A good time had by all

Frank writes...

Sunday was the annual Vintage Transport Extravaganza, and despite dire predictions of likely rain, not a drop fell in Union and it turned out to be a gorgeous day with what seemed like a strong crowd in attendance. I was particularly impressed by the turnout of antique cars; it seemed like there were about as many cars as usual including the usual fascinating assortment of trucks and miscellaneous oddities. My job for the day was running the Veracruz open car, shown above, with Chris Buck as my conductor. We ran a few trips in the morning, then a long midday break, then a few trips in the afternoon to reduce wear and tear on the car a bit. The car was extremely popular; most trips we were turning away people at some of the stops because every seat was filled.

And that's impressive given that there were three other cars on the streetcar line. During the afternoon we were following Milwaukee 972, shown above, which was only put into revenue service this year. Bob Opal was running the car and it sounds like it was pretty popular. The 3142 and 4391 were also on the car line with the North Shore train, CTA 4000s, steam coach train, and Zephyr holding down service on the main line.

I didn't get much of a chance to take photos, just a grab shot of a Model A (I think) on Central Avenue with the 3142 in the background as we were putting the open car away at the end of the da, but there are some really good shots here. Several of the car shop regulars were kept busy giving lunch breaks to the streetcar motormen, since we were busy enough that the streetcars couldn't be set out on a siding to take lunch, but they still found time to finish up inspection work on CRT 1797 and start inspection work on the 1268. They also put more primer on the trolley base for the 18, so that's much appreciated! And Norm, Jeff, and the blog's biggest fan from Ohio, Walt Stafa, were working on lining up and drilling more holes in the framing at the front end of Michigan Electric 28.