Vintage XXXIII

Frank writes...

Sunday was the 33rd Annual Vintage Transport Extravaganza, and I daresay a good time was had by all. We had something like 450 antique vehicles attend and the parking lot was full just about out to Olson Road.

My father and I were on the CA&E wood train, as shown above, along with car host Rene Ruano. With the 36 out of service and in need of leaf spring repairs, the 308 was pulled out of retirement and brought along as a control trailer, or "coach" as the CA&E called its trailers. It sure was nice to have the 308 back out on the railroad and hauling people for the first time in over five years.

Photo by Chris Buck

We can't let you get away without seeing a picture of the crew!  By the way, the Buck Brothers were along for at least one of the busier trips and helped by giving car talks and so on.

Here we are in Station Track 1 with the 1630 over on track 2. The four main line trains were the two shown here; North Shore 714-749; and the C&NW bi-level set, plus a pair of 4000s that ran shuttle service to Jefferson Street all day. Dispatcher Harold Krewer adroitly kept things moving, including regular meets with the shuttle train at Schmidt Siding, a capability that fell out of practice for years but has recently been resumed.

Early in the day, the C&NW bi-levels did a fast "load and go" stop at the depot while we were sitting on track 1. My father remarked that it was just like Wheaton!

And here's another shot of the three-car train at the station. For a few years, between when the 319 went into service in 2010 and when the 36 went into service in 2014, these three cars operated together semi-regularly.

I never got a chance to look around at the old cars on display, but I did manage to grab this shot of a lineup behind the depot. In the background you can see the 4000s at 50th. Car 24 was also at 50th Avenue, albeit just on display for the day.

Most of the volunteers were involved in operations or enjoying the car show. The bus guys, of course, had several buses and trolley buses on display, and Zach had his London Routemaster open for walk-throughs. Above, Zach took this photo in the morning of us pulling the CA&E cars out to the tail track past his bus, parked alongside Central Avenue on display.

Over in the shop, Joel was hard at work in the inspection pit finishing up inspection work on CA&E 431, which included replacing a couple of brake shoes and putting grease "cookies" in the center bearings. This followed the inspection of car 24, which was completed on Saturday. Good Nick was working on substation stuff. And as seen above, Brian was working steadily at the surface grinder, truing up the contact surfaces on resistance grids for ComEd 4. They're rebuilding a grid box for the locomotive and making sure all of the component parts are as good as new. I'll admit, this is more precise than when we rebuilt all those grid boxes for our cars - I would just use a wire wheel to clean up the grid element contact surfaces, slacker that I am. Jimmy and Bob, the latter visible behind Brian, also helped with this work.