Johnson Collection - Chicago & Interurban Traction

These photos are copyrighted by the Julie Ann Johnson Historical Collection.

Do not reproduce without permission!

Car 6 was one of the 1896 Pullman-built battery cars, shown here in its original configuration and lettered for Englewood & Chicago Street Railway.

Car 4 was one of the 1896 battery cars, but it's shown here after it was converted into an electric car about 1900. The C&IT roster shows this series of car as having Brill 21E trucks after they were electrified, but here car 4 still has its original DuPont truck.

Car 73 was built by American in 1900 for Chicago Electric Traction Co.

This builder's photo of car 134, one of the single-ended Crete suburban cars built in 1907 by Kuhlman, clearly shows its unusual "split personality" roof. These cars were sold to Chicago City Railway in 1912, where they were rebuilt as double-end, deck roof cars.

Car 126, one of the 1907 Kuhlman-built suburban cars. This is the left, or blind, side of the car.

Car 127, one of the Crete suburban cars, is at 79th and Halsted with a Chicago City Railway Brill in the background.

The interior of the 1907 Kuhlman suburban cars clearly shows their Brill semi-convertible construction, with the inward-canted walls allowing both upper and lower sash windows to be raised into the ceiling.

Interurban cars 201-210 were ordered in 1907 from St. Louis. Here, car 202 is shown on August 23, 1908.

Car 204 passes an unidentified streetcar in this early advertisement.

This photo appears to show car 204 with trailer 302, built by Niles in 1909, in tow. It looks like it was taken at the same spot as the previous advertisement. The car has already been repainted in a less elaborate livery and the motorman's door has been moved from the left to the right side of the car.

Car 204 is shown slightly later in its career, before it was renumbered c1913 but after a sign box was installed over the center window.

An unknown 201-series car is pictured in heavy snow, location unknown.

Car 206 is shown early in its career, said to be at 79th and Halsted.

Four trailers numbered 301-304 were ordered from Niles in 1909. They were rebuilt as motor cars in 1910 and renumbered 211-214, then renumbered again in 1913 as 31-34. Here, the last car of the series is posed in front of the car barn at 88th and Vincennes. The company herald reads "The KanKaKee Line."

An unidentified car from the 211-214/31-34 series is shown under the 'L' at 63rd and Halsted, the north end of the line.

An unidentified 211-214/31-34 series car shown on the north leg of the wye in Harvey, just north of 154th and Park Avenue looking southwest.

Line car 45 was homebuilt by the C&IT in 1924. After abandonment it was sold to the CA&E, where it retained its original number.

The first C&IT line car number 50 was this car, built in 1911 and destroyed in a fire in 1924. Note the unusual Peckham trucks.

The replacement line car number 50, built in 1924, is shown here.

Line car 50-II is shown pulling a work train. The first flat car looks like it may have Baldwin trucks similar to one or two of the line's express trailers.

This is the north end of the line at 63rd and Halsted. A barely visible train is stopped at the 'L' station on the left, while a C&IT car sits in a siding under the structure and a Chicago City Railway (or Chicago Surface Lines) car passes.

A street level view of the 63rd and Halsted terminal with what looks to be a 21-30 series car on the right. The Englewood Pageant of Progress mentioned on the billboard was held in late June 1921.

The car barn at 88th and Vincennes is shown looking southwest from that intersection.

Location unknown.

This image may be at 63rd and Vernon, the northern terminus of the Kankakee line until 1912. The list of destinations appears to be pre-1906.

Thanks to Ray and Julie Piesciuk for making these materials from the Johnson Collection available.

Click here to return to the Johnson Photo Collection index

A full history, and roster, of the C&IT can be found in the Scalzo History Collection

CTA 4412 Gets Window Shades

CTA 4412 GETS WINDOW SHADES – A 50TH ANNIVERSARY PRESENT

by Bill Wulfert

But first a bit of history.  IRM was interested in preserving some cars from the 4000 series of Chicago Transit Authority 'L' cars.  First a Baldie was selected. The Baldies were numbered 4001-4250, and were built with steel roofs and only two ventilators, and no trolley poles, hence the nickname of Baldies. Fifteen retired Baldies were in storage at Skokie Shop since their 1964 retirement, as they had been recently overhauled. IRM selected 4215 for preservation.  In addition, 4216 and 4146 were purchased for parts. Even though these three cars were motor cars on the 'L', IRM purchased all three without motors, in order to save precious funds.  The extra cars were purchased for trucks and control equipment.  After a closer inspection at IRM, it was decided that 4146 was in slightly better condition than the 4215, so the 4146 was selected for preservation.

As part of the big purchase from the CTA, IRM also purchased three retired wooden 'L' cars that were being used for locker rooms/offices at the Desplaines Avenue terminal of the Congress Line in Forest Park (today's Blue Line). These cars, 1770, 1775, and 1784 (Pullman 1908) were stripped of seats and motors before they went to Forest Park. The main purpose for buying these cars, was that they had Type M control equipment and Van Dorn couplers which could be used for future restoration efforts.

And finally we get to 4412.  We are not entirely sure why we decided to save a Plushie, series 4251-4455 that no longer had trolley poles or roof boards. Most likely, it was to ship all of these cars at one time.  The Evanston assigned 4000s of course had trolley poles, as the Evanston 'L' had trolley wire from South Blvd. to Linden Ave. in Wilmette.  The Evanston 4000s were running their last days, but most likely no decision had been made on converting the Evanston line to 3rd rail.  The CTA needed cars with trolley poles until the line was cut over to 3rd rail on November 8, 1973.

So 4412 was selected, as it had good wheels on the motor truck, with Westinghouse motors, and still had a grooved wooden floor inside.  The car also had a fairly new canvas roof, and hence no roof boards.  Unfortunately, the roof tack molding was not in good shape.  The car had boards nailed over the bottom of the canvas for many years at IRM until Tim Peters finished a complete roof replacement in November of 2012.

IRM actually purchased the cars in January 1972 (see Rail & Wire issue #70 page 3 and #72 page 5). The cars stayed at Skokie Shop until the CTA found the time to pull the un-purchased motors from the three Baldies.  R&W issue #74 pages 3-4 explains the details of the Tuesday-Saturday trip to IRM on the Chicago & North Western via Weber, 40th, Proviso, West Chicago and Elgin yards! The cars arrived on Saturday, November 4, 1972.

'L' car 4412 was delivered to the Chicago Rapid Transit Company in 1925. The 1922 and 1924 orders for new elevated cars were a vast improvement over the 1914-15 Baldie cars, even though the cars used the same basic car body. These cars had reversible green Mohair plush seats, instead of rattan that was used in all previously purchased cars.  The brass light fixtures had glass lamp shades to diffuse the lighting.  Like all previous cars, they had window shades to block the sun or heat of day.

Car 4412 was operated all over the elevated system, but mostly on lines that required operation from trolley wire, in addition to third rail. Car 4412 had a long assignment on the Lake Street 'L'.  In 1962 the Lake Street line was elevated from street level (west of Laramie Avenue) onto the Chicago & North Western Railway's embankment to Harlem Avenue. Trolley poles were removed shortly thereafter, as they were no longer needed.  When the Lake Street 'L' received the new 2000 series cars beginning in 1964, the Lake Street 4000s were moved over to the Ravenswood 'L', replacing the Baldies.

I do remember window shades on all of the Lake Street Plushies. And in fact they always had green plush seats.  I didn't ride 4000s on Ravenswood until maybe 1966.  I was surprised to see brown vinyl seat covers on all of the cars.  I can't recall if the cars still had window shades, or if they were gone.

When the 4000s arrived at IRM in 1972, I recall a few ratty shades in the three Baldies.  There were no shades in the 4412, or so we thought. Some time later on we reached into the curtain boxes, and lo and behold there were some shades!  It seems that the CTA had not removed the old shades, just stuffed them into the curtain boxes, out of sight.  There was not a full set, as many of them were missing.  After carefully pulling the shades back down and into the window tracks, we saw how horrible the shades looked.

Old, torn shades in the 4412

What to do?  We didn't do anything.  Most of the time the shades were all the way up, and most visitors didn't attempt to pull them down.  The Evanston assigned 4000s that we purchased later on (4290, 4321, and 4410) had window shades right up to the end of service in 1973.  After all, you had to pay an extra 15 cents each way to ride on the Evanston Express trains.  I guess they deserved this luxury for paying extra.

Over the years I thought about putting shades back into 4412. To be accurate, we would have had to install some dark shades that looked like the green Pantasote ones. Most of those looked like they were black in their last days. They were all brittle, and not reusable.  The CTA also attempted to create their own shades out of green vinyl seat covering material. They looked very nice on the inside, and are somewhat flexible.  But the back sides were a white canvas like material that got really dirty, creating an unsightly mess facing the outside. There were a few of this type in 4412.

Front and back of a shade made out of green seat material

So, I decided to reuse some of the fiberglass reinforced green vinyl shades that were salvaged from 4000s that we scrapped at IRM. Those shades look nice in 4290 and 4410.  Most of these shades have the more modern Adlake rollers and brass pinchers with a rubber shoe that slides in the window track area.  At first I thought that the CTA purchased the completed shades from Adlake.  But there are also some shades with the same material on old style Chicago Curtain Supply hardware.  I'm not sure how old these shades are. They have held up well, but suffered from sun, dirt, and probably some brake shoe dust at the bottoms.

A shade that came out in pieces

Each shade required about an hour of scrubbing with powdered cleanser, some liquid soap, and a stiff scrub brush.  John McKelvey sewed new header material to the top of many shades, since the old material was in poor shape.  The shades are not perfect, but they look nice inside.  All of the steel hardware was sandblasted and painted. The brass was polished and clear coated.  I used all of the newer type of shade rollers and hardware from Adlake, saving the older hardware for the wooden 'L' car shade projects. Two of the Adlake shade rollers had dates stamped on them. One from 10 - 54 and another from 11 - 59. They were older than I expected.  The rest have no dates on them.

Shades going back in

All shades installed

"Shorty" shade under the sign box

Closeup - the shades need to stretch out the wrinkles from years of storage

Car 4412 was in service from 1925 until 1969 or 1970, about 45 years.  The car arrived at IRM in November of 1972.  It took a while to install roof boards and trolley poles. I know that the car was run in service at IRM on September 1, 1973, if not earlier.  This coming November 2022 will mark 50 years at IRM.  In honor of this anniversary, I felt that the car should finally get window shades.  Sorry it took 50 years to do it!

Roof In Red

 On the roof of the 460, we just keep rolling along.  I started by making a new piece to replace a rotted-out section of tack molding at the west end.  This piece needs some more work at home, then it will be soaked so it can be slightly bent.  I also cleaned out all of the old wood in the place where it will go.

Then I painted most of the roof, using a roller.  As you will have noticed, the roof boards were never painted by the railroad, but we think it's a good idea to help preserve the wood under our conditions.  To save money, we generally use old paint that isn't much good for anything else.

In this case, with Tim's help I located an ancient gallon of Pittsburgh's Carnival Red.  This is a color we used on the 309 back in the seventies, but this particular can had never been opened.  It might date to before the fire, since they were originally planning to keep the 309 in the final red paint scheme.  Be that as it may, it was a little lumpy and skinny but that makes no difference for this application.

Actually, it's almost beautiful.  Too bad they didn't actually paint the roof canvas red to match the rest of the car!

The scariest part of the process is running the pneumatic paint shaker.  Stand back!

After using up that gallon, I found a can of reddish-brown paint.  It doesn't match, but again this will all be covered so it doesn't matter.

And then I spent more time applying the rest of the plastic shields and epoxying the tack moldings.  Not much to take a picture of, however.

And other guys were hard at work, but I didn't get a chance to photograph them.  Tim was working on the 1808, of course, and Pete and Fritz on the 160.  Steve Iversen and Frank Sirinek were also there, as well as Dave Conrad, Victor and Bill, and I don't know who else.

Two Reports in One!

 Gregg Wolfersheim provides us with updates on two of his current projects: Public Service Co. #7, our first steam locomotive, and Illinois Terminal 1702, our first line car.  Enjoy!

The continuing process of making a display out of the 0-6-0T locomotive is coming along. Most of the interior is now painted black. All of the valve handles have either red or white paint on them.

Another view of the cab above the engineer's window.

Some of the grooved paneling in primer, and the standard steam locomotive cab green. This will be installed soon for the ceiling. Also, the bell is on hand, waiting for the opportunity to pull the loco outside to facilitate mounting it.

The line car project is also coming along. The new beam installation was finished and work started above it. Six horizontal boards were attached to form a base for the sheet metal panels that are part of the tool holders.

In this view the panels are in place after being stripped and primed beforehand. One of the three brackets is now in place, with the others to follow. They are through-bolted from the interior, which provides another challenge trying to get everything lined up.

Monday Report

You may have seen or read something about the Union Fire Department being called to the Museum yesterday, but we can assure you that there was no damage and nobody got hurt.  Barn 2 got a little smokey but it was quickly brought under control.  And we are very thankful for the excellent response by the first responders.  Whew!

After that, it's all anticlimactic.  Over in Barn 4, we just kept working away.

John is making all the new parts for the roof of the 306.  Above, new stock is being jointed, with dreadful din.  Below, the larger saddles can be bent using one of our lobster trap forms.  

Pete and Fritz continue working on the doors and windows for the 160.

Tim continues work on the 1808, of course.  As did Gerry, until smoke signals rising in the east required his expertise.  

Finally, of course I continued on the 460.  One section of tack molding at the end will need to be replaced, and it now looks like this.  For the rest of the time, I was working on cleaning up the rest of the tack molding and applying epoxy.