Frank writes...
Sunday was a beautiful day, sunny and with a high near 70, a strong contrast to Saturday. For me, the first order of the day was to try and diagnose a problem with the 319's headlight circuit that cropped up on the last run of the night on Labor Day Saturday.
Well, I think we found the problem. Opening the 319's headlight resistor box, mounted under the car, revealed this sorry sight. It looks like four of the five resistors are bad (the one at top is open in two places visible from the other side) and the box itself has some rust issues. This will take a bit of doing to fix. As such, while the 309-319 are scheduled to run this coming Saturday afternoon for Showcase Weekend, they will not be running after dark. Nighttime service will instead be handled by the 409-431.
After that it was time for a house call. IRM just purchased a piece of nearby land as an investment. Given the currently rock-bottom interest rates, good and safe investment opportunities are hard to find, and this piece of land comes with farming rental income. Also on the land is the old farmstead with a house and a few buildings. Hey, that barn looks kind of interesting...
Sure enough, one of the barns was built using a pair of boxcars. They are (were) 40' outside-braced cars, I suppose probably dating to the 1920s or 1930s. Everything under the floor, including (as far as we could tell) the bolsters and center still, is long gone. So don't get any ideas, Nick!
Boxcars by the thousands were sold by railroads to farmers for use as sheds and barns, so these aren't at all unique. Oddly, it even appears that a complete car of this exact series still exists in preservation in Monon, Indiana, so they're not even unique as railroad cars. But for whatever it's worth, here lie Minneapolis & St. Louis 51596 and 51694. The third photo shows some additional interior lettering noting that one of the cars (I forget which) got a new roof in 1942 plus grain loading levels. So there you go.
While we've got your attention, if you don't yet have your tickets for Showcase Weekend, make sure you get them now before we sell out! A number of festivities are planned including demonstration freight trains powered by steam, electric, and diesel (though not all at the same time!); extravagantly long trains of 'L' cars in service; RPO demonstrations; night operations on Saturday; and some very rarely-seen equipment that will be on outdoor display for photographers.
Do members need reservations, or do we only need to pick up our new whizbang membership cards?
ReplyDeleteC Kronenwetter
Recognizing that anything can be done with the right amount of money, I think it would be interesting to preserve these cars as is, as an example of how railroad equipment was retired in the past and how many of the cars in IRM’s collection were saved. Big dollars to move them and get them stabilized, but probably a worthy project if they can be limited in further deterioration until funds are available.
ReplyDeleteThe museum in Rio Vista has a restored M&StL wooden boxcar that's similar to these, so some of these still exist. But even then, it would be nice to see them restored. Maybe in the distant future, with enough of the right cars restored, you could make a 1920s era freight train for 1630 or one of the steeple cabs to pull.
ReplyDeleteDown here around Galesburg, there's quite a few ex-CB&Q wood boxcars still around, sitting on farms, inside barns, or in one case, out in the open in the middle of a field near Smithshire. There's one in Viola, IL that's privately owned, and although progress is slow, I guess the owner is attempting to restore it. He's put it on some modern roller bearing trucks, and it's sitting next to what I assume was the CB&Q's freight house, right next to HWY 17.
Cheers, and keep up the good work
-Matt Maloy
What do you do with resistors like those in the headlight circuit when they fail? Can they be completely rewound? Is Nichrome like that still available?
ReplyDeleteC Kronenwetter
I think so, but it would be expensive. I would prefer to replace them with modern power resistors that are off-the-shelf, more reliable, and easily replaced, but that's just me. We'll see what the bosses have to say. In any case, I need to figure out what the hot resistance should be. This will be a good project for over the winter.
ReplyDeleteThose MSTL boxcars are ex CNW Fowler boxcars purchased used in 1942 by the MSTL. The new roof was part of a rebuilding of cars desperately needed during WW2. 150 cars total, 51500-51798, last listed in an ORER in 1951. Douglas Harding
ReplyDeleteThere was a boxcar building near Route 47 in Yorkville with two wood Burlington cars torn down this year. They demolished an attached lean-to but left the bodies intact for a day or more when it all could have been flattened in a few hours, don't know if someone was trying to save them but I doubt they were saved. I have phone pictures.
ReplyDelete