Sorry, no pictures, but here's a list of what was happening over the weekend from Joel:
- Jon and Dan Fenlaciki worked on the 65, raising the trolley base onto the roof among other things.
- Tim Peters continued work on the 50th Avenue station
- Randy Hicks continued work on the roof of the 453
- Joel Ahrendt inspected the 3142
- Zach Ehlers worked on some residual issues with the 409
- More testing on North Shore 251 by Brian LaKemper and Nick Espevik
- and several more things, I'm sure. As usual, you had to be there.
On Saturday, Joel and Zach gave a tour of the Car Dept. to T. J. Blakeman and friends of the Champaign County History Museum. They are setting up a display of the Illinois Terminal in the Champaign area, due to the road's founder, William B. McKinley, having been born in Champaign. They were shown all the IT cars and were treated to a ride on the 101. They invite all IRM members to visit the display when it gets set up in a month or so; it should be on display for a year.
I happened to see the 101 going by while I was taking the rules test, and wondered what the occasion was.
101 at Wood River, Oct. 11, 1952. Photo by William C. Janssen, Krambles-Peterson Archive
IT trivia question: Would the 101 ever have gotten to Champaign? Certainly not on a regular basis, but who knows?
4 comments:
I can't say if the 101 was in Champaign, but from an old Bruneau story it once was going to go to the Loop, with some handrails removed and coupled to an MU car for bus power. I don't think that ever happened.
O Anderson
That is, MD car...
I don't know if they ever went to Champaign, but some of the Alton cars did operate north of the St. Louis area on a few occasions during WW2...on the Litchfield branch, I think. Supposedly the mainline motormen were scared to death of them...the Alton cars in original form were much faster than the staid, heavy orange cars.
Thanks, Scott, that sounds quite likely. The Alton cars would also offer less protection in the case of a head-on collision.
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