No Tailgating!

I really dislike tailgaters.  Don't you?  It's very irksome to have someone following too close behind you, especially after dark.  And that's even more true when you're running a train.   That's why we have big red tail lights for use at night.

Bob Heinlein recently gave me a tail light from the CTA that is badly rusted, but should be very useful after some cleaning.  A couple of years ago I cleaned up and repainted a tail light of the same type from the CA&E as seen here.  And the goal is to make the next one look just as good.

Unfortunately it's very rusty, but not rusted through anywhere.  I plan to take it out to the Museum and sandblast it.

Of course, more modern L cars don't need separate lights like this, so in later years this one was evidently used at an office on the structure somewhere:

It took some work, but I finally got the rear door open.

The kerosene reservoir is very rusty, but the brass mechanism still works, and just needs to be oiled.

On the top, you can barely make out a tag reading "CRT".  Compare this to the CA&E one shown earlier.

And on the lid, we see that this is the "Non-Sweating" type.   Whew, that's a relief!

We may want to run two trains of wood cars at night this year, so this will be nice to have once it's been fixed up.  And all you other motormen out there, don't get too close!