Snow Plow Tour

On Sunday it was suggested by someone that it might be interesting to take a look inside Chicago Surface Lines F305, our double-truck street railway snow plow. This may be the only piece of CSL equipment at the museum that I'd never been inside (well, there's the skeleton, but I'm not missing much by looking into that from the outside) and I jumped at the chance. So join me, friends, for a walking tour of the F305.

The F305 is not one of the better-known pieces in our collection, so you can be excused if you're not very familiar with it. It's shown above in the spot it has occupied for at least 40 years (it's distinctly possible that the F305 has gone longer than just about anything else at IRM without having moved an inch) at the northwest corner of Barn 7. This piece of equipment was constructed in 1909 by McGuire-Cummings as a Calumet & South Chicago double-truck sprinkler car numbered C&SC 3. It served the CSL as sprinkler D303 until 1930, when it was very heavily rebuilt into its present form as snow plow F305. It hung around on the CTA, I think being stored at South Shops, until ERHS acquired it in 1960. I believe it immediately, or almost immediately, went indoors at Downers Grove. It spent a little time outside at IRM after we got it in 1973, stored on an isolated piece of track near where the Hoffman Garage sits now, but doesn't seem to have suffered much.

My initial impression upon entering the car was, first, that it's remarkably free of the "stuff" that all of our other unserviceable CSL cars seem to be overflowing with; second, that the interior seems remarkably original; and third, that the interior is in remarkably good shape. The light bulbs visible along the ceiling are a mix of original fixed bulbs and a 110v string of work lights, the latter of which were soon lit.

The previous photo was looking west, towards the end of the barn, while this view is looking east. This is a really big car and there's a lot of open space, in contrast to our CSL snow sweeper E-223 which is much smaller and more cramped. The bundles of rods on the floor are replacement broom bristles for the E-223 that were apparently acquired a few years ago. Those seemed to be about the only miscellaneous storage items inside the car. This car has a "baggage door" on both sides for moving large objects in and out of the car when necessary. The E-223 only has such a door on one side. For whatever that's worth.

The interior finish of the car is in very good condition, including the lettering. A bit of a mystery was found over the west window, as shown, where evidence of both the car's post-1930 number (F305) and 1914-1930 number (D303) could be seen. I have no idea what to make of this, though it's not inconceivable that some of this may have been uncovered - or simply replicated - in Downers Grove.

My impression is that the F305 was designed to be operated by at least three men, including the motorman, the center plow (flanger?) operator who stood at a station directly behind the motorman and could raise or lower the plow under the end of the car, and the wing plow operator. The latter man would have stood at a window on the right side of the car (when facing forward) forward of the baggage door, where most likely he would have the window open and could stick his head out to keep an eye on what was coming. There's a glass shield, like on a diesel cab, at this location as well as a small metal awning (visible, albeit barely, in the photo at the top of this post). This man would have two air valves to control, one on each side of the window. This view shows the valve to the right, which indicates "wing in" and "wing out" positions so that he use an air cylinder to winch the wing plow in and out. I forgot to snap a photo but I think the other control raises and lowers the wing plow.

Here's Greg, demonstrating how the wing plow swings out. Pretty interesting stuff.

One thing that really grabbed my attention was the car's air compressors. There are two of them, which I believe isn't that unusual with work equipment. They're located side-by-side at what is currently the southwest corner of the car (in this spot at the northeast corner can be found the air tanks). The near compressor is a National A4, which is what our roster lists for this car.

The other compressor has a steel "bathtub" cover bolted over it, but we went and got a wrench and took that off to reveal... this. I have no idea what it is, and it's not listed on our roster at all. ANSWER: Jeff Hakner writes and states that this is a Christensen A1. According to the Preserved Electric Cars roster, there are very few Christensen air compressors around and this is one of only two in this time zone, the other being under South Side Rapid Transit 1. Thanks Jeff!

The bottom of it is the pump and the motor sits on top of it, with the gearbox at the left end as we're looking at it here. The weird thing is that except for that "bathtub" cover, which seemed very much like an ad-hoc addition, the motor is open to the air. The armature and field coils are readily apparent and the comm and brush holders are completely exposed.

Here's a closeup of the brush holders, which are weird themselves. The brush holders in each pair are "mirrored," i.e. facing opposite directions. They use coil springs to pull on little cast rocker arms, but the rockers don't push directly on the brushes - they have odd little rectangular blocks that rotate and those press against the brushes themselves.

And that concludes our tour of the F305. Someday, when the street scene trackage is in service, you may see this car trundling down Main Street. In the meantime, one of these years this could make a pretty fascinating display along the lines of the RPO at Branford, with a piece of Plexiglas across the open baggage door and some explanatory signage inside the car. As with everything else, all it takes is time and money.