Many thanks to Chuck Amstein, our official blog photographer, who was out at IRM on Saturday for the somethingth annual Bus Day. As usual, all photos are copyright Charles Amstein, no reproduction without permission, etc.
First, some good old steel wheel action. The Steam Team was firing up the Shay to continue working on it, with the current focus I believe being the air conditioner.
Jeff Obarek and Randy Allegrezza were manning the Matchbox on the streetcar line.
Our nice Chinese Red SD24 was pulling the coach train.
And the CRT wood elevated cars were in mainline service as well. And now, make sure that clothespin is affixed firmly to your nose and get ready to enjoy the rubber-tired magic that is Bus Day!
Ray and Julie had set up the Bus Stop Shop in the Andersen garage, selling an impressive variety of books, magazines, original railway/transit paper and documents, and excess artifacts from the museum collection. The backdrop was buses and trolley buses including this Ford transit bus. It is actually from Montebello, California but is painted up as a Chicago & West Towns bus.
There were a lot of buses and trolley buses in operation. Here we see a Marmon-Herrington from Milwaukee with a modern MAN articulated from Seattle beyond.
Bob Bourne is one of the volunteers in our bus departments; here we see him nattily attired doing a car talk (bus talk?) in the Chicago Marmon.
Behind the Hoffman garage there are several out-of-service motor buses parked. On the left we have a bus, and on the right we have another bus.
Three more buses!
Along with the trolley buses, there was one motor bus in operation, Chicago Motor Coach 605. Here we see a CTA Marmon from the CMC motor bus, which is admittedly kind of neat... only at IRM!
IRM has trolley buses from more decades since the invention of the technology than not, if I'm not mistaken. The 1970s are represented by this Flyer trolley bus from Dayton.
Here's that CMC bus I mentioned earlier. I remember seeing this thing sitting at RELIC for years slowly sinking into the earth, but some 15 years ago or so it came to IRM and the rest is history.
A motor bus, a trolley bus, and a streetcar walk into a bar...
This is a prewar Twin Coach trolley bus from Seattle which was acquired just a few years ago from Orange Empire.
The CMC motor bus is stopped at the diner with the CTA Marmon trolley bus approaching.
The Seattle trolley bus heads east while the CMC motor bus heads west along the trolley bus line. The "double-track" section of trolley bus overhead ends midway along Barn 6, but of course that's not a problem in this case. Plans are in place to eventually make the entire trolley bus route "double-tracked" so that multiple trolley buses can run without worrying about meet locations.
And here's one of the museum's two CTA Marmons. The sign on the front notes that this was the last trolley bus to run in Chicago, back in 1973. As of last year, more time has now passed since Chicago ended trolley bus service than comprised the city's trolley bus era.
6 comments:
Did the steam folks get their problems with the Shay compressed air system resolved successfully?
C Kronenwetter
Sorry, I meant to ask about the Shay. I was hoping somebody in the know would comment, but I'm sure they will be able to fix whatever's wrong.
I hope this is viewed. It would seem to be the most pertinent entry for my query.
I have viewed more old photographs of CTA trolley bus operations; in particular charters from the early 1970s. Particularly by Charles L. Tauscher.
Browsing the IRM's CTA history archive, I found any number of streetcar track maps, but nothing that would reveal what trolley bus wire was still extant after streetcars were discontinued. There must have been a map like this which could be consulted when organizations wanted to charter a trolley bus. Could that please be uploaded to the archive?
I was one of the last riders of CTA trolley buses. It was a shock when one afternoon, returning home after classes at Weber High School, what pulled up to the curb at Cicero and Fullerton was a motor bus. (I got a ride in the morning to Weber from a classmate's father.)
Steve- Have a look at http://irm-cta.org/RouteMaps/CTAother/SurfaceMaps/CTA-SurfaceSystemRouteMap_1960-01.pdf , which I got to from irm-cta.org > System Maps > Surface System Maps - Streetcar Track Maps and Bus Routes Maps. Trolley bus lines are depicted as dashed lines. I have seen a nicer map of Chicago's routes, and I think it was in Trolleybus Magazine twenty or more years ago. We always had a copy of it framed and hung on the wall in the Andersen Garage. I'll see if it's still around.
R. W. Schauer
To: R. W. Schauer
Thank you very much for that PDF map. I surmise I expected a later-dated map; rather than the Authority mostly remaking the streetcar track map as solid line for motor buses.
I have vivid memories in my pubescent days of waiting with my mom on the southwest corner of Belmont & Central, and being greeted by short-turning trolley buses going out of service at that stop, and questioning "Why not run to Cicero and make the short-turn there since that is where the garage to where you are heading?"
That is what seeded me as to transit advocacy.
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