The big news for today is that Main Street USA is expanding once again -- the North Western building is going up! Contractors were hard at work with their big crane, putting up the posts for the walls on what will be the home of the C&NW Historical Society and its collections. It was pretty cold and windy outside, but these guys know how to dress for the weather.
This building will be another valuable addition to our campus. Remember, you saw it here first!
Meanwhile, back in the shop, we get to work in relative comfort. Here Tim is stripping one of the doors for the 1808. By the way, he points out that the diagonal piece on the door is there so that if somebody tried to close the door while the brake handle was still in the stand, that would push it out of the way so the glass wouldn't break.
It was too cold to do any painting, but I worked on installing new slats at the #1 end. By the time I left, the first seven are trimmed and more or less permanently installed.
#3 will have to be removed so I can install the rain gutters at this end. I realized from studying pictures that the gutters were somewhat higher on the 714 than they are on the 160, so at this end at least I'll try to get them correctly located. In this picture they're just sort of wedged in place.
And guest photographer Jon Fenlaciki comes through again! Fine art at its finest:
Jon and Andy were working again on installing the various parts of the ceiling in the 65.
It's extremely difficult to get all the different metal parts to line up again, even when we have two of the best minds in the business working on the problem. They're certainly doing better than I could.
I did, however, point out that the root cause of the difficulty was that people ever decided to stop making cars out of wood.
On a more somber note, we were talking about plans for Charlie King's funeral tomorrow. Tim brought out a picture from a railfan excursion to Toronto back in the seventies. I wasn't along, but I knew all of these guys well, and more than forty years later I still see some of them regularly.
Rear (L to R) John van Kuiken, Bill Wulfert, Charlie King, Joe Reuter
Front (L to R) John Nicholson, Tim Peters, Frank Sirinek
It seems like only yesterday.
Update: An IRM group photo from the visitation for Charlie King:
5 comments:
I know this is slightly off-topic to this, but how are the CA&E Flag-Stop shelters doing? (Fanette and Jewel Road). Is there any plans for them? I eventually plan on making a Youtube video about the surviving flag-stop shelters.
They are doing OK for being stored outside. As with everything else, it would be great to have them restored and installed at convenient places, but B&G have a huge amount of work planned already. Actually, I'm afraid I don't know how many shelters are still in existence. Besides ours, I know the Wayne station was recently moved to South Elgin, but what else is there?
All surviving CA&E shelters:
Fanette (Illinois Railway Musuem)
Jewel Road (Illinois Railway Museum)
Hollywood/Raymond Street (Fox River Trolley Musuem)
Wayne (Fox River Trolley Musuem)
Those are all.
However, I believe another is currently being used as a shed at 366 Lincolnway Street in Batavia Illinois (corner of Mooseheart Road and Route 31). It resembles the Bilter Road shelter. Will ask the owners about it soon.
Update: looking at the shed, and comparing it to pictures, it looks more like the Wagner Road shelter. Most likely the Wagner Road shelter, not Bilter.
I drove by it today on my way home, and I would agree that Wagner looks like the most likely choice. I also remembered that there's a building at Naper Settlement, of uncertain origin, that looks like it might have been a CA&E shelter originally. I asked somebody about it several years ago, but they didn't have a chain of custody for the structure, which had most recently been used as an outhouse on a farm, I was told.
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