Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Switching milestone

Frank writes...

As previously alluded to, I was out on Sunday but never even saw my father - I was helping with switching all afternoon as a ground man, mostly in the south yards.  Greg Kepka was engineer on the Army 45-tonner while Joel Ahrendt was the utility man and managed the switch lists.

It was mostly more of the same.  We pulled almost all of the equipment out of Barn 13 on the northernmost track, which is numbered 131.  Here's a pair of spam cans that came out and, later in the day, went right back in.  This pair, in the 6100-series, are in decent shape but need some control work.
There was also the Milwaukee Electric snow sweeper, the B48, which for a while was stored next to us in Barn 8.
And this is the reason that track 131 was emptied: to put this "mystery car" into the track near the west end.  It's Chicago Surface Lines 4001 (read about it here) which is going back indoors for the first time since 2010.  After this we "re-loaded" the equipment on 131 and that track was done.  Then it was on to track 132, which didn't need to be totally emptied before its next new additions were moved into the barn.
This is Terre Haute Indianapolis & Eastern 58, though I suppose you'll have to take my word for it.  It's one of three wooden interurban combine bodies we acquired around 1996 or so and it's been under one tarp or another for something like 19 years.  Before it was tarped it looked like this but there's no telling what it looks like now.  Several gallons of water drained out of the tarp when we moved it, proving again that there really is no substitute for good indoor storage.  In addition to the 58, THI&E 50 and C&LE 640 were also moved into Barn 13 and out of the weather.

And with that, filling the new barns with electric cars is just about done!  I believe that virtually all of the electric equipment that is supposed to go indoors is indoors and that most of it is in the allotted location.  There will be plenty of switching to come, as cars inevitably get moved here and there, but this is a real milestone in providing indoor storage for our historic collection.
After we were done in the south yards we towed the 144 over to the pit lead and then moved the IC Highliners about 20' further north on the connector track to facilitate movement of OTM and other large steel items in the material yard, as described in Saturday's post.  When I left at about 9:30 a crew of people including Rod, Richard, Gregg, Joel and Dan was working on putting the rebuilt compressor under the 144 as shown above.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What electric cars are to remain outside for now?

Anonymous said...

traction fan

Frank Hicks said...

Very few electric cars stand to remain outdoors. The CTA 2400s (I think?), Metra Highliners, and the Tri-City Railway and North Kankakee car bodies are the only ones that come to mind, other than a handful of interurban flat cars.

Brian L. said...

By my (unofficial) tally, there are some 16 pieces of electric or electric related equipment remaining outside: tri-cities carbody, NKELR 116 body, NYCTA rebirds (2), Highliners (keeping 2), North Shore 1502, TMERL E58 and E117, WPL 109, CTA S-309 (all 5 are flatcars), TMERL M37 container car, TMERL L3 locomotive, CTA S-373 work motor, NSL 1002 caboose, and TMERL F208 (dump trailer). An impressively short list when you consider that means over 100 electric or electric related pieces are kept indoors and under cover.

Unknown said...

As always great info thanks. Are the Highliners coming inside or are they in line for paint first?

Anonymous said...

Regarding Highliners- They won't be painted at this time, and I ask that you keep in mind that anything other than Metra blue and silver would be an anachronism considering the rest of the car. The cars have not yet paid their track space, and so are ineligible to be put inside even if indoor storage money were available. Your donations to the Highliner fund are needed, please!

Regarding 2400s- They are presently inside Barn 6 because we had a little slack space in the "operable cars" part of the barns we could put together. Through a generous bequest, they have the money for indoor space.

R. W. Schauer

Anonymous said...

What does OTM stand for?

Anonymous said...

OTM is Other Track Material -- other than rails and ties, I suppose. Spikes, tie plates, angle bars, nuts and bolts, there's a lot of it. RGH

Anonymous said...

Folks,
i just watched the Ed Allen movies from the 1950s. I think it was amazing that the Chicago suburbs were still so empty in that decade. Chicago was the fourth largest city in the US at that time; but the sub-divisions had not spread out very much.

Wonderful film! From the size of the Elgin clock factory building it is no wonder that they produced so many time pieces of all kinds! There must have been a lot of tickets buyers on the C,A & E going there.

Thanks so much for putting the film where folks can watch it!

Ted Miles, IRM Member