Sunday Report

Frank writes...

It was another happy day on the holiday railway on Sunday. The weather was foggy and in the low 40s, which all things considered wasn't too bad.

After arriving, I ran the 3142 for a little while so that its regular crew could get a lunch break. Zach was piloting a trainee motorman, Josh, in service. Above, the car sits at Depot Street while the ghostly figure of North Shore 749 lurks in the background, spotted on the west wye for a crew lunch break.

Here's Zach in the back window of the car. He observed that I was wearing a Chicago Railways hat badge, he had his nice CSL badge, and Josh had a CTA badge, so between the three of us we spanned the last 50 years of Chicago streetcars.

Over in the depot, Joel was filling in for HHR stalwart Bob Opal and tickling the ivories for the enjoyment of the visitors.

It was damp, but most of the time it wasn't really raining outright, and overall everyone seemed to be having a great time. It's always nice to see the property hopping like this!

After my stint on the Surface Lines, I changed into work clothes and spent some time working to install another newly reupholstered seat in the 460. It's the third nice one, behind the two previously installed seats. I didn't get it fastened in; I'll need to do some more persuading.

Meanwhile, over in the car shop, Jimmy (shown here, clearly thrilled at having his photo taken) and Brian were hard at work fixing air gauges. This is painstaking and often thankless work, but it's vital to keeping our cars operating safely. Today they were concentrating on repairing gauges for CSL 1374 and for CA&E 308, which we hope will see a few days of service again in 2025.

At the west end of Barn 4, Norm (right), Ashton (left foreground), and Will (behind Ashton) were installing hardware under the front end of Michigan Electric 28. Norm was practically giddy at being able to resume work on this car, which has been paused for a few years due to Barn 4 construction. They got cut lever chain hangers and stirrups hung, as well as most of the circle iron supports.

Finally, Nick and Joel exhumed some spare items from storage that are going into an auction IRM will be holding. We'll pass along details when we have them, but some spare items are being auctioned off to open up space and raise money. Don't get your hopes up too high - as far as I know, we're not auctioning off railroad items, much less railroad equipment. But you'll have to check it out for yourself. If you're looking for a microwave, window air conditioner, or a little cart for painting stripes in parking lots, you're in luck!