Sunday Report

Frank writes...

Sunday was a very pleasant Father's Day, sunny and warm, and there was a rather large crowd out - I was told it was our best-attended day so far this year.

I spent most of my time on Shaker Heights 63, shown above in a view you're probably getting tired of. It's hard to tell, but the belt rail stripes now have a first coat of maroon, while the drip rail below the standee windows is now in primer all the way around the car. I also marked the belt rail stripes down the left side of the car in preparation for masking them.

Brian and Joel were working on finishing up the 277 brake rigging project; all the new bushings have now been pressed into place, some in the original brake heads and beams and some in newly fabricated brake beams, and any needed grinding has been done. The 277 is on the schedule for Trolley Weekend, coming up this weekend, so the guys will be working on reinstalling all the rigging during the week. A couple of the other car shop regulars were in revenue service. In other news, Jacob brought out the advertising cards shown above. These seem to range from the late 1960s to maybe the late 1970s, so you won't see them in our CA&E cars, but they're perfect for some of our CTA 'L' cars and buses.

Illinois Terminal: The Main-Line Cars

Illinois Terminal Main-Line Cars

All photos from the Krambles-Peterson Archive

Thanks go to Art Peterson, who has sent a fascinating collection of IT photos. This page covers some of the combines, trailers, and sleepers that were used on the system's main-line trains.

Car 241 - Built 1908 by American Car & Foundry

In 1908, AC&F built 10 cars numbered 240-249 for the Illinois Traction System (ITS). Per standard ITS/IT practice, they only had baggage doors on the right side. They were wood cars but had steel-sheathed sides as built. The above photo, taken at AC&F, is dated April 3, 1908.

Here's a builder's shot of the same car dated April 9, 1908. These cars were set up for either AC or DC operation, so they could be used over the AC line between Peoria and Champaign, but that system was short-lived and the AC equipment was removed within a year or two. Note the trolley base supports raised up on insulators.

This interior view of car 241 shows the smoker/baggage compartment with the motorman's cab on the far right and the baggage door on the left. I've been inside car 241, which is preserved today at the National Museum of Transport in St. Louis, and from memory I believe there's no full-height cab door. It's a "duck-under" with the door only extending about 3' up from the floor for some reason.

We seem to be looking forward with all the seats facing rearward, which seems odd for a single-ended car. The window shades are mounted up inside the tops of the walls and obscure the stained-glass upper sash, similar to how the CA&E 300-308 series were arranged.

This December 31, 1932, photo shows car 241 crossing the P&PU at East Peoria. Photo by Robert V. Mehlenbeck.

Brrr! Car 241 is at Big Rock Wye in Georgetown, south of Danville, during a sleet storm on February 3, 1936. Photo by William C. Janssen.

Car 241 was painted during the period between the transition from the ITS to the IT and the adoption of Traction Orange as the IT color scheme, so it wore an increasingly tired coat of Pullman Green - but with IT lettering and oval herald - through much of the 1930s. Here it is spotted at Springfield in the early/mid-1930s in a photo by Robert V. Mehlenbeck, with car 245 from the same series behind it.

It's  around 1939 and car 241 is in the traction orange livery it would wear for the last 12+ years of its service life, until it was retired and donated to NMoT in 1950. This photo was taken by William C. Janssen in Peoria.

This undated photo by Robert V. Mehlenbeck shows car 241 and trailer 524 on street trackage. Today, car 241 is in rough shape but it is preserved indoors after many years of outdoor storage. It's the last IT car in existence with a railroad roof. UPDATE: Zach Ehlers has determined that this location is in Danvers, on the Bloomington line, probably on Exchange at West Street.

Car 277 - Built 1913 by St. Louis Car Company

Combines 273-285 were the culmination of the Bosenbury design. They were similar to earlier combines like the 240-series in layout, but sported the arched roofs that had started appearing with the sleepers a few years earlier. This photo, said to be at Mattis, shows 277 and two trailers followed by another combine pulling two trailers of its own. The banner on the second car is only partly legible but refers to an "Annual Picnic, Bloomington, Ill."

That's a bit of a "yikes" - the 277 seems to have sideswiped something that knocked a queenpost over and took out its step well, also damaging the step on the following trailer. This photo by HGS is dated July 7, 1934, and the 277 appears largely unmodified from original condition except for orange paint.

This undated photo shows 277 pulling trailer 532 at Matheny, near East Peoria. Car 277 has now been rebuilt with its upper sash windows plated over.

Car 277 is at 21st & Madison in Granite City in this undated photo by William C. Janssen. At the same time 277 had its upper sash windows plated over, it also acquired air conditioning, and the amount of space under the car taken up by the A/C equipment necessitated changing the brake rigging to truck-mounted cylinders.

Car 277 is pulling parlor car 512, the Cerro Gordo, at Champaign in this undated George Krambles photo.

It's November 21, 1943, and car 277 with trailer 528 in tow is boarding passengers at the Peoria terminal as train #93.

Car 277 and trailer 532 are at Washington & Walnut in Peoria, having just departed the terminal. This photo is undated but shows car 277 with the "safety window" added to the motorman's cab, making this a close match for the target date of its restoration at IRM.

Car 277 ended its career in blue paint with a silver roof, as shown in this July 29, 1954, photo credited to Willis A. McCaleb. UPDATE: Art has determined this photo was taken in Morton.

In another photo taken the same day by the same photographer, car 277 is stopped in the street. UPDATE: Thanks to Zach Ehlers, who has identified this as Chicago Street in Lincoln, right across from the GM&O depot. The single-story buildings are still there. Art confirms the location.

Car 518 - Built 1911 by St. Louis Car Company

Trailers 516-527 were all-wood cars constructed with traditional tongue-and-groove siding that was only plated over with steel later in their careers. They did, however, sport new high-arched roofs that matched the sleeping cars. Here, car 518, today preserved at IRM, is seen sometime around 1934 in largely original condition. It still wears ITS lettering but has the later IT-style oval herald. Photo by Robert V. Mehlenbeck.

Taken at about the same time (possibly the same day) by William C. Janssen, this photo shows car 518 at Springfield.

Tom Desnoyers photographed car 518 on March 4, 1950, at Decatur. By this time, the car had acquired floor-to-letterboard steel sheathing, including over its arched upper sash windows, and had also acquired a trolley pole at one end. The car is preserved in this condition at IRM.

Car 504 "Peoria" - Built 1910 by American Car & Foundry

In 1910, AC&F built two modern sleeping cars for the ITS numbered 504-505 and named Peoria and St. Louis, respectively. Three more cars of similar design followed over the following three years. Car 504, today preserved at IRM as the last IT sleeping car in existence, is pictured here in IT orange in a photo by Robert V. Mehlenbeck.

Click here to return to the Krambles-Peterson Collection index page

Weekday Report

On Wednesday, among other things, I dropped off the items recently donated and shown in a previous post.

During the most recent operation of the 319, we noticed that a metal strip on the floor had come loose and was sticking up, like a miniature "snakehead" from the early days of railroading.  This wouldn't kill anybody, but people with open-toed shoes might get hurt.  Anyway, I fixed it.  And we'll have to keep an eye on it.

And on Thursday morning, the machinist finished reboring the final motor bearing for the 309.  I finally thought of taking a brief picture of the machine in operation.

All this work was done by Gabriel's Machine Shop in Oswego, not too far from where I live.  Gabriel is a good guy to work with, and an interesting person.  He's from Argentina, and an inventor.  He markets a machine he designed for making food packets for things like soy sauce.  I personally have no use for soy sauce, but more to the point, he also does a lot of work on engines for race cars and antique automobiles.  They're certainly interesting to look at.  And much more complex than the motor bearings we needed to have machined.

Back at the Museum, John and Gerry were working on parts for the 306, but I was busy putting the bearing into the oven and didn't get a picture of them at work.  Gerry was painting these parts, among other things.

Out in the barn, two guys I hadn't met before were working on installing windows in the 109. Their names are Ralph Durham and Ray Amash.  This car is really going to be a great addition to the collection when it's finished.

I put the newly-machined bearing into the big oven in order to break the epoxy holding the two halves together.  After a few hours it was up to 500F but still didn't come apart.  So I have left it in the oven and will try again when I get a chance.

The Very Early Days at Trolleyville

The Very Early Days at Trolleyville

All photos from the Krambles-Peterson Archive

Many thanks to Art Peterson, who has sent us a trove of terrific color images depicting the very earliest days of Trolleyville. (Almost all of the below photos predate the ones in our Early Days of Trolleyville post, also courtesy of Art, from 2016.) Enjoy!

It's February 1955 and Columbia Park is in its infancy. The quartet of ex-Fox River Electric lightweights have been on the property less than a year, and they comprise the entire electric collection. It looks like the building at the front of the trailer park is under construction. Car 302 would end up getting scrapped in the 1980s; the car in the background is unidentified. JWV photo.

Later that year, on August 6, 1955, the same scene looks quite different. The parking lot is now paved and car 306 is on display at the end of track, lettered Columbia Park & Southwestern - "The Mobile Home Route." The sign on the end reads "Trailer Mart, Inc. and Columbia Park Welcomes [sic] the Kroger Co." The destination sign reads Columbia Park Limited. Note that there is no trolley wire up yet. HMS photo.

Fast-forward seven years to August 18, 1962, and Columbia Park is now a real trolley museum, complete with 600V overhead. Here we see the two ex-Shaker Heights center-door cars that had arrived the previous year, 18 nearest the camera and 1225 behind it, with 303 (restored to Fox River Electric livery) in the distance. This is the same location as the earlier photos, just looking northwest instead of northeast.

The size of Gerald Brookins' trolley museum increased substantially in the early 1960s. Between 1961 and 1964 he acquired the two Shaker center-door cars, two Veracruz open cars, one car each from Cincinnati and Toledo, and of course an octet of CA&E cars. Here, we see half the CA&E fleet on a siding off the NYC main: 451 followed by 36, 319, and another curve-sider, likely 453 or 458.

Fox River/Shaker Heights car 303 is out on the Columbia Park line in August 1963 in this JWV photo. This is near the east end of the line: the building visible behind the van is the same building at the front of the trailer park shown in the first couple of photos above. Note the double overhead - I'm not sure what the story is with that.

We're back up front on October 12, 1963, with a view of recently painted CA&E 319. For many years, several of the CA&E cars at Trolleyville wore "loose" interpretations of past CA&E paint schemes. At far right is car 36, which briefly wore this olive green paint before acquiring the "Christmas color" dark green and red livery it wore until IRM repainted it in the 2010s.

On the same day, CA&E 460 is spotted outside the new carbarn. Gerald Brookins planned for the future and built a sturdy barn for his collection at a time when many museums were hard-pressed simply to build track. Around this time IRM was planning to evacuate its rented space at the Chicago Hardware Foundry - buildings would have seemed to be in the distant future for our organization.

Here we are inside the Brookins barn on August 22, 1964, in a Tom Desnoyers photo. Car 303 was beautifully preserved in end-of-service condition up until a "restoration" of questionable veracity was done around the early 1990s. At far left the 302 is peeking into the frame, then 453 (with "Sold to Museum - CP&SW Ry" chalked on the end window); behind the 303 is the 451, then the 306 and the 319 at the door; on the right track the 18 is closest to the camera followed by the 1225 and 304.

Here's a September 1964 JWV view of CA&E 36 in its fanciful CP&SW paint scheme at the end of track at the front of the trailer park.

Here's another JWV shot taken on the same day.

It's October 3, 1964, and car 319 is out on the "railroad" in this William C. Janssen photo.

As far as I can tell, as varied as have been the liveries worn by CA&E cars in preservation (and some have been pretty odd), only two cars were ever painted in color schemes that didn't even mildly resemble an authentic CA&E livery. One was the 318, painted orange by Westport; the other was 451, shown here on May 30, 1965, which Brookins painted in Cleveland & Southwestern colors.

It's August 28, 1965, and car 409 is spotted in the usual location at the end of track. Like 36 and 319, this car wore a variation of an actual CA&E livery, in this case a loose interpretation of the 1930s coffee-with-cream color scheme. Unlike the two wood cars, though, it was lettered for the CA&E, albeit with "Mobile Home Route" stickers next to the doors complete with a Conestoga wagon image.

Click here to return to the Krambles-Peterson Collection index page

Donations

We have just received a generous donation from an anonymous donor of several electric railway artifacts as seen here.

First, there's an interior window from one of CA&E Niles cars like the 308.  Then a gong which is labeled C&WT in chalk.  A CA&E whistle, a roll sign mechanism, and two roll signs in good condition, one from West Towns and one, I think, from Gary Rys.  And then some paper items I haven't gone through yet.  I'll be dropping all of this off at the Museum tomorrow.  I probably don't have to point out how grateful we are for donations like this, that help keep the trains running and provide informative displays for our visitors.  And if you, the viewer, have railroad-related items of almost any sort that you would be willing to donate, let's talk!

The Masked Streetcar

Frank writes...

I didn't do a very good job of getting photos on Sunday. The wood train was out, but I didn't get any photos of it. I spent a good portion of the afternoon disassembling the grid box we took off the 319 a few weeks ago (this is the one originally off the 321). It was in pretty bad shape, with a few broken or spalling grid elements. But the usable grid elements went into storage with our other grid components, while the box frame I kept on hand - I'd like to clean it up and have it available for the next time we want to build a grid box in a hurry. Then, both before and after dinner, my attention turned to the Shaker Heights PCC.

The next step is adding the maroon striping. The car gets two maroon stripes on the belt rail, bordering the ivory stripe; one along the edge of the roof; and one below the standee windows, which is formed by the drip rail. I figured I'd start with the belt rail stripes. Above, masking; below, primer.

I also started priming the drip rail but ran out of time. I really think that adding these stripes will make a huge difference in how this color scheme looks. Also, I noticed that someone had replaced the window in the second door leaf with one of the new Lexan windows that John and Joel sourced. Thanks to whoever has started working on this! The very top of the door still needs to be worked into the gasket, but the old (and fogged to the point of opacity) Lexan window had fallen out of this door, so this is a big improvement. We custom-ordered enough of these tall Lexan panes to replace the windows in all eight doors, leaving the standee windows and front roll sign window as the only remaining "fogged" Lexan windows on the car.

From the Mailbag

Saturday was supposed to be another RPO Days exhibition, but the Burlington RPO had a bearing problem, as I understand, and so it could not be used in service.  It was, however, parked on the west wye so people could go in, look around, and talk to the crew.  

For mainline service we had the 309 and 319 running all day.  Things went smoothly.

And you knew this was coming: we have to have a picture of the crew.

The conductor was another new member, Curtis Fay-Wolf, who has mostly been working in the Diesel Department, and recently passed the rules test.  So he was lucky enough to get me as a motorman.  He did a good job and we got along well.

The Shay was pulling the mixed train.  It's always fun to watch.

And I should mention that Zach was the dispatcher and kept everything moving efficiently.  The Buck brothers ran the 4391, but I didn't get a chance to photograph them.  And as usual, a good time was had by all!