Gone Railfanning

Frank writes...

And now for something completely different. Sunday happened to be the last day of the South Shore running down the middle of 11th Street in Michigan City, a fact of which I was unaware until it was pointed out to me late last week. Zach decided to ride the country's last interurban to commemorate the occasion, then a couple of car shop guys decided to go along, then a couple more, and, well, you know how it goes...

So here's the group that departed from Randolph Street on the 1:35pm train: Greg, Zach, Joel, Noah, and Nick. Nathan and Mikey boarded at Portage. Zach had actually boarded eastbound at the Michigan City shops and ridden into Chicago in the morning, while Greg, Joel, and Nick took Metra into the city and I drove.

I know, I know - "hey get out of the way, I want to look at the train." Well here you go. These cars are about 40 years old now, and starting to be cycled through their second mid-life rebuild.

Greg, Noah, Zach, and Nick on the train. To say these cars lack the personality of older interurban cars is a bit of an understatement. But it's still an interurban line, and the experience may not be wildly different than riding one of the old sealed-window A/C cars except for the welded rail and lack of good motor/pump noise. I'm embarrassed to say that as much of an interurban fan as I am, I'd never before ridden the line east of Michigan City.

And here's me and Joel, photo courtesy of Nick.

We rode to South Bend, with the train pictured here during its layover at the airport terminus, then back. Nathan and Mikey boarded and then alit at Portage, while Zach exited at the Michigan City shops on the return trip to get his car. It was an eminently enjoyable trip.

A scene no longer possible: the view out the train door window going westbound down 11th Street in Michigan City at sunset. There were a lot of photographers along the tracks, and we saw at least one or two IRM members who were there to observe and/or photograph the last day of street running.

And here we have a favorite subject matter of David, railfans taking pictures of railfans taking pictures, starring Nathan and Mikey.

Line Car Rebuilding

Gregg Wolfersheim reports on his latest project: rebuilding our Illinois Terminal line car, the 1702.  This is a daunting task and it's great to see one of the younger guys taking it on!

Some views of the latest project I'm working on for the Car Department: Illinois Terminal 1702, the line car obtained in 1958, hasn't had much done to it since the early '80's. Looking at the south side of the car we see its shabby condition:

A different angle of the same side. Note the area where long tools were stored. Both sides have this, but the north side has more deterioration.

This line car was built out of an older passenger car in 1922 by the ITC. It has typical wooden construction, which after a hundred years is rotting out.

This was after all the siding has been removed:

Surprisingly most of the framing is in good shape. It's near the bottom where the problems occur. Water seeps in and remains near the bottom and the process of deteriorated wood begins.

In this final pic, one can see the lower/outer frame member melting away. This will be removed this week and a new beam eventually installed. The new beam material was acquired this past Thursday.

Gold Coast Railroad Museum

 The Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami has a couple of unusual features.

• It occupies a WWII naval air station, and uses most of the buildings and track from that facility.  As a result, the location is limited in space and train operation is minimal (once a month).
• It's located next to and shares the entrance parkway with the Miami Zoo and a military museum.

So having driven down a long tree-lined avenue, and deciding that we would rather see trains than elephants, let's take a quick tour.

Part of the gift shop is located inside a couple of reefers, and behind it is one of the air base buildings.

All you wanted to know about operations at the base, including anti-submarine air ships:

And all of the covered storage for railroad equipment is inside the only hangar that survived a violent hurricane which destroyed most of the base.

Most of these pieces are in very good cosmetic condition.

Some of the baggage cars have displays of various sorts.

They've got all the bells and whistles...

For a museum in Florida, they have several ex-Burlington pieces of equipment:

Outside, a couple of cars from the Miami airport people mover:

A narrow-gauge Alco:

And this is an early inside-bearing truck, with no explanation.

Many other cars are stored outside, beyond the reach of visitors.

I got the impression that many things probably haven't changed much since the days when my old friend Jim Blower used to work here.

But inside one of the military buildings is the model railroad collection.  This must be relatively new.

And there's a room dedicated to Pullman porters.

A couple of unusual cars used at Cape Canaveral: this one carried compressed gaseous helium:

And this flat car carried rocket booster parts.

Among the cars stored outside are five ex-C&NW bilevels.  With a little detective work, we think this first car was C&NW 45, similar but not identical to our cars 1 and 6.

And the blue car in the distance was cab car 171, identical to our 151.

By far the best-known and most valuable artifact is FDR's presidential car Ferdinand Magellan.  For an extra $5 you could take a guided tour of the car, but we decided we didn't have the time.

It's obviously been carefully maintained.

Another thing you could do for $5 is ride the little park train.  But we passed on that, too.  Sorry.