More Van Dorn couplers

Bill Wulfert has sent in more photos and information about additional Van Dorn couplers at the museum. This time he was taking photos underneath recently-restored Northwestern Elevated car 1754 as well as more photos underneath our Metropolitan-West Side cars. He writes:

 'L' car 1754 has Van Dorn #4A couplers.  The one on the west end has not yet been painted.

Next is the drawbar mounting on the (west) motor end. It is quite compact. The coupler on the (east) end is the same. The cables for the Heat & Light" jumper and MU control are shown.

I also looked at the couplers on the 1797 and 1808, and they too are #4A's.  Of course the North Side 'L' lines used Stearns & Ward couplers on their cars. The CTA swapped out the Stearns & Ward couplers, supposedly for use on the Plushie 'L' cars 4251-4455 that had Van Dorn couplers. Remember that the Lake St. and Metropolitan Plushies used Van Dorns. When looking at our Plushie cars, it does not seem possible to swap out the drawbars. Perhaps the 4A came off of other wooden cars that were being scrapped. I have not found any documentation on the swap to the 4000s   However, we know that 1797 was at Wilson Ave. shop on September 20, 1954 for a coupler change out.  A group of wooden cars had the change out between July and September of 1954. Most were in and out in one day, but 1796 was at Wilson for five days. Probably it was delayed by more pressing projects.

We've know about the coupler change outs on the wooden cars, but have determined that the Plushie & Baldies Stearns & Ward couplers are mounted totally different than what is on the North Side wooden cars.  Glenn Andersen mentioned that the Lake St. and Met Plushies had Van Dorn couplers, and that made it difficult to make up trains when all of the 4000s were sent over for North-South service via the new subway. All of the Baldies, including those on the Met had Stearns & Ward couplers, and it appears that most of the Baldies were assigned to Ravenswood - Englewood service prior to the subway.  In order to spread the 66 Baldy trailers out among the Ravenswood - Englewood & Howard - Jackson Park trains, they had to have Plushies with Stearns & Ward couplers. They supposedly did NOT operate revenue trains with adapter couplers. So the solution was to change out the couplers on the wooden cars, in order place the S&W couplers on Plushies.

As I mentioned earlier, I have not seen any work orders or bulletins about putting the S&W couplers on the Plushies, but we have a shop list that shows some of the wooden cars getting Van Dorns.

I also went back to the Met cars to look at how they are attached to the car body. With my trusting quartz light, I was able to get some good pictures.

The first one is the rear of the drawbar, which goes through a car body frame member. It has a short spring. 

The next one is on the other side of the frame member, and again it has a small spring. I was not able to see any mill marks on the rail, such as weight or date of rolling. I did not venture down to the other drawbars to look at them.