Doors to Progress

Saturday was a typically busy day at the Museum, with several different things going on in the car shop.  Did we ever tell you that doors are important in this business?  I turned the 460's door over, finished sanding and stripping the paint from the vestibule side, and primed it as seen here.  It should be ready for finish paint and/or installation.

I then went over to Barn 8 and started on inspection of the 319.  It's only four weeks until we're supposed to have three wood cars ready for operation -- yikes!  I did what I could without the car being over the pit, and no problems were found.  The air system works fine, which is of course important.

Then I had some time to sand down and prime the door to the blower cabinet in the 460.  It wasn't feasible to remove the door, and in any case there's no reason to refinish the inside.  The other guys are doing a great job on repainting the smoker.

So let's see what the other people are doing.  John continues tirelessly on repainting doors, windows, and other parts of the 306.

Steve Iversen drove up from Oklahoma again, and picked up Frank Sirinek.  Along with Mike Stauber, they were working all day on doors for the Kansas City PCC, 755.

And here's what the roof of the 1808 looks like from inside the car.  Tim has mounted a jack to raise the roof into position so the new carlines can be installed.  It's an impressive project.

Bill is sorting out and inspecting our supply of window shades and parts.  

Let's see, who else am I missing?  Norm was working on the overload relay for the 306 again.  Joel was there along with several of the younger members whom I don't know because I've mostly been coming out on weekdays, hard at work on various projects.  And there were others who were there for the car cleaning session.  You just have to be there in person to see it all.

Thursday Progress

Here's another progress report from the Car Shop.  

Gerry has been working on the brake valves for the 306.  The second one just got painted.

 And here's the first one with its piping and newly-fabricated support brackets out in the barn.

And the controller, lying on the cart.

Gerry asked me to explain what's going on here.  At Shaker, the controller and brake stands on these cars were moved about 8" to the left, for unknown reasons.  And so all the various connections had to be redone.  The three remaining cars were all rebuilt this way, and that means that the best example of how the 306 was originally configured is the IT 415.  (The IT cars were built by St. Louis at the about same time as the Fox River cars, and with nearly the same designs.)  Gerry and Norm have been examining the 415 for clues how to rewire and repipe the 306.  There's a lot of work involved, but when they're done, this will be the only authentically-restored Fox River car in existence.

John has been working hard on finishing up all the windows and associated parts.  Here are some in the spray booth.  He does very careful and meticulous work.

Of course, we make sure he has adequate supervision.

Meanwhile, Tim has been making new carlines for the 1808.  Several of the original carlines are broken and need to be replaced or at least reinforced.  The reason for this is that the 1808 (and 1797) were built as trailers, so they were designed with relatively weak roof structures, since there was nothing on the roof.  Later on, the L decided to motorize the cars, which made trolley poles necessary and this caused the roofs to start sagging.  Once he has the new carlines installed, they should last much better.  

Bill is sorting out window shades for the various wood L cars.  There are many different sizes and styles.  It's lucky we have the best minds in the business working on problems like this.

Finally, I finished stripping and sanding the smoker side of the 460's door and put on a coat of primer.  It should be ready for finish paint (a light blue).  Or else I will turn it over and prime the other side.

So as usual, a good time was had by all.

Early Chicago Streetcars from the Bill Wulfert Collection

Thanks to Bill Wulfert for providing these fascinating images from the early days of Chicago streetcars. These photos are copyright Bill Wulfert and may not be copied or reproduced.

North Chicago Street Railroad 402 was one of Chicago's large, double-truck, semi-enclosed grip cars. Unfortunately, I'm not sure who built it or when. The rooftop sign reads "Clark St / Lincoln Park and City Limits" and the sign over the end window reads "Limits."

Passengers jam every flat surface on a Chicago City Railway cable train bound for the Columbian Exposition in 1893.

Chicago City Railway 1896 was a single-trucker built by Pullman in 1895 on order #836 (for comparison, IRM's ex-Chicago Union Traction single-trucker was built at almost the exact same time on Pullman order #840). In 1908 it was renumbered CCRy 2297 and the following year it was sold for scrap.

It's 1906 on Clark Street in the Loop and Chicago City Railways double-truckers 2762 (St. Louis, 1903) and 2609 (St. Louis, 1902) are passing each other. Both of these cars lasted well into the CSL era and were retired in the late 1940s.

Chicago Union Traction (CUT) 4264 was an ex-West Chicago Street Railroad car built by Brownell in 1890 and motorized in 1896. It was scrapped before CSL took over. The rooftop sign reads "Grand Central Station / Harrison St - State St - Kedzie Av."

CUT 4392 was one of a large group of cars built by American in 1892 for West Chicago Street Railroad. This was one of a large batch of single-truckers retired in the late 1910s, but retained by the CSL for a quarter century as an "emergency reserve" and not scrapped until 1933-1934. IRM's 1895 single-trucker was, of course, also part of this reserve fleet.

IRM's "Bowling Alley" car, CSL 1467, looked like this when it was new. Car 4527 was one of 80 large double-truck cars built just after CUT was created, and was one of the first cars built at the then-new West Shops complex. This particular car was never modernized like 1467 was, with longer platforms, newer trucks and motors, and PAYE fare collection. Instead, it was sold in 1916 to Gary Railways, where it became that company's number 603. It was scrapped in 1927.

If this car looks familiar, it should - this is what the "Matchbox" looked like when new. Differences include spoked wheels and different truck side frames; the type shown was too weak and the truck was redesigned with a horizontal reinforcing rib. CUT 4626 was built by St. Louis in 1903, renumbered 4726 in 1910, and later became CSL 1197. It was retired in 1937.

This is really a fascinating builder's photo - CUT 4724 was one of five cars built by Brill in 1903 and originally numbered 4724-4728. They were later renumbered 4625-4629 and then ended up as CSL 1424-1428. Pretty early on, they were rebuilt with longer platforms and given ends identical to the St. Louis-built "Matchboxes," so in later years they looked much more like "Matchboxes" with narrower side windows. This is the only photo I can recall seeing that shows one of these cars with its original "rubber stamp" Brill ends. This car, as CSL 1424, was retired in 1937.

Monday Report

 On Monday, I started by unloading the first of the seats I got from MCRM into storage, and spent some time rearranging things.  Then it was time to go to the car shop and see what's happening.

We'll start with the 306.  Here's the nice new floor at the west end of the car. Phil the new guy did most or all of the work on this.

And John was installing the new windows at each end of the car.  He pulled the canvas cover off the west end, so it now looks like this.

Very sharp.  And here are a couple of the side doors in the shop:

Pete and Fritz were working on North Shore doors again:

And here they are setting up one of the new frames for gluing:

Gregg has started disassembling the roof structure on the 1702:

And I finished removing the window shade guides and cover from the 460's door, with some help from Fritz:

And sanded it all down.  It's just about ready for painting.  I need to bring out some chemical stripper to finish the quarter-round edges to the window.

Visit to North Freedom

On Friday and Saturday I went up to North Freedom to help some friends of mine at Mid-Continent, Bill Buhrmaster and Pete Becker, acting as a consultant on canvas roofs.  Nice work if you can get it -- all I have to do is point out what needs to be done, and they get to do the hard stuff.  This side of the roof is already done, and looks quite good.  (And I'm always glad to see that my students are taking good notes!)

This car itself is quite interesting in its own right.  East Jordan and Southern #2 was originally built by Osgood-Bradley in 1864, making it one of the oldest passenger cars in existence.  It was heavily rebuilt over the years, and was resold in 1902 by the Hicks Locomotive and Car Works to the EJ&S, making it an honorary Hicks car.  So I'm doubly glad to help.

(Pictures of the exterior are available on the MCRM website here.)

The interior is being extensively restored, and this gives us a chance to see some of the original features of the car.

In the picture above, you can how the original carlines are still in place underneath the hips, and have an ogee shape that is quite characteristic of the 1860's.  These were later supplemented with new pieces to change the hips to a convex curve like later wooden cars always had.  

Much of the interior still features architectural details characteristic of the 1860's period.

At one time, the car must have had Pintsch gas lighting fixtures, as shown by the vents through the roof, but these were removed by the EJ&S at some point.  The car is being restored to its configuration as a combine on the EJ&S during the end of its service life, the only feasible choice.

Several other wooden cars are in the car shop being worked on, and the one I'm most interested in is the Munising 64, an actual Hicks-built coach.  It's gotten a complete structural overhaul, as seen here:

Both end platforms had deteriorated and have been replaced.

In return, they're giving us four complete seats from a CA&E car, #300.  And that brings me to a story.

Back in 1962, the Mid-Continent guys were looking for seats for a couple of wooden passenger cars they had acquired, and they went to Wheaton.  There they looked over the cars that had not yet been scrapped, and at first they decided to take the rattan seats from #36(!).  So Ray Buhrmaster, Bill's father, wrote out a check and sent it in.  Then Mr. Knoop at the CA&E realized that the 36 had already been spoken for, so he talked them into taking the seats and baggage racks from car 300 instead.  (The 36's seats, of course, stayed in the car and are still there today!)  Bill gave me some photocopies of the correspondence.

The seats from the 300 were installed in the EJ&S #2 for many years, and were removed when they were able to get the correct type of seating fabricated.  And we have been able to acquire them as spares for the 308 and 309.  Of course, these interurban seats are too narrow for standard steam-road coaches.  Mid-Continent also got the seats from a North Shore car (unknown number) for another of their cars, and these were later sold to IRM also.  So everybody's happy -- I hope!