It's very uncommon nowadays that Frank and I are out at IRM on the same day, and even more unusual that while we were working on various projects together, mostly on the CA&E 451, none of them were picture-worthy. But we have plenty of news and views to share nonetheless.
We'll start with the North Shore 757. Zach was out today and started installing the seat frames in the newly-refinished smoking compartment.
He was working with the help of a new member whose name I didn't get.
Later in the day it looked like this.
Another interesting project was putting the Ingersoll-Rand locomotive back on its trucks. I wasn't around to take pictures of the progress, but I hope perhaps Marco or somebody will help me out.
The recently-refurbished CNW 6363 was used to do the heavy lifting.
This is a very historic part of IRM's collection, the first production-model internal combustion locomotive. Built for the Lackawanna Railroad, it is painted in its I-R Bicentenary paint scheme.
And in Car Dept. news, I suppose the main thing was that we were able to put together a four-car train of CTA 4000's for the first time in a long time! (Just how long, I'm not sure....)
Thomas Slater has been working hard to get the Baldy into service. The electrical problems have been fixed, and good progress is being made on the interior:
I must admit that this looks much better than the interior of the 309 did when we first started operating it....
Here Thomas is proudly standing in the doorway of the 4412:
I had to leave before the festivities were over, but I'm sure Frank will fill us in on whatever happened after I left. Don't change that channel!
9 comments:
Its great to see a 4 car 4000 train. This was my first experience of a multiple MU train of standard traction equipment around 1980 at IRM. In fact, that could have been a 6 car train, but I don't remember clearly about it. It did not include the Baldy though, which I have always seen sleeping on a back track in barn 4. Nice to see it finally on the road again.
Not sure about the signage though. I thought during the era of the 4000s, the branch to Wilmette was always with overhead wire, so there would seem to be little interest in assigning these third rail cars to the line for service. I am not sure of the assignments for these cars, though.
Glad to see the progress on 757. A full Silverliner train at IRM would be something new and different. Thanks for the news!
O. Anderson
Is the Ingersoll-Rand operable or will it be made so?
C Kronenwetter
There are Photos showing Baldies in service on BOTH the Lake street and Evanston lines.
As I understand it, the Ingersoll engine would require a lot of work to make it operational, mostly dealing with the traction motors. And as usual, that's spelled $$$$$. Meanwhile, once the cosmetic restoration is complete it will make a nice display piece.
Someone who is better versed in CTA history can debunk this, but I believe the Baldies which appeared on Evanston and Lake St. trains were the trailers. The 600v jumper between cars isn't bulky enough to support motor current, and in fact on 4146, 4410, and 4412, the jumper has been bulked up to allow the Plushie to feed full 600v motor current the Baldie.
757 is a work in progress. All the seat bases are now screwed down, as are most of the heater covers. An hour or so of work should take care of the rest of that. Then the seat frames and cushions (which have all been previously reupholstered) can go back in, hopefully in the next few weeks. After that we'll get the end windows installed, and I may start looking at repainting the vestibules. A major work item that needs done will be replacing all 8 wheels, which it really needs to be able to be used regularly. That will be a major physical effort as well as a dollar effort. Body work and a fresh Silverliner paint job is also on the cards for the near future.
Thanks,
Zach
AS I remember, the CTA made "married" pairs out of the 4000s so they had to have had beefy bus jumpers. I don't know how many they made but they must have ended up with a lot of spare trolley poles.
I wonder if Zach is going to jump on the 763 next? It needs a lot of same work.. with some twists.. Once your set up paint silverliners why not ? Ordering 8 wheelsets would save on shipping !
Randy Stahl
Time will tell regarding which NSL car is "next". The main goal right now is to stabilize the 5 running cars (160, 251, 714, 749, 757). All need something. 160 is getting a pretty thorough interior restoration by Pete Galayda (as seen elsewhere here) and eventually needs body work and a new paint job, 251 needs bearing work and a new roof, 714 needs a little wheel work and roof mats, 749 needs the toilet compartment finished, and 757 is getting the work already prescribed. I do want to move on to one of the other three eventually after all of the above is done. It will definitely be 172 or 763 before 253, not 100% certain of which yet. The important thing is progress is being made.
Thanks for the interest,
Zach
Zach, you're right about the 4000 bus jumpers; the CRT and the CTA never intended the bus wiring to supply traction power to an attached motor car. The jumpers were designed to only give heat and light power to a trailer car. The bus wiring was "beefed up" on the 4412 and 4410 after they arrived at Union in order to power the 4146. (4290 currently has its original bus wiring and can't be used to power the Baldy.)
The Evanston center door cars were always trailers. The Baldys on Lake Street in the last years of trolley wire operation, however, were all motor cars, being used for the main purpose of reducing the number of trolley poles needing to be raised or lowered on a six-car rush hour train at the changeover station. They were jumpered to their trolley pole equipped partner car for heat and light purposes only. While operating under wire, they were simply dragged by the other five motor cars. On third rail, they operated normally.
Randy, the paired trolley pole cars on the Evanston route were electrically joined together by a heavy power cable at the roof line, not through the under-coupler bus jumper. As such, the pair was more difficult to separate for shop work. Interestingly, one car of the pair had its third rail shoes disconnected, because the poles and the shoes were connected together in the switch cabinet. Thus, the shoes couldn't bridge a third rail gap, a very dangerous possibility. The tying together of poles and shoes was not done on Lake Street, presumably, due to the lack of fences along the ground level trackage.
I'm blessed (or cursed) to be old enough to remember these practices. I hope I've answered your questions.
Thanks Dan, I knew I remembered something about that, bits and pieces really. I guess I'm blessed with cognitive loss...
Randy Stahl
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