Saturday switch move

Frank writes...

I'll have an update from Sunday shortly, but in the meantime, Bill Wulfert sent along some photos from the big switch move on Saturday. The impetus for the switch move was moving the 1754 out of Barn 4, now that work on it is substantially done save for the motor truck, which doesn't require the presence nearby of the car itself. And replacing it as the latest product of the Tim Peters Restoration Works is - drum roll, please - CRT "Met car" 2872! See below for more. All photos by Bill Wulfert.

It's been a few years since the 321 has been outside. It got moved from the west end of track 113 to the middle of track 114, where it is the first car following some track machines. At some point we want to put the 319's trucks under it and then reinstall the step wells and pilots, as much to get them out of the aisles in Barn 8 as anything.

CTA 6461-6462 are seen here. These cars have either never operated at IRM or only operated briefly, but were partly cosmetically restored in the 1990s for a calendar photo.

The 1808 was moved down to one of the south barns, I believe, to make room for the 1754 and to take the place of the Met car. It's operational but quite tired.

Here's the 1754 in its new home in Barn 8. It was actually stored in Barn 8 for many years, it just never looked this good! I'm not sure whether the car will be in regular service this year. It's operational as-is, just with the wrong type motor truck.

Here's one of our two Met cars, the 2888. Both of our two carswere built by Pullman in 1908 and were members of the last series of wood car built for the Met. In later years they were storage lockers of some sort, I believe at Kimball, so they've got some parts missing and their interiors are kind of a shambles. They also suffered pretty badly from outdoor storage and benign neglect while at CTA.

Here's a "before" shot of Tim's next project, Met car 2872. These are pretty distinctive 'L' cars with their exposed side sills and monitor roofs.

Another photo of the 321. It's too bad that while the paint on the car remained in good shape during its six or seven years of outdoor tarped storage, the roof failed pretty badly. If only it had been the other way around.

Another photo of the 2872. This car was switched over to the west spot on barn track 42 by the end of the day, though apparently it was quite a chore getting it to go around the curve at the west end of Barn 4. 

TM D22 made an appearance during the switch move. This car was painted by Jim Blower and lettered by yours truly probably about 20 years ago.

And another ex-TWERHS cosmetic restoration: box motor M1 got moved around too. My father and I gave this one a quickie one-sided paint job back around 1997 or 1998 (Jim Blower later painted the other side) because at the time it was the ugliest thing in Barn 7.

And finally, Jeron Glander sent in the following photo of the progress on the floor in 50th Avenue. Together with Tim's new ticket booth this will really be a big improvement.