More from the ITS Meet

Frank writes...

My daytime assignment for the Illinois Traction Society convention was docent in the 233, which was quite enjoyable. A lot of these photos will more-or-less be duplicates of ones my father has already posted, but oh well - feel free to skip ahead.

The 233 and "Peoria" looked very sharp sitting at 50th Avenue, even as tired as both cars (particularly the sleeper) are.

The two cars were put on the west track because they're a bit wider than Chicago 'L' standard, so wouldn't clear the east track. That said, they're also not as wide as standard railroad equipment (or South Shore/Illinois Central cars, which is what the west track was laid out for), plus their traps can only be lowered with the doors closed. So, Joel made up nice "gangplanks" to access both cars across the gap. Here you can see the 233; structurally it's quite solid, though it could use work on a few corner posts and a few spots in the belt rail, as well as the roof.

My father already posted photos of the interior of the 233, but we'll take a quick tour again anyway. Above is the front compartment, laid out similarly to the baggage compartment in the 277 with the motorman's cab on the left. This car also has extra storage space behind the cab, including a bank of built-in wooden filing cabinets and a closet to hold folding tables like the one visible on the left foreground. Note how the baggage door leaves swing in rather than sliding.

I counted 16 seats in the car, not including the dining room chairs or porter's seat. There's a longitudinal bench seat for four at the front right corner; a quartet of double seats flanking the doorway from the front compartment into the main compartment, the latter shown here; and a four-seat bench at the rear of the main compartment. Here, Aaron from Minnesota is chatting with our own Norm Krentel. The permanent seats all pull out, creating a total of six bunks for overnight sleeping. Brass hooks in the walls suggest where curtains would have been hung for a small amount of privacy.

Backing up to the main compartment, on the other side of the wall Aaron is sitting against in that earlier photo, is the stove and prep table shown here in the compact kitchen. The stove is gas-powered, as is the water heater - that vertical can-looking thing in front of the window contains a coiled tube connected to the overhead hot water tank, and there's a gas burner at the bottom of the can to heat the water in the tube. The heated water then ascends to the tank, replaced by cooler water. At the left edge of that prep table is a pass-through window for passing food out of the kitchen to the steward to be served in the main compartment. The back wall of the kitchen, out of view to the right, holds a sink (with both hot and cold taps) and an icebox. I didn't take photos of them, but behind the kitchen just forward of the rear platform are the lavatory on the right side of the car and the Peter Smith water heater compartment on the left side.

And now, let's head next door to the "Peoria," the only interurban sleeping car preserved in the country.

The car was designed with ten sections, generally similar to Pullman sections in concept but with some important differences. Roughly half the car was more-or-less gutted when it was converted to work car service, but one end of the car with six sections was left largely original. Above, this section is set up in "bunk" configuration. I think the upper bunks folded down from the wall similar to in a Pullman car, but of course one innovation on the IT was the use of small windows for upper-bunk passengers. The lower bunk was created by pulling out the seats, but in this particular section, the seats were removed when the car was put into MOW service.

Fortunately, on the other side of the aisle, we have a section that retains its original seats and shows what the daytime configuration of these cars looked like. There are a lot of neat little touches that are difficult to make out here, including tiny reading lights that fold out from the wall, tiny wall safes for locking up valuables (though nothing much larger than a wallet and watch would fit), and of course porter call buttons. There are also slots under the main windows for removable tables, so you can play cards or do paperwork at your seat.

Here we are looking down the aisle of the car at the two sections already shown. Visible straight ahead, where we blocked off access to the gutted MOW section of the car, is a rare backlit sign for The Owl, the famous IT overnight train between St. Louis and Peoria. The "Peoria" would need an immense amount of work - the woodwork requirements are probably on the order of what was done on the "Talisman" - but someday, with enough money, this car will hopefully ride the rails again.

Now, let's turn our attention to operations. Of course, one highlight was the first-ever public operation of the 1702, shown here passing the south wye switch. The operational restoration of this car was kept close to the vest by the museum, partly because we wanted to make it a surprise for the convention attendees but also because we weren't sure we'd get it running in time! Watch this blog for a retrospective look at all the work that went into getting the 1702 running for the first time since 1958.

The line car wasn't on the printed timetable because it was a surprise, but a number of other trains were. Zach, who made up reproduction NSL timetables for the January 2023 North Shore Day event, did something similar for this one. I didn't grab a copy of the official souvenir public timetable, but I did snap a photo of his handy reference card that summarized all the train times.

The 1702 wasn't the only car debuting for the convention. Car 415, shown here, has been out of service since 2020 for a complete exterior restoration. A whole team of people have worked on this, but the effort was spearheaded by Nick Espevik, who ran the car on Saturday. Jamie from the Diesel Department did the spray-painting. I'd say the car has never looked better!

Also in apple green was center-entrance car 101, shown here just after dinner on Station Track 2. During the dinner break, the 233 and "Peoria" were switched back into the barn because they don't have interior lights and we were worried about incoming rain. My assignment after dinner was conductor of the 101, which is always a great gig.

Another debut was IT "Class B" 1565, which has been out of service for several years (anyone recall how many?) with contactor problems. Following a remarkably involved two-year project to analyze, diagnose, and rebuild the locomotive's entire complement of contactors, this was the 1565's first day back in public service. It saw a couple of teething troubles, including a balky feed valve and a bolt in one contactor that vibrated loose, but those were quickly fixed and it served through the day and into the evening in freight and Take-the-Throttle service.

This photo, taken about 7pm, shows the 101 on Station 1 with the "Tangerine Flyer" on Station 2.

As the last bits of sunlight faded, the 1702 was posed in front of Barn 4 with lighting set up by Dave Zeman. Here, Zach is up on the roof inspecting the wire ("say, this wire is no good"), Gregg is in the motorman's cab, and Billy Halstead is on the deck. All three have close connections with this car: Zach was instrumental in the project to make it operational; Gregg spent several years rebuilding the entire car, without which nobody would have even considered trying to make it run; and Billy's father worked for the IT as a lineman on one of the railroad's line cars, possibly on the 1702 itself.

At the end of the evening, the "Tangerine Flyer" made a final round trip. The thought occurred to me that, considering all the IT equipment we had in operation, Bob Bruneau would have been loathe to let half of the stuff out of the barn in the first place... but if he'd been here to see all this, I have no doubt he would have loved it.

LATE ADDITION: Thanks to Zach for sending a copy of the souvenir public timetable!