An Excellent Vintage

Today was another excellent Vintage Transport Extravaganza.  The weather was nearly perfect and we had a good crowd of visitors; just about everybody seemed to be having a great time.  Most of the time I was too busy to take many pictures, so we don't have anything of the 1630 pulling the coach train or the 411 powering the bilevels.  The bilevels, of course, really look sharp when they have the correct locomotive on the front.

But here's our three-car train of wood CA&E equipment.

And the crew consisted of me, Frank, and a relatively new member, Rene Ruano.  We ran seven trips and most of them did require three cars.  Things went smoothly and a good time was had by all.

A couple of pictures showing only a small part of the vast array of vehicles.

Finally, I thought this looked like an amusement park ride:

So, as usual, the moral of this story is that if you weren't there in person, you missed a lot and will just have to wait until next year.  Don't let it happen again!

Frank adds...

I snapped a few photos on Sunday, but most were after the end of service.

I did manage to grab this shot of the 309 and the bi-level train in the background. Just like Wheaton!

I don't think we've posted any full portraits of the 306 since it was painted and lettered a few weeks ago. It sure is a beauty!

Speaking of the 306, a metalworking shop built a replacement line switch box since the original was pretty badly deteriorated. Pretty nice work, I must say.

And here's Doodlebug Bob at the lathe, working on a new armature for one of the DB-160 contactors for Illinois Terminal 1565. The Type M system is extremely robust, but it's not impossible for things to wear out, and on the 1565 we've found that some of the magnetic coils have stopped working properly because of worn electromagnet armatures. So, Bob is manufacturing new Type M parts. As you do.

As a final mention, many thanks to everyone who made the event run so smoothly! The weather was outstanding and the railroad ran like clockwork, due to dispatcher Dan Buck along with help from the train crews. All four service trains made their first trips between 10:00 and 10:45 and ran every 15 minutes until after 4:00; I think there were 27 mainline trips, all of them full trips to the Grove, which is pretty impressive.