Sunday report

Frank writes...

Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, the CA&E wood cars weren't running but I was out at IRM anyway. My chariot for the day was the Matchbox, CSL 1374, shown above in Yard 4 East. This is a beautiful car and was the first Chicago streetcar to be fully restored at IRM. Its restoration was headed up by Frank Sirinek and was completed around 1990, give or take. Afterwards the 1374 was our everyday streetcar for over a decade until the 3142 went into service around 2001 or 2002. After removal from daily service it went to the other extreme, seeing almost no use for nearly 15 years. This year it has been assigned to several days in service to combat some "sit-itis" problems that were starting to crop up from lack of use.

My conductor was Thomas Slater, shown here punching tickets at Central Avenue, which is the new "base" for the streetcars now that the entrance is at the Schroeder Store rather than up by the tower. It was another hot day with temperatures in the mid-90s but my short-sleeved blue shirt was a big improvement over the full conductor's uniform I'd worn on Saturday on the CA&E cars!

While on a quick lunch break I happened over to Barn 4, where Tim Peters has been working on sanding and painting the upper half of the 1754. It's exciting to see the car's final appearance coming together, particularly the distinctive tall and narrow end windows.

And the view looking north from in front of Barn 3 is certainly different now. Where before we'd be looking at the C&NW heavyweight baggage car and the Pullman troop sleeper, now we can see trains sitting on Station Tracks 1 and 2. At this distance it's tough to tell but CTA 2243-2244 are sitting in the east berth of Station 1 while directly behind them is the Zephyr. Both of these stainless-steel, air-conditioned trains were pretty popular with the visitors. Other trains in service included CA&E 431-460, CRT 1268-1797, and the steam coach train on the main line, while CTA 4391 and VC 19 joined us on the car line.

Operations went well; we were the first car in service and the second-to-last back in the barn, running for just under eight hours without any issues. Afterwards I made my way back to Barn 4 where a crew of people was busy working on North Shore 160. The goal is to jack the car up and replace both motors in that truck. Here we see the pilot, which has been removed and laid across a couple of spare DC motors.

That was about it - but wait, there's more! Paul Sweigert, who runs an aerial (drone) photography company, was out on Sunday taking video and still pictures from the air. He put together the above video, complete with dramatic music synced to the images, showing the trains that were in service on Sunday. He says there will be a lengthier video coming later, once he completes the editing. Pretty neat!

Hey, how did that get there?