GB&W 109 Update

Gregg Wolfersheim has sent along another update of progress on Green Bay & Western 109, the wood car currently in the Barn 4 Electric Car Shop.

Slowly the bad stuff goes away on the wood coach.

New siding is getting spliced in.

About 40 pieces are beveled at a time and then primed on the back side.

About 60% of the lower siding is on. The areas between windows are mostly done on this side. Where the bay window was, we are framing it in and making it a solid wall for now.

On the east end of the car there were severely deteriorated pieces of siding. Underneath, it is in pretty good shape. New siding is in the works!

Car Shop News

Excellent progress continues to be made in the car shop by our hard-working experts, even when for extraneous reasons no one is around to blog it all.  I had a few minutes on Saturday to take just a couple of pictures.

First is the 306.  Here we see all of the canopy electrical switches and controls that go into the car at the ends, carefully prepared and looking as good as new.  These guys do very meticulous work.

And the canopies are being  thoroughly restored.

And then, down the track, the Green Bay car is being rebuilt.  Because this car was built at the very end of wood car construction, like the CA&E Jewetts for instance, it does not have the wooden truss construction in the subframe that you would expect, relying instead on the steel underframe.

And here Gregg is painting the siding pieces.  

 And as usual, that's only a small sample of what's going on.  I might also mention, although I didn't get a picture, that Barn 15 is progressing rapidly, as seen in Frank's earlier post.  And I could point out that Barn 15 will add more covered track space than most museums have in total.  We're Number One!

East Union Corporation Tramways

Frank writes...

Sunday was the last day of Day Out With Thomas 2025. By all accounts, the event seemed to run very successfully. Several of our volunteers remarked on how everyone just seemed to be in a good mood. The weather probably helped: after a few minor sprinkles in the morning, the rest of the day was in the 70s, a welcome change from the scorching heat more typical of DOWT.

My job for the day was conductor on the 144, which for a CSL fan is about as good as it gets. My motorman was Wes Lloyd, with Matt Kalnins and Phil Hehn spelling us for a break at lunchtime. Dispatcher Marcus Ruef kept things moving like clockwork all day.

After the end of service, I headed over to Barn 7 to keep putting more paint on Shaker Heights 63. I finished the primer on the belt rail stripes down the left side, as shown. After dinner, I also painted the drip rail under the standee windows with a first coat of maroon. Also, many thanks to Richard for helping with straightening the bent sign on the 18 and figuring out how we're going to go about replacing the fogged Lexan windows on the 63. New Lexan windows are on hand, but now it's a matter of getting the rubber molding to cooperate!

In other news, Barn 15 now has walls.

And over the last few weeks we have (finally) gotten a couple of shipments of rebuilt items from the motor shop. Above is the rebuilt armature for Charles City Western 300's air compressor. Once this goes back into the compressor, the 300 should (knock on wood) be returned to service.

And here's the rebuilt CP-28 air compressor for North Shore 251, our "Silverliner" combine. This pump shorted out nearly two years ago, but it returned from the motor shop this past week. After revenue service ended, Brian, Zach, Kyle from the Steam Shop, and Jimmy got right to work switching the 251 out of Barn 6, retrieving the previously repainted compressor cradle, and bolting the air compressor into the cradle.

After that, the next step was lifting the compressor onto the car. Here, Jimmy is running the forklift while Brian, Zach and Kyle make sure everything is lined up.

Afterward, Brian and Zach hooked up the electrical and air connections and it was time for a test. The pole went up, and voila - the car made air! Here Joel is checking for sparking or anything else alarming, but it seemed to work like a charm.

The plan is to give the 251 its annual inspection this coming weekend and then, hopefully, release it for service.

And finally, another item that came back from the motor shop recently - in this case a couple of weeks ago - was a rebuilt motor for our CTA 2200s. That motor was installed just after arrival and successfully tested. But another problem these cars had was that one of their batteries had failed. We recently received a set of like-new batteries as part of a trade, and after dinner Good Nick worked on installing the new batteries as shown here. When I stopped by before heading home, he was wire-wheeling the thin layer of corrosion off the battery lugs before attaching everything. With luck, the 2200s will be in public operation again soon.

Thomas in the Rain

The second Saturday of Thomas featured rain during much of the day, but we are able to deal with it and make the event a success nonetheless.  I was on streetcar relief and was able to take several pictures before the rain started.

The Thomas train consists of six Rock Island cars and one Lackawanna Boonton car.  So this requires a large number of friendly volunteers to keep everyone happy.

At the other end of the train is the snazzy North Western Geep.

Streetcar service is generally provided by our CSL fleet.  Since rain was expected, the 4391 stayed in the barn and the other three handled the crowds.

Dan Buck was the dispatcher.

Down by the station, we see the Percy train coming in off the main.

Ironically enough, we have Thomas running Percy:

And Larry Stone flies in from Nevada to take part!

In the middle of the day, lightning was detected in the area, so the streetcars all pulled their poles and waited out the storm.  The Thomas and Percy trains continued to run.

And as always, there are lots of other activities going on.

And so, thanks to the confident wisdom of everyone, we are able to keep DOWT going as a big part of  our operating season every year.

Sunday Report

Frank writes...

The first weekend of Day Out With Thomas 2025 has come and gone - one down, one to go!

I wasn't able to make it out to the museum until about 2pm, by which time things were starting to wind down. Above is Thomas's second-to-last departure of the day, as seen from the entrance at the Wagner Loop. Richard, Greg, and Jeron were holding down ticket scanning duties while John and a few others managed on-site sales and handed out Happy Holiday Railway flyers to people on their way out. The weather was great, unusually cool for the Thomas event (by which I mean about 80 degrees).

I proceeded to keep myself busy, but unfortunately I neglected to take any more usable photos - sorry! I applied quite a bit more masking to Shaker 63 and then put some primer on the belt rail stripes down the left side of the car. I also spent some time organizing spare parts we have in storage. Many thanks to Richard and Good Nick for their help with this work! Finally, I realized a few weeks ago that NJT 4 and Shaker 63 - our two ex-Twin City Rapid Transit PCCs - had no public signage at all to identify them or speak to their history. So, we printed and laminated some basic signs and on Sunday I taped them in the car windows. We'll see about making more permanent metal signs for the cars later, as time and resources permit.

The New Museum in Town

Art Peterson has sent along a few photos taken on June 5, 1966, by George Krambles when he visited a new (or, at least, recently relocated) museum in a town northwest of Elgin called Union. All photos are from the Krambles-Peterson Archive.

Can anyone identify any of these folks?

Here's Herb Hanson, soon-to-be-purchaser of the Zephyr and later museum president.

This one is identified as Tom Jervan; any idea on the others?

A Family Visit to the Museum

We were lucky to have all our children and grandchildren visiting us last week, and it just wouldn't be complete without a visit to IRM!  Here are the grandchildren on the bench in Barn 9.

Climbing all over the equipment is not a good idea unless you have expert supervision.

And we went for a brief trip.  The younger ones seem to be afraid of the whistle!

We also did a lot of other exciting things, which I won't bore you with.

But as usual, a good time was had by all.

CA&E Steel Car Photos from the Krambles-Peterson Archive

To go along with our recent post with CA&E wood car photos sent by Art Peterson, we now have a collection of great steel car photos. Thanks, Art!

Hey, I know that car. This shot of the 409 dates to around 1930 or the early 1930s; the car is in overall red, but it wears the later version with the Sunset Lines herald rather than its as-delivered scheme with no herald and horizontal pinstripes along the side sheets. Behind it is 435, which was built in 1906 (as part of the same order as cars 300-308) as the parlor car Florence, later became parlor-buffet 601, and was rebuilt in 1929 as coach 435.

It's August 29, 1947, and 410 is outside the shop at Wheaton while car 300 is inside. It looks like the 410 has had a rough day - sharp-eyed viewers will notice something pretty important missing.

Around 1928-1929, two cars - 412 and 418 - were painted orange as part of an experiment to paint Aurora cars and Elgin cars different colors. This trial didn't last long. Here, the 412 is westbound at Laramie in 1932 still in orange paint.

By 1934, when this photo was taken at Lockwood Yard by Robert V. Mehlenbeck, the 412 was back in overall red with the Sunset Lines herald. That seems like kind of an unusual destination sign! I don't think the sign curtains included those (or at least not "theatre") in later years.

This picture was taken on October 30, 1937, and shows 412 westbound at Main and 2nd at the St. Charles terminus of the Geneva branch. The next day, the branch was abandoned.

Here's car 416 on March 31, 1957, in a George Krambles photo. I'm not sure of the location - anyone willing to hazard a guess?

This George Krambles photo of the 416 was taken the same day at Clintonville.

The first three 450-series cars arrived at Wheaton on October 3, 1945. Four days later, on the 7th, Tom Desnoyers snapped this photo of car 451 in the shop awaiting its poles and retrievers.

Cars 451 and 453 are pictured near Wayne on December 16, 1945, on a CERA trip. Give us a few years and maybe we can recreate this shot with the same two cars! Photo by Tom Desnoyers.

On June 19, 1957, just a couple of weeks before abandonment, the 451 is on the loop at Des Plaines Avenue with the 434 and another curve-sider ahead of it.

The 460 and Pullman 417 are at Fifth Avenue in Maywood on March 6, 1958, operating as the "Mass Transit Special." This was an effort by supporters of the railroad to raise interest in restarting service, though you can probably guess how well that ended up going.

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