Members' Day 2021

 Saturday of Showcase Weekend this year was a huge success with lots of Museum members, lots of visitors, and many pieces of equipment in operation.  I was too busy to take many good pictures, but I'm sure lots of others will be showing up on the net.  And we were there from sunup to sundown.

One of the stars of the show was the Electroliner, of course.  It was brought out early in the morning when the sun was in an inconvenient location, but it's stunning from any angle.

Then it was parked at 50th Avenue for display during most of the day.  A new bridge plate was needed, so I spent some time in the woodshop making it to customer specs.

So let's visit the MPB.  Some of the model railroad guys were setting up the HO layout.  I'm afraid they may already be running out of room.

And in the Pullman Library section, they are busy setting up shelving to hold our vast collection of documents.  This will certainly be an improvement over 1 N. Main!

Now that the sun is higher in the sky, let's look at the heavyweight train, with some cars that haven't been in revenue operation before.  Here's the parlor-obs Pawnee:

And the NYC Dover Strait:

L&N Galt House:

DM&IR heavyweight coach 84:

The Missabe combine:

The Burlington RPO, which did several main runs during the day:

And the Milwaukee Road dynamometer.  Do you remember what this used to look like?

And at Roger's invitation, a few interior shots.  First, the parlor section of the Dover Strait:

And nothing says "New York Central" like a Dreyfus Hudson.  

And then this is the interior of the Pawnee.

Jack Rzepecki, Frank, and I spent most of the day running the Vera Cruz open car.  It was almost always full, and a good (if bumpy) time was had by all.

Several other trains were operating: the 24 was in shuttle service, the Liner made a photo runby or two, there was a two-car wood L train, the Zephyr, the five-car caboose train, what am I missing?

And trolley buses -- here's one from Milwaukee.  No other museum in the country has regularly-scheduled trolleybus operation.

And then at dinner time operation stops for the annual BBQ dinner with good food and fellowship for all.

And as it started to get dark, other cars were brought out.

And I went for an-after dark ride on the Zephyr, which was quite enjoyable.  And then a ride on the Matchbox, with Jack and Frank running the car.  And the Museum was still going strong when I left.

Frank adds...

It was indeed a memorably enjoyable Showcase Weekend Saturday. I arrived in the morning, same as my father, and snapped photos of several of the same scenes he did.

He already posted photos of the new shelving in the Pullman Library space of the new Multi-Purpose Building, but if you turned 180 degrees from where his photos of the shelving were taken, you were presented with this sight. It definitely is an impressive space. The very first of the drawing cabinets to be moved from 1 North Main can be seen in the far back right corner.

I didn't get a chance to go inside the Pawnee or Dover Strait, but the heavyweight train as a complete set made for one heck of an impressive sight. Here the dynamometer and engine are out of sight behind the wood CRT 'L' cars.

Charlie King, who has been first on the IRM member seniority list for a few years now, was visiting. Charlie was responsible for saving CSL 84, the oldest complete trolley bus in America as far as I know, so Richard took the "crackerbox" out for a trip with Charlie along. It was good to see the thing in operation. Here it's passing the 'Liner on display on the 50th Avenue west track.

We had an out-of-town visitor who was stopping by to trade controllers. We ended up with this K-63G, which is the correct type for our Knoxville curve-sider. The Knoxville car isn't on the short list for restoration (and would need a whole lot more than just controllers to be made operable) but this is a pretty distinctive type so it's good to have for future use or future display inside the car.

We also acquired some two-pane, arch-top windows of uncertain origin. A couple have this nifty decal on them. After some sleuthing, I believe they're end bulkhead windows from long-scrapped Rochester Syracuse & Eastern interurban cars. They arrived from central New York; two of the windows have "410" and "437" stamped into their edge, which were both Kuhlman order numbers for cars delivered to the RS&E (a third window has "111" stamped into it, which was the fleet number of an RS&E car built by Niles); and this sticker appears to match a faint outline visible in a photo of RS&E car 118 printed on p92 of CERA B-143, "TravElectric."

During the afternoon I traded off with my father and Jack on VC 19, but after dinner I was Jack's conductor on the "Matchbox." However it appears some wag has put a white stripe on the car's dash, signifying that it's a one-man car! Never fear, the stripe was magnetic vinyl and came right off at the end of the night, but it did give the car a somewhat different appearance. The CSL converted "Matchboxes" 1398 through 1423 to one-man service in 1924 for use on particularly lightly-used lines. Some acquired air doors but most just used the single-stream exit door for both entry and egress while their left-side doors were closed off and the steps removed. One-man "Matchboxes" were used on the Laramie line and can sometimes be seen in the background of photos of CA&E cars at Laramie (and vice versa, as in this photo of a CSL car from the Trolley Dodger site).

Here we are sitting on the near side of Depot Street after sunset. One highlight of the evening was when the steam train did an eastbound run by the depot at speed to do a mail catch. As the only car on the streetcar line, we just pulled up to Car Line Junction and stopped there for a minute, giving our passengers a front-row seat to the truly impressive light and sound show as the 1630 roared past. After the steam train went by, the passengers erupted in spontaneous applause. Kudos to the Steam Team!