicago, and go to a burlesque show.  I'm green with envy!

I never did figure out where the little tin cup was, to toss some pennies into.  Maybe they only take debit cards.

If you thought you could make a monkey out of me, better think again!

The 1630 was running, and was naturally a center of attention.  Tomorrow and Monday the Zephyr should be running also.  Don't miss it!