Emergency? What Emergency?

Another Wednesday rolls around, and those of us who no longer have regular jobs gather at the Museum to do something useful.  It's a lot of fun.  Let's see what's going on.

The Pennsy contingent (Vincent and Dave) continue to produce new siding for the cabin car.  Since I moved the 36's train door back to Barn 8, they can use the sawhorses: 

Pete continues to paint doors for the Class B:

John Faulhaber continues on windows for the 68:

He seems to be having way too much fun sorting screws.  That always struck me as a KP-type of punishment for speaking out of turn or something, but it gets the job done.

Jon Fenlaciki wasn't here today, but he continues to work on roof parts for the 65.

 Henry Vincent wanted me to point out that he has the highest-level job in the department.  By the end of the day, the extension to the shop air piping was nearly complete.

The Museum has a huge collection of spare parts of all sorts.  And it can be a challenge to identify exactly what you're looking at.  Gerry asked me to come along and look at some of the stuff in one of our storage cars, which they want to empty out.  I was able to correctly identify parts from a Pullman car, which Roger later confirmed as parts from the late Camp Grant, among piles of kerosene heaters, seat frames, shelving, DC line insulators, old vending machines, a refrigerator, and what not.  And we found this beautiful heavy cast iron plaque sitting on top of a pile of other stuff:

The "emergency" was the Great Depression, and the FEA, one of several make-work agencies at that time, had this name from 1933-1935.  Wolf Road, originally a grade crossing, was depressed under the two parallel railroads in this project.  And the Wolf Road bridge was still there last time I looked, so I believe it's the only remaining CA&E bridge still in place, other than the big bridge at Wheaton which was raised so double-stack trains can pass under it.  I put the plaque in a safe place for eventual display.

Speaking of the CA&E, I spent some time putting a coat of varnish on both sides of the two remaining armrests in the shop.

And the three that had been finished were installed in the 309, as seen here.

By the way, I would like to point out that no one, either visitors or crewmen, should sit on these armrests.  They are held to the frame with fairly short screws and could be pulled out.  On later designs the armrests are part of the frame, but not here.   I don't want anyone to get hurt! 

Next, let's stop in to see how Ed and John are coming along on the Electroliner.  Ed said he was going to move the various parts along the north wall to the other side, and start installing the various parts of the inner wall.  So good progress is being made.

Among other things, Ed showed me part of the collection of documents that he's in the process of sorting out.  The Electroliners were a unique and pioneering design, and there's a lot of documentation that was produced during their construction and operation.   This manual was the personal copy belonging to Henry Cordell:

And there's lots more:

And then he showed me in the scrapbook some pictures I'd never seen before, taken from Life Magazine.  If you're as old as I am, you'll instantly recognize....

JFK riding the North Shore c. 1960, between Chicago and Milwaukee!   This is taken in one of the standard cars, not the Liner, however.  But that's a real blast from the past. 

Jack continues working on windows for the 110.   Here he polishes up the angle brackets.

Finally, let's pay a visit to Skokie Shops.  CTA car 4410 has been out of service for many years, but the Car Dept. regulars have been fixing the magnet valves, and the group was recently sequenced.  So it should be ready for service again this year.   Next to it is the Baldy, 4146, and behind it the 1268.  Chicago Rapid Transit at its finest!

 And Norm Krentel and I spent some time identifying people in the Mizerocki Collection photos.  I will be adding these data to the collection soon, as part of the Museum's history documentation.  I'll let you know when that's ready. 

Oh, and by the way, from a couple of weeks ago we'll include Bob Albertson's pictures of the Pennsy bobber, which was outside during switching.  They're quite nice.  But I think we'll show only the car's better side.