Curve-sider Afternoon

Frank writes...

Sunday was unseasonably warm, about 50 degrees, and sunny - a perfect day for switching.

When I arrived, I was treated to the above sight and the steady whirring sound of the 460's MG set. Many thanks to all of the "second shift" guys who built a new battery tray and got the car's set of batteries back in shape and reinstalled! The car is now back to generating its own power for lights. I finished the last of the wire-wheeling inside the smoker and then got a good start on sanding down the wooden trim.

While taking a break, I wandered over to Barn 6, where rumor had it they were going to be switching out our second curve-sider. Sure enough, Nathan and Mikey were hard at work. They pulled out the L4 (above) and then the 431-409, which were at the door on track 62. Behind the CA&E cars was the L7, which runs but can't make air because it has a blown air compressor. The L4 was used to pull the L7 out of the way.

Next in on track 62 was NWERR 24, which also needs air compressor work but can move itself. It's shown here switching itself out of the way. While all of this was going on, Bob, Marcus, and I think one or two other Track Department volunteers were hard at work rebuilding the switch at the throat to Yard 5 in the background.

And here's the goal of the switch move: to extract the 451 and leave it adjacent to the 409-431 so that we can test the car's brake operation and control wiring. The 451 has never operated at IRM, other than being towed around dead in switch moves, but its operational debut is tentatively planned to be on July 1st as part of the "70 for 70" Trolley Parade. Mark your calendar now to see the first operating four-car CA&E steel train in Illinois since 1957!

Thanks to Nathan Kayer for sending this neat panoramic photo of the three-car train, as well as the following two images.

What a beautiful sight!

Here's a photo by Nathan of the two WEPCO, ex-Milwaukee Electric, steeplecabs. Both of these are planned to be in the parade on July 1st as well, as will NWERR 24.

After the 451 came out, the L7 was put  back near the west end of track 62 (this was past the end of the trolley wire so the L4's "extension cord" was used to do this - hence the reason they used the L4 and not ComEd 4 for this move) followed by NWERR 24 and then the three CA&E cars. Before the three-car train went back into the barn I got this photo just before sunset.

So what else was happening? Joel was roaming around on various chores, while Greg and Good Nick were over at the substation making repairs and adjustments there. Bob was working on M23 brake valves in an effort to repair the brake valve at one end of 'L' car 1754 - above, he's sitting at the bench holding a very small brass plunger of some sort.

Meanwhile Zach was also off on a variety of errands, including helping with more air and electrical work on the wooden 'L' cars. He also spent some time on the CA&E cars: a couple of light bulbs in the 460 were burned out, so he was able to replace them with ones from the 453. At some point we need to get more of these - anyone know of a source for 25W, 30V DC light bulbs?

And then after dinner I did more sanding until I ran out of sandpaper, then with help from Nick I removed the door from the 460's smoker onto the platform and brought it into the shop. As you can see, the paint is in pretty bad shape, so this door will be stripped and repainted. I had the paint store match this blue-grey color on Saturday so a gallon of the correct paint was deposited in the shop. Of the four surviving curve-siders, the 460 is the only one whose interior isn't tan. So there's your trivia tidbit for the day.

The Close of the Doerr Collection

All good things must come to an end, and today's post of 20 Doerr Photo Collection images from IRM in the 1980s marks the end of the collection. Today's batch is mostly steam engines and electric locomotives, with a few general operations and site views thrown in for good measure. Enjoy these final images, and don't forget that if you know someone looking for a good home for their train photos, IRM is always grateful for donations.

460 on the Move

Frank writes...

I was out at IRM on Sunday, but let's start with some exciting photos taken on Saturday by our expansive and indefatigable network of underpaid freelance photographers!

Thanks to Bill Wulfert for sending along this great image of the 460 emerging from track 42 under power for the first time since it went into the roof booth 11 months ago. There are a few minor rooftop chores that still need to be wrapped up, but it's nearly complete and ran itself out of the barn without incident.

Bill also sent along this photo of the 1808, which impressively enough also ran itself out of the barn despite being temporarily converted into an open car. But that attractive front end is a sign of the great things to come.

Thanks, too, to Zach Ehlers for sending this striking photo of the 460 pulling back into Barn 4, this time on track 43. The reason for this switch move was that the track contractors have started work on replacing the track inside the east half of Barn 4 on tracks 41 and 42, so the 460 needed to be moved out of their way. It ended up at the west end of track 43, with the 757 just east of it. The 1808 got put back in its normal spot at the west end of 42, while Cleveland 4223 and Fox River Electric 306 are still on the west end of 41.

Here's the aforementioned track work in the east end of Barn 4 as seen from the "roof booth" scaffolding: the ground has been scooped out from the midpoint of the barn to the pit (on track 41) and to the east end of the barn (on track 42). Neat!

When I arrived on Sunday, the shop guys had pulled the batteries out of the 460's battery box for needed work. A new battery tray is going to be fabricated and one of the batteries, which had split open, will be replaced.

The 460 is needed for revenue service this year, so now that the roof is done, the critical path goes through me - or, more precisely, completion of the smoker that I helpfully tore apart last year. Oops. Anyway, I spent the day (nearly) finishing all of the remaining wire wheeling in the smoker, including the remaining window posts (the left and right posts visible here are before and after paint removal, respectively), remaining panels over the windows, and most of the remaining work on the end. A little wire wheeling remains to be done, after which I'll sand down the wood trim and the Masonite (I think) panels underneath the windows and the compartment will be ready for a good cleaning and then paint.

Joel was working on various department projects, Nathan was working on a tear-down and rebuild of the small forklift, Zach and Jimmy were working on getting the 1797's doors working again and reinstalling a controller in the 1268, and Bob and Mikey were working on the Class B's contactors. I didn't get photos of any of that work, unfortunately, but I did stop by the bus barn to visit Richard. He has been hard at work on cleaning up pieces of old and unusual rail for a planned display.

He's painted all of the pieces of rail and lettered the marks to make them more obvious: red for manufacturer, white for date, blue for weight, yellow for other information. Most of the rail dates between about 1880 and 1906, but at the bottom of this photo you can see a piece of Bethlehem Iron Co. pear-head rail from 1868. 

And this is the oldest piece of rail currently on hand: Trenton Iron Co. pear-head rail from 1861. You'll note the notch in the foot; I didn't know this, but early rail was notched like this because the ends weren't drilled for joint bars. Instead, a fish plate was put over the joint and spikes were driven through the fish plate and these notches to keep the rail from moving laterally. This obviously left something to be desired, and a piece of 1871 rail in Richard's collection dispenses with the notches in favor of bolting the ends together.

And now for something completely different: Zach brought this gorgeous O scale model he built of GWR 5041 Tiverton Castle with him to dinner for show-and-tell, and Lee Evans sent along this photo he snapped of it. Those of you who believe in silly eccentricities like 4-6-2s and streamlining can just avert your eyes.

Doerr Collection Diesels and More

Good news: 25 more images have been added to the Doerr Photo Collection page. The additions mostly consist of diesels and steam engines in the museum's collection, all from the 1980s. We're getting close to the end of the photo collection, but we're not at the end quite yet!

Details, Details

Roof work on the 460 is nearing completion, and mostly there are several details to be taken care of.  The one important issue is to complete the power cable connections, but otherwise we'll be done soon.  Once it gets warmer I'll want to put more paint on most of the structure.

On Monday, the regulars were hard at work on their usual projects.  Here we see Fritz working on the wooden frame for a new North Shore door.

And I don't even know what car this window is for.  It looks like it might be a Pullman.  In any case, we have enough room for several projects to proceed simultaneously.

UPDATE:

I've been informed that this is for the Santa Fe combine, 2544.   Buzz sends along a picture of the puzzle pieces needed to put one corner together:

Thanks!

And here Pete is working on one of the other North Shore doors.

As for me, I installed the rope guard at the east end of the car, as seen here...

And then made up a trolley rope for this end and installed it.

And nailed in several more leather straps for holding the roof cables, which I think you can make out:

And since it was warm enough for caulking, there was one more ventilator to attach, with its 80 or so screws.  Rather time-consuming.

And later I caulked and permanently attached some more parts of the roof.   Details, details.

Meanwhile, John continues installing windows and finishing them, with the relatively warm interior.

And I never got around to getting another picture of Tim working on his seemingly endless output of window frames.  Sorry.

This isn't exactly a detail.  K controllers can be extremely heavy, as you may know.  Here most of the team is using a crane to lift one of the 306 controllers up and onto the operating table.

Doodlebug Update

 Gregg sends us another detailed report on restoration of the interior of our UP doodlebug:

The smoker compartment in the doodlebug is now fairly complete on the left side. The upper wall panels are up with all trim.

The window post in the women's room was almost nonexistent. Of course it is in line with the bathroom wall. After removing the frozen screws, I was able to slip the new piece in. New screws were then inserted. The new piece is in white primer.

Then the side piece was reattached. Near the bottom of it is the bracket for the shade roller. Insulation was applied to the outer wall, and then the sheet metal cover over that. Below it is the upper window weatherstrip made of felt.

The short baggage rack was test fitted with two screws. Holes were then marked and drilled. This and the long rack still need to be restored before actually mounting them.

The Autobiography of Wilhite Nusz

Wilhite Nusz (1882-1968) was a civil engineer with the Illinois Central Railroad, and during his long career he rose to the position of Office Engineer with the Chicago Division.  After his retirement he wrote a long and very detailed autobiography, which has now been donated to IRM by his great-nephew.  This will be delivered to the Strahorn, but first I thought you might want to see some of the material.

The narrative includes amazing detail, with descriptions of people he worked with and conditions at the various locations, and is quite well written.  And fortunately it was all typed up, so we don't have to try to read his microscopic handwriting!   At the bottom of this post I have included a brief sample of the narrative.

Mr. Nusz worked on several major projects over the years, such as relocation of the main line from Nashville to Chattanooga, grade separation at Mattoon, and construction of several branchlines.  But probably the most important part of his career was that he was largely responsible for drafting many of the engineering details in the Chicago Lake Front Ordinance, or Electrification Ordinance of 1919 which led to the electrification of suburban service and made possible the development of a large part of Chicago's modern lakefront.  He was also responsible for constructing the original IC part of the railroad hall at MSI, although this has now been replaced.

Another amusing section of the narrative tells how he was asked to make a study of the Chicago Tunnel.  He quickly decided that the entire project had been a foolish mistake -- if they had built a tunnel that could handle standard freight cars it might have been profitable, but as it was, the investment was nearly a dead loss.

On June 15, 1951, the IC held a huge luncheon in the Red Lacquer Room at the Palmer House to celebrate the many employees who had worked for the company for fifty years or more.  And Mr. Nusz is seen here sitting front and center.  

Of course, not everyone in this picture was actually a 50-year veteran.  But those who were had worked during a tremendous change in the railroading industry.

And for his retirement in 1952, he was presented with a Television Set, a big deal in those days:

The set is not pictured, but lots of friends were there.

IRM's collection of Illinois Central equipment helps illustrate many aspects of the company's history in which he had a hand, including steam and Diesel locomotives, passenger cars, and the electrification.  And for that matter, even the tunnel cars!  Our Museum is always glad to receive historic materials such as this, and we thank Leverett Nelson for donating it to us.

Sample of the Narrative

Poles Up!

 The weather outside was frightful, but inside, it's so delightful...

Good progress has been made on the 460 roof project, and we're getting close to the end.  My sincere thanks to the second shift guys who cleaned and lubed the ball-bearing rotators and installed them in the bases.  With those in place, the next step was to insert the poles.  I finished attaching the various parts, and then managed to lift the poles onto the roof and insert them into the bases.  The main problem is the limited overhead clearance, but that can be worked around (after a few false starts...)  Both poles are now in place and bolted tight.  They haven't been tensioned yet, of course, but that can wait.

When it warms up, some touchup painting will naturally be required, but otherwise I think they're ready to go.

I also bolted the trolley cables onto the bases.

And I spent some time attaching the horn baffle and protector at the east end.  More painting and caulking will be needed as weather permits.

And in other news, Tim continued work on the windows for the 1808.

And John was working on windows and other parts of the 306.

Norm Krentel and Gerry Dettloff worked on analyzing the 306's wiring.  This is a perplexing task because of all the changes that were made since the car left the Fox River line in 1935, mostly by Shaker Heights.  There's very little definite information available, so the required reverse engineering is difficult.  Here's a sample of a diagram made back about 1992 when the first IRM restoration started.

And then you're faced with things like this:

Getting a picture of them at work was difficult.  But here they are under the car trying to ring out the circuits.  Not much fun.

But they won't give up.  Watch this space for results!