Inquiry from Belgium - Updated

 I received an interesting email from a man in Belgium who writes:

Hello,

First of all, I would like to wish you an excellent year 2025.

I am writing to you from Belgium to seek information that I have been unable to find locally or on the internet regarding manufacturer plates from the St. Louis Car Company (see attached photos). Could you please provide me with any information or direct me to sources regarding the model, type of machine, or any other reference on which these manufacturer plates are affixed?

Thank you in advance for your assistance, and I apologize if this email has caused any inconvenience.

Best regards,

[Name withheld]

He included ten pictures, but they're all pretty similar.  Some are B-2.  I would say these are obviously manufacturer's plates from PCC trucks that St. Louis exported to Belgium, presumably right after WWII.  I don't know if anybody would have documentation that would identify exactly when they were built or for what particular order of cars.

Now I'd like to find a good picture of a St. Louis PCC truck.  This is a Clark B-2, and it's partly disassembled and missing the motors, but it's the best I could find quickly:

UPDATE:   Bill Wulfert sends a picture of a truck that will be rebuilt for the Kansas City car:

Vous avez des questions, nous avons des réponses!

More Seat Progress

Frank writes...

I'm sure you're already getting tired of hearing about seats in the 460, but bad news: we're still only about a third of the way there. Progress continues, though.

We got two more seats installed in the 460, with installation of a third begun but not yet finished, so we're still roughly on schedule. Above, I'm sitting in the bulkhead seat at the end of the car looking at the last of the movable seats on this side of the main compartment. The old seat back has been removed and the new seat back, visible inside its black plastic bag to the right, is ready to go in. This was one of the two seats we completed.

Bob Olson was a big help. In addition to installing two new seats, we had new screws come in that were needed for two of the seats we already installed. Here, Bob is tightening down the screws on one of those seats.

And here's an overview near the end of the day. The seat visible to the left facing away, and the one to the right facing toward the camera, are the two ones we installed today. All the movable seats on the R side of the main compartment are now done.

It's not always obvious from these "overview" photos how big of an improvement this is. Before the old seats go away forever, above is one of the seats showing torn fabric (there's another layer of fabric underneath it).

And here's a seat back. Yecch. It will be good to have all this replaced by nice, new fabric. In other 460 news, Jeff and Joseph were working on repairing side windows. The car has long had a problem with some of the side windows sticking and being very difficult to open, so those two are removing the affected windows, cleaning up the tracks and making any necessary repairs, and reinstalling the windows.

This cash fare receipt fell out of one of the antimacassars I removed today. I'm not sure of the year, unfortunately, but it was after the cut-back to Forest Park. It appears to have been issued on January 17th for a westbound trip from Forest Park to Westmore in Lombard, with a 37-cent fare and a 6-cent tax.

And now, folks, it's time for... drumroll... Gauge-a-palooza™! A few of the car shop guys including Brian, Jimmy, and Mikey were working on air gauges over the weekend and repaired several that were on the "to-do" list following the end of the season.

One of the gauges that was rebuilt on Sunday was for our very own 308, which was in service on Vintage Transport Extravaganza 2024 and likely will be again in 2025. Above, Brian shows off a rebuilt gauge with fresh, still slightly tacky Washington Blue paint.

And here it is looking a bit more recognizable. The paint wasn't quite dry Sunday night, but once it is, the gauge will be installed on the car. This is a gauge from stock that has been repaired; the glass from the gauge currently on the car will be switched over to this one. Thanks to our intrepid cub reporter Brian LaKemper, we can also report that the three guys listed above calibrated air gauges for the 309 and 409, cleaned and calibrated the 1808's gauges, replaced one gauge on the 4412 and calibrated the other. They also calibrated a spare gauge, to be available as a quick replacement, cut a new stock of gaskets out of rubber, and replaced leaky stem gaskets in motorman's valves on the 309 and 460. Many thanks to all the guys doing this often-thankless air brake work!

Elsewhere on the property, on my way in, I stopped by the future site of Barn 15 and snapped the above photo. It's hard to tell, but in the distance, you can see barn post footings going in along the north side of the barn at the east end! Fortunately, Bob Olson has come to our rescue with the two photos below, which he snapped about a week ago.

Above, the line of barn post footings extends about half the length of the north side of the building.

Here's a closeup showing the concrete footing and the metal post riser. The wooden post gets bolted to this riser slightly above ground level, which avoids the perennial problem of the bottoms of the posts rotting out. So, Barn 15 is officially going up, though it's only made it perhaps a foot above ground level so far.

Back over in Barn 4, in the eastward extension of the shop lean-to, I caught Dan and Jimmy assembling shelving. This room will be used primarily for storage. In other general shop news, Brian reports that Ashton spent time Saturday working on the end of North Shore 250 while Zach painted some trim in the new shop extension.

At Greg's behest, I took a walk out to the 306 and looked inside the car, where the weekday guys have been hard at work. The #1 end brake valve has been installed, though not yet piped in, which is exciting! Part of the extensive work to backdate this car to its authentic Fox River Electric configuration involves moving the motorman's position back to its original location on the left. Shaker Heights moved the motorman over toward the center of the car (a photo of this arrangement, exhibited by sister car 304 at Fox River, can be found here). The original location of the motorman's position was more like how the 415 is set up, as seen here.

Mileage Report

A couple of weeks ago Joel sent out the revenue mileage report for 2024, and I thought some of our readers might find it mildly interesting. This, of course, only covers electric cars and revenue service miles - I'm not sure how the other departments track mileage. And the winner is...

2,135 - CNS&M 714

2,013 - CNS&M 749

1,609 - CA&E 431

1,421 - CTA 3142

748 - CA&E 460

506 - CTA 4410

506 - CTA 4412

442 - CRT 1797

409 - CTA 4391

404 - CRT 1754

282 - CA&E 309

260 - CA&E 319

246 - ComEd 4

231 - IT 101

190 - CRT 1268

187 - CSL 1374

153 - CSL 144

107 - VC 19

100 - IT 277/518/234

These were followed (in order) by IT 1565, NWERR 24, IT 415, CA&E 308, IR 65, SHRT 18, CTA 4290, IT 1702, and C&WT 141. For the CA&E woods, this was the 308's first appearance on the mileage report since 2019 - it had 50 revenue miles put on it over the course of Vintage Transport Extravaganza, of course as a control trailer. Shaker Heights 18 notched 32 miles. The 36 is currently out of service until we can replace a broken leaf spring on its trailer truck; watch this space for updates on that project.

Chilly Sunday

Frank writes...

Sunday was quite a bit colder than Saturday, with temperatures in the high single digits (that's around -14 C for our metrically minded readers), but there was a sizeable crew out and a lot got done.

Once we got the heat and lights turned on mid-afternoon following completion of heat system work (see below), I was able to make progress on seats. Above we have the two seats that were completed. The one in the right foreground had its back installed last week, but there was a sheared-off bolt in the frame that was preventing it from rotating correctly. The seat behind it was completely redone today and went more quickly than the others have gone; hopefully it's a harbinger of things to come!

Here's a view taken before that first photo showing work in progress on the seat. Most visible parts of the seat frame - the plated tubing, armrests, cushions, and back - are the "movable" part of the frame. This is connected to the stationary part of the frame, the part bolted to the floor and wall, with just two vertical bolts through the middle, which go into a rotating mechanism. One of the bolts had sheared off, so I had to extract it, find and cut down a replacement, and reinstall everything. Thanks to Richard for his help with this. 

We're now up to six seats done and 21 to go, though two of the ones that have been done still need the final machine screw driven in (some of the originals are pretty goofed up; replacements screws are due any day).

For those following along at home, other than the bulkhead seats, which will be a bit more of a challenge because the frame needs to be unbolted from the car to remove the seat back, we've got all but one of the seats on the R side (top, in this image) of the main compartment done.

Besides seat mechanism repair and seat back replacement, the 460 Improvement Society was hard at work on getting the car's heat working better. Jimmy, shown above, was helped by Greg, Richard, and Good Nick in working to repair the heat in the 460's smoker. The main compartment heat (which is on a separate circuit) worked fine, but it turned out that the coil that closes the contactor for the smoker heat had failed. Jimmy removed the working contactor from the 453 and used that to replace the one in the 460, though he also needed to swap resistors. We're going to try to replace the resistor and send the coil out to get repaired, so when attention inevitably turns to the 453, the smoker heat contactor should be working quite nicely!

In other news, Norm, Zach and others were working on inspecting motors on the Electroliner. One thing they wanted to do was cut down the brushes, which had been cut far too long when the motors were rebuilt. This is not ideal. Above is part of the pile of brush cutoffs created by this operation; remember, there are eight traction motors on that thing! Other than this minor issue, and the need to replace a wire inside the #2 motor, no significant issues were found.

When I arrived, I found that Nathan had been hard at work getting the HVAC in the new lean-to extension working and had succeeded in that quest. As such, the sliding door that used to open out onto the parking lot has now been removed so that the new extension is open to the old shop.

Nathan himself was hard at work installing acoustic tile in the room at the east end of the lean-to extension. By the end of the day, that entire upper wall had acoustic panels screwed into place over the sheet metal.

In other news, Ashton was working on stripping paint in the cab of ComEd 4 in preparation for an interior paint job; the 'Liner crew was working on the interior restoration project; and, at the end of the day, Zach, Mikey, and others switched the Electroliner back over to Barn 7 and put ComEd 4, which had also been on the inspection pit track, back in its usual spot in Barn 6.

News From the Pit

The Electroliner has been moved over to the pit track in Barn 4 for electrical work.  Now that the barn is longer than before, the Liner can be moved back and forth over the pit and still be under cover.  Norm and Zach were working on checking out the traction motors.  They still need some maintenance and repairs.

And here are a couple of views of the underbody equipment.

I spent some time adjusting the new locking mechanism for the 460.  This will be much more convenient for operating crews than having to climb up to a train door to unlock the chain.

Bill was cleaning up L roll signs, and also a card table from the CA&E.  This may go into the 460.

Then I went out to look for a shop truck that we'll need in order to pull out the trailer truck from the 36 that has broken springs.  This one looks like it ought to work.  Now I just need somebody to help me lift that pantograph.

And of course, several other projects were being worked on.  I can't be everywhere at once.

Thursday Report

For various reasons it's been a while since I was able to get out to the Museum to work, but I had a few things that needed to be done.  Anyway, Thursday was a good day to catch up.  I have a few things I want to get done this spring before operations start.

My first priority will be to install the new 309 motor bearings.  And I still needed to make the little grooves that allow oil to seep from the axle surfaces to the base that butts up against the wheel.  As seen here, there are three grooves on each half.  I'm not sure these really do much good, but the originals have them and it certainly can't hurt.

The next project will be to pull out the trailer truck from under the 36 to replace the broken leaf springs, and put a shop truck under the car.  To do this, we need to remove the kingpins, which can only be done by pushing up while it's over the pit.  But first, I wanted to carefully remove the floor plates over the kingpins.

As you can see, the head of the pin is far below the floor surface

And it's nice to have the lights on again in the 36.  Two spades.  

The next project will be to develop a convenient system for locking up the 450-series cars, without modifying the cars in any way.  Something similar to what we use on the 319 should work.  I took measurements and will be making a test version at home.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the weekday guys have been hard at work as always.  Tim is rebuilding the interior of the 1268 to its original varnished splendor.

Several modifications were made to the interior during service, so it's not easy.

But once he's finished, it will look as good as new.

John and Phil continue on the interior of the 306.  The walkover seat frames are being completely refurbished.

This mechanism, with its three parallel levers for positioning the back, is more complicated than the type I'm used to on the Chicago cars.  But it works.

And then there are parts being painted for other projects: a ladder for the Pennsy tool car:

And steps for Michigan Electric 28:

New Year, New Seats

Frank writes...

Due to the holidays and various other obligations, Sunday was my first day volunteering out at IRM in nearly a month. Fortunately, together with the other shop volunteers, we were able to make some real progress.

Above is a photo of the big news: we got three more seat backs installed in the 460! Greg and Good Nick were instrumental in making this happen, and a huge thank you to Richard as well for making a couple of tapered 1/4-20 bolts to use in starting/centering the oval-head cap screws. Getting these seat backs installed is a real chore, especially with the antimacassars. When we get the seats done for the 451 and install those, it should be somewhat easier, because that car won't get its antimacassars back since it's being backdated.

Nick snapped the above photo of me fighting with an antimacassar while Greg takes a breather in the background.

After we wrapped up work on that, I installed a new lock on New Jersey Transit 4, our ex-Minneapolis PCC. Above is the old method of securing the doors: a pair of 2x4s, one inside and one outside, bolted tightly together. This keeps the car secure from random passersby, but there are two problems with this system. First, the only people who can get into the car are people with a wrench to unbolt the 2x4; and second, anyone with a wrench can get into the car.

Above, a pair of wide boards and a wide U-bolt with a padlock will keep the car much more secure.

So that's what I was up to; what else was happening around the property?

Above, there was a switch move in Barn 4 to clear the inspection pit for incoming equipment. CRT trailer 1268 needed to be moved further west on track 42; we moved it partway by muscle, but once it was under wire, motor car 1808 moved into the center section of the barn as shown here to drag it the rest of the way. Afterward, Fox River Electric 306 was moved from track 43 over to 42. You'll note the framework around the 1808: this will support large curtains that will partition the western third of the building off from the eastern two-thirds. Ironically, this is exactly where the original east wall of Barn 4 was when the first section of the building was constructed back around 1971 or so.

Greg and Jimmy helped me carry some old seats removed from the 460 over to the 451 and return with reupholstered seats. While we were over in Barn 8, we encountered this unusual site: huge sonotubes that will be used to pour the concrete footings for Barn 15. They're just being stored in Barn 8 for the moment to keep them dry and out of the weather. The contractor was on-site earlier in the week drilling holes for these sonotubes. Construction on Barn 15 has officially begun!

Back over in the Barn 4 "lean-three," Zach and Ashton were working on fixing up the end of North Shore 250.

They found some graffiti dating back to the mid-1930s on the inside of the end sheet, where nobody has seen it for some 90 years. Perhaps Svede and Finn were probably nicknames of workmen deriving from their countries of origin?

Nathan was working hard on installing ductwork in the shop lean-to extension. This room will be used as a storeroom, but before the pallet racking (already on hand) can be set up, the HVAC needs to go in. Others not previously mentioned who were working on various projects included Joel, Brian (who among other things ran the Army 45-tonner to move the 306), Richard, Tim, and Mikey.