The Yellow Hammer: An Illustrated History of Illinois Terminal 101

The Yellow Hammer

An Illustrated History of Illinois Terminal 101

by Frank Hicks

Foreword

When traction fans think of Illinois interurban lines radiating out in multiple directions from an urban hub, operating under different names but common ownership, they’re almost exclusively thinking of the Chicago network. But that description could also define a system at nearly the opposite corner of the state, on a different inland port: East St. Louis. For a quarter century, four interurban lines largely under common ownership – not including the mighty Illinois Traction System – connected the cities along the east bank of the Mississippi with St. Louis via the Eads Bridge. These lines were known as the Great East Side Electric Railway System.

From the Eads Bridge crossing into East St. Louis, the East Side system operated interurban lines south to Columbia and Waterloo, southeast to Belleville, east to Lebanon, and northeast to Edwardsville. But the longest and fastest route, the one with the largest on-line population and ending in the most populous terminus of the various East Side lines, was the railway north from East St. Louis up the east bank of the Mississippi to Alton. This was the main line of the Alton Granite & St. Louis, or AG&SL, and its riders enjoyed a remarkably varied journey. Starting by soaring high above the Mississippi over the Eads Bridge, the AG&SL cars trundled through the city streets of East St. Louis and Granite City; sped along arrow-straight double-track right-of-way through Eagle Park; raced the Chicago & Alton through Nameoki; and passed the industrial centers of Wood River and East Alton before terminating on the banks of the Mississippi, at the foot of Piasa Street, in Alton. The AG&SL was the fastest electric railroad in the region, and the locals gave it a nickname rooted in the distinctive color of its cars and the staccato sound they made as they slammed across diamonds and switches. It was called the Yellow Hammer Line.

Headline Image: Car 101 accelerates a two-car train over Cass Avenue and into the St. Louis subway at the end of its journey from Alton. George Krambles Photo, Krambles-Peterson Archive.

Acknowledgements

For providing the photographs and illustrations used in this article, thanks go to Art Peterson; Norm Krentel; Ray Piesciuk; Christopher Walker and the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum; and Carl Lantz and the Illinois Railway Museum’s Strahorn Library. Thanks to Joel Ahrendt, Art Peterson, and Richard Schauer for proofreading the article, and to Norm Krentel for providing historical information. I’m also grateful to the late Steve Scalzo for his research into the East Side lines, and to his wife Kimberly for donating these records to IRM.

The Great East Side Electric Railway System

In the years after the Civil War, horsecar lines became an emblem of urban pride and a sign that a city was on the rise. Along the east bank of the Mississippi across from St. Louis, the two largest urban centers both inaugurated small horsecar systems. Alton, located 20 miles north of St. Louis, ran its first horsecars in December 1867, but ridership was so low that service was suspended between 1869 and 1873. In the meantime, East St. Louis ran its first horsecars in 1872. This system fared even worse, and it shut down permanently later in the 1870s.

But in 1890, East St. Louis tried again, this time with electricity. The city’s population had tripled since 1870 (and it would roughly double again over the course of the 1890s) and the city was now as populous as Alton. Furthermore, electric traction – recently the focus of a convincing demonstration in Richmond, Virginia, engineered by Frank J. Sprague – promised faster travel over longer distances at less cost. The first single-truck electric cars, provided by the Thomson-Houston Company, ran in East St. Louis in March 1891. For its part, Alton had built a steam dummy line in 1889, but quickly saw the writing on the wall and looked to electrify both its steam- and horse-powered streetcar lines. Construction of a powerhouse began in 1893 but was halted due to the effects of the financial downturn. The first electric streetcar in Alton ran in August 1895.

Sometime around 1900, a trio of single-truck Alton city cars gathers in front of City Hall at the foot of Piasa Street. Stephen Scalzo Collection, Illinois Railway Museum.

In the meantime, other cities in the area had begun to construct streetcar lines. Belleville, located 12 miles southeast of East St. Louis, gained its first streetcar line in 1894. The following year, the Venice Madison & Granite City Railway (VM&GC) began operating streetcars between Venice and Granite City, two cities located along the river just north of East St. Louis.

As the 19th century drew to a close, interest was rising across the country in interurban electric railways. Cities like Portland, Oregon, and Sandusky, Ohio, among others, already had electric railways joining them to nearby cities with big double-truck electric cars. The first interurban line in East St. Louis was the St. Louis & Belleville Electric (SL&BE), incorporated in 1897 and built in 1898. It ran from the Eads Bridge 12 miles southeast to Belleville. Additional lines were built from Edgemont, midway along the SL&BE, north to Collinsville in 1900; northeast from East St. Louis to Edwardsville via Collinsville in 1901; and east from Edgemont to O’Fallon and Lebanon in 1902. In 1902, a new company – the East St. Louis & Suburban, or ESL&S – was created to consolidate these interurban lines, the East St. Louis and Belleville city systems, and the trackage over the Eads Bridge under common ownership.

While all this construction was underway east of East St. Louis, other promoters were building electric railways north of the city. The Granite City Venice & East St. Louis (GCV&ESL) began construction on a line from Madison to East St. Louis via Venice and Brooklyn in late 1899. Service began in early 1900, connecting with the East St. Louis system’s St. Clair Avenue line. In 1902, the Granite City & St. Louis (GC&SL) was formed to merge the VM&GC and GCV&ESL, creating a unified streetcar system spanning the cities north of East St. Louis.

St. Louis was now connected with the major population centers to the east via electric railways over the Eads Bridge, and promoters north of East St. Louis and in Alton recognized a need to connect their cities with the “gateway city.” In February 1904, the Alton Granite & St. Louis, or AG&SL, was incorporated as a consolidation of the GC&SL and the Alton Traction & Light Company, which operated the streetcar system in Alton. An interurban line to connect Alton and Granite City was planned and right-of-way was soon acquired. The system would also construct a new “short line” directly from Madison to North 13th Street in East St. Louis, avoiding the slow street trackage through Venice and Brooklyn.

This simplified route map shows the AG&SL and major connections. The dashed line is the A&E entry into Alton used after 1930. The "short line" is the more easterly of the two lines into East St. Louis. Click here for a map of Illinois interurban lines that includes more detail.

Construction began northward from Granite City, and by May 1904, the cars were already running as far as Nameoki, along the Chicago & Alton (C&A). Construction proceeded northward, reaching Mitchell during the summer and heading north through Hartford and Wood River late in the year. Substations were built at Granite City, Hartford, and Alton, while the existing Alton powerhouse was expanded to support the additional demand. A carbarn was built at Yager Park, on the east side of Alton. In March 1905, the line was completed through East Alton to downtown Alton via Broadway. Service began between downtown Alton and the northeast side of East St. Louis along St. Clair Avenue, where passengers had to alight and walk across the C&A – which steadfastly refused to permit a crossing to be installed – and board an East St. Louis city car. For passengers heading across the river to St. Louis, there was a short track connection to the ferry at Venice.

The first interurban cars built new for the new line to Alton were a group of cars like 53, possibly pictured at the Yager Park car barn. Krambles-Peterson Archive.

The Alton line had been built to 4’10” gauge, matching the St. Louis city system but also the rest of the ESL&S network, but all of the east side lines – including the AG&SL – were converted to standard gauge in mid-June 1905. Over the course of 1905, an associated line called the Edwardsville Alton & St. Louis (EA&SL) constructed a line that split off from the AG&SL at Mitchell and proceeded nine miles northeast to Edwardsville. This branch opened for business in November 1905 and was folded into the AG&SL in January 1907.

The “short line” between Madison and East St. Louis included a stretch of arrow-straight, double-track railroad. Here, a three-car train of AG&SL wood cars is pictured on this section near Eagle Park in April 1916. Krambles-Peterson Archive.

In the meantime, the ESL&S had gained control of the AG&SL, adding it to the existing stable of lines. The Alton line was dispatched from East St. Louis while maintaining operational independence and its own name. It was fully a part of the Great East Side Electric Railway System, though, and evidence suggests that equipment was regularly exchanged between the AG&SL and the ESL&S lines operating east out of East St. Louis. The “short line” from Madison to East St. Louis via Eagle Park was completed in early 1906. A court injunction was necessary to force installation of a crossing of the Louisville & Nashville, but once that was accomplished in November 1906, it permitted AG&SL cars to operate hourly through service all the way from Alton to the Eads Bridge in an hour and 15 minutes. Around the same time, records suggest the color of the cars was changed to yellow, likely a chrome yellow verging on orange. Before long, the line to Alton acquired the nickname the “Yellow Hammer Line.”

High-Speed Cars

In its early years, the AG&SL held down most of its service with heavy wooden interurban cars of two distinct types. The first, cars 1-8, were cars that had been built in 1898 for the St. Louis & Belleville Electric and resold to the AG&SL. Their early history isn’t clear, but some – perhaps all – were rebuilt with large open platforms at both ends, with the motorman’s cab behind that. The AG&SL added limited service in 1915, and at this time at least some of these cars were rebuilt as parlor cars. Most – possibly all – were later rebuilt to re-enclose their platforms, though usually when this was done the motorman’s cab remained in its open-platform location some 10’ away from the end of the car.

Ex-St. Louis & Belleville Electric cars 3 and 7, both heavily rebuilt in different ways, are departing the station at the west end of the Eads Bridge on a trip to Alton, likely sometime in the 1910s. Krambles-Peterson Archive.

The other type of car that protected most service on the Alton line was the 51-58 series, built new for the AG&SL in 1904. They were large, handsome cars; like the 1-8 series they were double-ended and had two boarding doors at opposite corners, but uniquely on the line they had train doors for passing between cars. It seems the 1-8 and 51-58-series cars were all fitted with Van Dorn couplers at first, but by the mid-teens they had been reequipped with early Tomlinson couplers. All the cars were fitted with GE Type M control equipment.

The AG&SL wood cars were substantial but they weren’t huge, weighing just under 80,000 lbs., and by some standards they might be considered suburban cars. This was important because the Terminal Railroad Association, which owned the tracks over the Eads Bridge, was concerned about heavy trains going over the bridge. The AG&SL wood cars were permitted to cross the bridge into St. Louis proper, though some runs may have terminated at Third and Broadway in East St. Louis. When the Illinois Traction System (ITS), controlled by William B. McKinley, extended south from Springfield to St. Louis in 1906, it gained access to East St. Louis via a trackage rights agreement with the AG&SL. Its big, heavy, 60’ combines, however, were barred from the Eads Bridge entirely, and its riders had to transfer at the east end of the bridge to a streetcar for the final leg across the Mississippi.

By the mid-1910s, ridership was increasing and the AG&SL was looking to both speed up service and offer premier trains. The ITS had gotten its direct access into St. Louis in 1910 by the monumental project of constructing the McKinley Bridge, which extended from Main Street in Venice to 9th and Salisbury in St. Louis. In 1913, the AG&SL signed a trackage rights agreement with the ITS allowing some of its runs to proceed over the McKinley Bridge into St. Louis. Not long afterward, fast limited service was inaugurated in 1915, with trains making the journey from Alton to St. Louis in 55 minutes. Some of the wood cars were rebuilt as parlor cars, too. But the wood cars in the fleet were already starting to look outdated, so to reequip its premier trains, the railroad went shopping for new equipment.

What the line selected, in an order placed on December 16, 1916, with the American Car Company of St. Louis, was a trio of high-stepping steel interurban cars designed from the start for fast service. The cars, proudly lettered for the AG&SL and numbered 60-62, were ordered at the same time as an ESL&S order for no fewer than 50 steel-bodied streetcars that would modernize city service in East St. Louis. A fourth AG&SL interurban car, identical to the previous three except in that it was an unpowered trailer, was added in April 1917.

This broadside view of AG&SL 61, which one day would become Illinois Terminal 101, clearly shows the deep drop section for the center doors. Miller Library, Kathryn and David Black Transit Archives, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

The 60-series cars were visually distinctive in large part thanks to their center-entrance design. Center-entrance interurban cars had been nearly unheard of a decade earlier. But a few cities like Denver and Seattle had started building center-entrance city cars, and before long some interurban lines began ordering center-entrance interurban cars. This was around the same time that all-steel car construction began appearing, and in fact some of the earliest all-steel interurban cars were center-entrance cars built in 1910 for the Seattle Renton & Southern. Innovative “Hobbleskirt” streetcars built for New York Railways in 1912 made center-entrance cars more prominent, and by 1915, the layout was all the rage among electric railways. The AG&SL 60-series cars were fitted with a single-stream door on each side, with manually operated two-leaf doors that folded outward and extended all the way to the bottom step. There was also a narrow access door at the right corner of each end so the motorman could get into his cab from outside the car.

Besides the obvious center-entrance design, the two most remarkable features of the new cars were hidden: their light weight and their high speed. The lightweight construction was necessary to make it possible for the new steel cars to access downtown St. Louis via the weight-restricted Eads Bridge. This period was one of rapid progress in lightweight car design. The first ultra-lightweight streetcars had been built by American and by the rival St. Louis Car Company in early 1916, just months before the order for the 60-series cars was placed. It was around that same time that Stone & Webster was ordering some of the first single-truck streetcars built to the design of Charles O. Birney. Within a year or two, the Birney car would become the de facto standard for lightweight streetcar design.

The 60-series cars were built remarkably lightly and used many of the same design principles as the Birney. They had I-beam center sills for strength in MU and trailer-pulling operation, but the sills were smaller toward the ends of the car to save weight. The bolsters were of an open-truss design and the side sheets of the cars were just 3/32” thick. Though the cars were over 52’ long and sat on large, heavy, high-speed interurban trucks, their total weight was just 58,500 pounds – significantly lighter than the 270-series combines of similar length that the ITS had ordered just four years earlier. The design was a success, and the 60-series cars were able to run from Alton straight through to the ESL&S terminal at the western end of the Eads Bridge via the Madison “short line” and street trackage in East St. Louis.

AG&SL 61 is pictured atop a flatcar ready for delivery in July 1917. Miller Library, Kathryn and David Black Transit Archives, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

Despite the cars’ lightweight construction, they were designed from the start for high-speed operation. They rode on heavy Brill 27MCB2X trucks and were fitted with four Westinghouse 548 motors of about 105hp each. Although the older AG&SL and ESL&S interurban cars used GE Type M control, the 60-series cars used Westinghouse HLF low-voltage control with field tapped motors, enabling the cars to go extremely fast. The 60-series cars were fitted with M22A brake valves that permitted either straight-air or automatic braking and they were equipped with Westinghouse tight-lock radial couplers that automatically made air (though not electrical) connections. For added security, there were even coupling chains.

On the exterior, the cars were fitted with mostly the same equipment as the existing AG&SL fleet. They had a permanently mounted rooftop headlight at each end that was protected by a prominent framework from contact with the pole or trolley rope. Over the motorman’s head was a whistle (soon replaced by an air horn) and a gong. Roof ventilators were of a dome-topped Brill design called an “Exhaust” ventilator. The windows were fitted with Brill “Renitent” brass sash and mesh-type window guards. On the ends of the cars were drumhead-style destination signs that read “Alton-St. Louis” across the top and bottom, with a movable panel in the middle reading “Electric Way” that could be moved to reveal either the word “Limited” or “Local.” There were flag/marker brackets but no marker lights; the East Side system hadn’t yet adopted built-in electric markers.

The interior of car 61 as delivered appeared sparse, but would soon be outfitted with luxurious armchairs for parlor service. Miller Library, Kathryn and David Black Transit Archives, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

Inside, the cars had only a few built-in seats, including L-shaped bench seats with a view out the front windows. Intended for premier parlor car service, each car was equipped by the AG&SL with 35 removable armchairs, plus there was a rack over the bulkhead at one end for storing a few folding chairs. The car floor was even throughout, with steep step wells to exit and trap doors that could be used to cover the step wells, locking the doors closed and allowing a fold-down bench to provide extra seating. The ceiling was finished with full headlining panels, lamps with milk-glass shades ran down the center of the ceiling, there were coat hooks atop each window post, and there was an Ohmer fare register system. There was also a diminutive lavatory behind the motorman’s cab at one end.

The first three cars, motor cars numbered 60-62, were delivered around late July or early August 1917. The fourth car, ordered in April 1917 and built as a trailer numbered 63, was delivered sometime in early 1918. It was largely identical to the first three cars but was built as a trailer, without motors or unit switches. It also had an interior partition halfway between one end and the center door, fitted with nearly full-height windows flanking the center sliding door, to section off a smoking compartment.

By the time car 64 was delivered in 1924, the AG&SL had opted for a simplified livery devoid of striping. Miller Library, Kathryn and David Black Transit Archives, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

The interior of car 64 reveals some changes from the original order, including a partition to section off the smoking compartment, different ceiling trim, and an inward-facing bench seat against the end wall. Miller Library, Kathryn and David Black Transit Archives, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

Six years later, in April 1924, the AG&SL ordered the final car of the series, a car numbered 64. It was identical to the earlier cars except for a few details, including six built-in electric marker lights over the end windows, smaller windows in the interior partition, advertising card racks and unpainted trim in the ceiling, and no Ohmer fare register. Car 63 acquired two motors, though it was typically used as a second car and not run singly. Car 64 may also have been equipped with just two motors.

The cars were an immediate success. They were the fastest interurbans running out of St. Louis, faster than anything else fielded by the ESL&S or ITS systems. The balancing speed was conservatively claimed to be 65mph, with 70mph possible given the right conditions, but some estimates of the cars’ speed potential ran as high as 85mph. The time needed for a limited car to make the trip between Alton and the Eads Bridge was shaved to 45 minutes. The AG&SL had already been known as the “Yellow Hammer Line,” but the new cars came to be closely associated with that nickname and the 60-series cars specifically were referred to as “Yellow Hammers” or sometimes as “Alton high-speeds.” As the new cars assumed premier express duties, it’s likely that some, or perhaps all, of the older 1898 wood cars that were set up as parlor cars were converted to coaches.

Cars 61 and 63 are in operation on the AG&SL in this image taken not long after they were delivered. Most photos of the “Yellow Hammers” on the AG&SL used orthochromatic film and made the cars appear very dark in color, but this shot shows the chrome yellow paint – and dark, likely black, striping and highlights – to good effect. Bruneau Collection – Strahorn Library, Illinois Railway Museum.

But although the AG&SL was ordering new cars during the early 1920s, its financial health was poor. The company had entered receivership in 1919, the victim of inflation driving operating costs up faster than revenue could match. In 1926, the court ordered the AG&SL broken up. The Alton city lines were taken over by the Alton Railway Company, while ownership of the interurban lines was assumed by another new corporation, the St. Louis & Alton, or SL&A. The new interurban company took over the 26 miles of trackage between Alton and East St. Louis on December 1st, 1926.

The date is unknown, but car 63 is likely at the ESL&S Winstanley shops sometime in the mid-1920s. It has been fitted with St. Louis 23A trucks and walkover coach seats. Krambles-Peterson Archive.

By this time, the Great East Side Electric Railway System was starting to contract rapidly. The local lines in Belleville were replaced by buses between May 1925 and May 1926. The line from East St. Louis to Collinsville via Cahokia Mounds was also abandoned in 1926. In September and October 1928, interurban service over the line to Lebanon and from Collinsville north to Edwardsville was replaced by buses. The remaining two ESL&S interurban lines, from East St. Louis to Belleville and East St. Louis to Collinsville via Edgemont, would stagger on until final abandonment in July 1932.

For its part, the SL&A continued operating its steel and wood cars from East St. Louis to Alton and Edwardsville, but ridership continued to fall – especially after the onset of the Great Depression – and the physical plant, in particular on the more lightly patronized Edwardsville line, deteriorated. The AG&SL had made some modifications to the “high-speeds” during their early service life. Most notably, they’d been converted to coach seating with walkover seats. They had also acquired new trucks, with beefy Commonwealth 81 cast-steel trucks replacing their original Brill 27MCB types in 1924. They kept their WH 548 motors with 61:28 high-speed gearing. Air horns had replaced their whistles and electric markers over the end windows were added, adhering to standard East Side system practice. Car 63 was also motorized, making the fleet more homogeneous.

Car 61 is pictured near the end of its AG&SL days. Modifications include electric markers, coach seating, and Commonwealth trucks. Bruneau Collection – Strahorn Library, Illinois Railway Museum.

In 1930, the SL&A was leased by the Illinois Terminal Railroad, or IT, which was a recent reorganization of the ITS, by far the largest interurban network in the state. The high-speed “Yellow Hammer” cars were sold that June to the IT. They would now don the “traction orange” paint of the McKinley system.

The McKinley Lines

The IT set about improving service on the Alton line. In July 1931, nearly all trains to St. Louis were rerouted from the old “short line” route via Eagle Park to the IT’s McKinley Bridge. The IT had just constructed new elevated approaches to both ends of the bridge: an approach on the west side provided a direct route to the north side of downtown St. Louis via 12th Street, while construction of the Venice High Line on the east side of the bridge connected with the AG&SL main line just north of Eagle Park at Lang, avoiding some 2.5 miles of street trackage in Venice and Granite City. These bypasses made the trip to St. Louis significantly faster. Within three years, the new Midwest Terminal Building would rise above a short section of electrified subway and provide the IT – and the Alton line – with a permanent terminal in St. Louis. A single trip each day, run to maintain the franchise, still used the old AG&SL “short line” route through East St. Louis for a few years, but that route was abandoned in 1935 along with the last of the East St. Louis streetcar system.

Car 101 is at the Granite City shops early in its IT career, in 1934, with ex-ESL&S suburban deck-roof cars visible to the left. Malcolm McCarter Photo, Bruneau Collection – Strahorn Library, Illinois Railway Museum.

The IT shaved more time off the Alton-St. Louis schedules by getting the interurban cars off street trackage at the other end of the route, too. At about the same time the IT leased the SL&A, it also took over the Alton & Eastern (A&E), a steam railroad between East St. Louis and Grafton, a city along the river north of Alton. The A&E was a segment of the old Chicago Peoria & St. Louis Railroad that had been broken up in 1924. It used a direct route from Wood River to downtown Alton, where its tracks passed along the riverfront. The IT spied an opportunity, and by late 1930 it had electrified the A&E line between “IT Junction” in Wood River and downtown Alton. The route via East Alton that plodded along East Broadway to access downtown Alton was abandoned.

Another abandonment was the AG&SL line from Mitchell to Edwardsville, the track of which was in poor condition by the early 1930s. The line was abandoned on September 2, 1931, reducing the number of interurban routes between St. Louis and Edwardsville from three to just one – the IT main line – in the span of three years.

Likely taken in the mid-1930s, this image shows car 101 on the loop at the St. Louis terminal. Krambles-Peterson Archive.

The 60-series cars were still the premier cars on the Alton line, but they weren’t the only ones that the IT acquired to hold down service. Initially, the IT leased 14 cars from the ESL&S: six big deck-roof suburban cars from the ESL&S system as well as the eight 51-series cars that had long been denizens of the Alton line. All of these cars were returned by 1933. Far more successful were four center-entrance cars that had been built in the ESL&S Winstanley Shops between 1922 and 1924. Clearly patterned after the 60-series AG&SL cars, they were of identical length and similar layout but had dual-stream doors and were fitted from the start with coach seating. They also had less powerful GE 275A 60hp motors and K-35 controllers, meaning they were slower and could not run in multiple unit. Still, they were less than a decade old and were in good condition, so they were renumbered into the IT 120-123 series. A few years later, the IT would also purchase a quartet of 1924-vintage suburban center-entrance cars from the ESL&S that they would number 470-473 and run in local service to Granite City.

This interior photo of car 100 is undated, but the neatly tied white IT antimacassars on the seats suggest it may have been taken sometime around 1940. Bruneau Collection – Strahorn Library, Illinois Railway Museum.

The IT also started modifying the 60-series cars. Among the first things to go were the car numbers: AG&SL 60-64 became IT 100-104 in 1931, with car 61 renumbered to IT 101. Another early change was replacement of the oddball Westinghouse couplers with IT-standard Sharon MCB couplers. As the 1930s wore on, there were more changes: car 101 had its “Exhaust” roof ventilators replaced by boxy Utility ventilators; the prominent rope guard over the rooftop headlight was removed; the mesh-style window guards were disposed of. Minor alterations like changing the left-side end windows to two-pane types and altering the horn mounts were made. Toward the end of the decade, the rooftop headlight was removed and a bracket for a removable headlight was added to the dash. Shortly before World War II, the side windows on all the cars were rebuilt. The upper sash was removed and replaced by sheet steel, dramatically altering the appearance of the 100s. 

Cars 104 and 101 are at Granite City yard around 1940, shortly after the rebuilding which blanked over their upper-sash windows. Krambles-Peterson Archive.

Even with a class of just five cars, there were notable variations. By the time of the IT purchase, all five had a coach configuration. At some point, the original cars acquired partitions between the smoking and “main” compartments. The seats were upholstered in patterned green plush, but in later years the seats in the smoking compartments were redone in black leatherette. At least some of the cars were fitted with St. Louis 23A MCB trucks for a time on the AG&SL. The IT replaced the roof ventilators on most of the cars with boxy Utility ventilators, but car 104 kept its original domed “Exhaust” ventilators to the end and car 100 acquired a set of unusual cylindrical ventilators. Trolley bases varied, too, with some cars even sporting two different types.

The Alton cars acquired a coat of IT orange and received some McKinley Lines touches, but they still stood out among the railroad’s fleet of interurbans. They were among the newest interurban cars on the system and were also regarded as the fastest. They kept for their whole careers certain East Side system design features like right-side cabs, drumhead-style destination signs, and electric marker lights over the end windows. And, of course, their center-entrance design was only shared on the IT system by the other ex-ESL&S cars in the 120- and 470-series.

On an unknown date in the 1940s, Illinois Terminal 101 and 102 roll down Madison Street in Granite City bound for St. Louis. George Krambles photo, Krambles-Peterson Archive.

The IT purchased the SL&A outright in 1940 and continued regular high-speed service on the line through the World War II years. The 100-series cars were typically used for limited trains, due to their speed, and were most often run in pairs, though single-car operation was also common and longer trains were occasionally run. Even by the early 1950s, there were 44 trips daily, with trip times of around 45 minutes for limited trains. Off-peak headways were hourly, but at rush hour trains ran on headways of as little as five minutes. The 100- and 120-series cars were typically kept on the Alton line, but they occasionally operated on excursions or school field trips up the IT main line as far as Staunton or Litchfield. The 100s were sometimes run as second sections behind IT mainline interurban trains, and with their higher speed the Alton cars invariably kept close on the heels of the big IT mainline cars.

Cars 102 and 100 are far from familiar territory, northbound on Union Street in Staunton with St. Paul’s Evangelical Church in the background. William C. Janssen Photo, Krambles-Peterson Archive.

Changes to the 100s during the 1940s were minimal. Around 1950, due to deterioration in the condition of the SL&A right-of-way and concerns about the speed of the cars, the field taps were removed from the 100s to slow them down. Around 1949, the motorman’s cabs were fitted with safety glass in the front window, a modification made to the entire IT fleet around that time. In the meantime, the other cars used on the Alton line, the 120s, had been rebuilt around 1942 for multiple-unit operation. The 100s were still the faster cars, though.

On November 12, 1949, George Krambles captured 101 and one other 100-series car southbound at Fehling Siding in Granite City meeting 120 and a second car headed to Alton. George Krambles Photo, Krambles-Peterson Archive.

After World War II, as automobile ownership exploded, ridership on the Alton line – in common with the few remaining interurban lines across the country – plummeted. From a high of nearly 1.2 million passengers per year during the war, ridership on the Alton line fell to just 636,000 in 1951. The IT instituted fare increases, but with both automobiles and competing bus lines offering alternative means of transportation, the fare increases suppressed ridership further. Major right-of-way improvement work was necessary, including renewing street trackage in Granite City and replacing the bridge over the paralleling railroads at Mitchell. The fleet of nine center-entrance cars was also considered to be at the end of its life and in need of replacement.

Car 101 is at the Alton terminal and has its west pole up, ready to head back to St. Louis, as IT railbus 206 boards in the background for its trip up the river to Grafton. Tom Desnoyers Photo, Krambles-Peterson Archive.

Car 102 lets off its passengers at Alton in a driving snowstorm on November 29, 1952, the Saturday following Thanksgiving. This will be the last winter for the Alton line. Tom Desnoyers Photo, Krambles-Peterson Archive.

The IT proposed abandoning the Alton line and replacing it with buses, but the competing bus lines objected on the grounds that they could absorb the traffic. The IT acquiesced – not intending to keep the route, but rather to abandon it entirely. It filed a petition in December 1951 for cessation of service, and on March 8, 1953, the Alton line was abandoned.

Preservation

With the abandonment of the Alton line, the traction system on the Illinois side of the river contracted further. The ESL&S system was gone, with the last streetcar lines in East St. Louis abandoned in 1935, Alton city cars gone in 1936, and the freight-only St. Louis & Belleville Electric line dieselized in 1949. All that remained was the IT, with its suburban route through Venice and Madison to Granite City and its belt line over the Venice High Line via Granite City north toward Springfield. Of the nine Alton center-entrance cars, six were scrapped in July 1953, including all four of the ex-ESL&S 120s and two of the high-speed cars. A third high-speed car, 103, had its body sold to be used as a cabin in Clifton, Illinois, along the Grafton line.

Car 101 is southbound at Wood River on October 11, 1952. William C. Janssen Photo, Krambles-Peterson Archive.

Only cars 101 and 104 were granted a stay of execution. They were kept as a “protection” train based in Edwardsville, available to take commuters from that city into St. Louis in the event the intercity train from Springfield was delayed. These two cars had acquired a new paint job a year or so earlier: apple green and cream to match the suburban cars in Granite City local service. Within a few months after their transfer to Edwardsville, cars 101 and 104 also acquired new trucks when their heavy Commonwealth MCB trucks were replaced by St. Louis 61A MCB trucks with 53:21 gearing that were salvaged from scrapped 120s. The trucks placed under car 101 had come off car 122.

For the next three years, the two remaining “Yellow Hammer” cars mostly sat on a siding at Edwardsville, awaiting breakdowns and service interruptions. During this period, the IT was rapidly dieselizing its electrified freight service while its ridership cratered. The Bloomington and Urbana-Danville lines had already been abandoned in 1952. In 1955, all passenger service north and east of Springfield – the lines to Peoria and Champaign-Urbana, respectively – was abandoned. The last day of intercity IT passenger service between St. Louis and Springfield was March 3, 1956.

This 1955 photo shows car 101 in its usual location during the last few years of its service life: on a siding in Edwardsville. John Allen-Centralia Photo, Bruneau Collection – Strahorn Library, Illinois Railway Museum.

With this, the only remaining vestige of the once-massive IT passenger network was the suburban operation between the St. Louis terminal and Granite City. This line was operated by eight double-ended PCCs delivered in 1949, four ex-ESL&S 470-series center-entrance cars, and four ex-Illinois Valley lightweight cars. The two Alton line cars, with their station in Edwardsville no longer host to any through interurban trains, were ill-suited to the local Granite City operation. They were out of a job.

They weren’t alone; the sizable IT fleet of mainline interurban cars, including the eight-year-old streamliners, was surplus and headed to scrap. But the two Alton cars would be among the handful to get a lasting reprieve. Within days of abandonment of the IT intercity system, the first of the pair – car 101 – had been purchased for preservation. The buyer was a 23-year old man from the west side of Chicago named Robert E. Bruneau who had borrowed money from his parents to purchase Alton car 101. Needing a place to move it, he chose the Illinois Electric Railway Museum (IERM) in North Chicago, which was acquiring IT mainline combine 277. Following the sale of these cars on March 9th, car 277 towed car 101 from Edwardsville north to Springfield – said to be among the very last electric moves over the railroad before the power was cut. After that, the cars were towed over the IT to East Peoria, via the Peoria & Pekin Union to the Chicago & North Western at Peoria, and thence over the C&NW to North Chicago. There, they were dropped off at IERM, joining three other museum-owned interurban cars (Indiana 65 and Milwaukee Electric 1129 and 1136) and an assortment of electric cars owned by the foundry on whose land the museum sat. Bruneau donated car 101 to IERM, joining the museum at the same time as a member.

Car 101, with mainline combine 277 coupled behind it, is shown in March 1956 en route to its new home at IERM in North Chicago. William Robertson Photo, Krambles-Peterson Archive.

Back in St. Louis, the other surviving Alton car, IT 104, remained in storage for a few more months until it was sold to the National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood, Missouri, west of St. Louis, in December 1956. Shortly thereafter it was moved to NMOT, where it has remained ever since. The Granite City local cars remained in operation until June 22, 1958, when the last IT electric car pulled its pole and bus service replaced the local cars. Two of the ex-Illinois Valley lightweights were preserved, one at IERM – car 415, moved to North Chicago in October 1956 while the Granite City service was still running – and one at NMOT – car 410, purchased in July 1959 and moved to Kirkwood that year. The PCCs were all sold to a scrapper, but two were resold to museums in Ohio and Connecticut in 1964. The ex-ESL&S 470s were all scrapped.

Possibly taken in 1956, this image shows most of the early IERM collection, including the two Milwaukee Electric cars and two IT cars. Robert E. Bruneau Photo, Illinois Railway Museum.

When car 101 arrived in North Chicago, IERM was occupying a couple of sidings on the grounds of the Chicago Hardware Foundry (CHF), owned by railfan Frank Sherwin. The car was in good condition, with little significant rust or rot, but the roof leaked. Bob Bruneau, who had purchased the car and oversaw its care, patched the roof as needed and rebuilt the car’s windows during the several years it spent on CHF property. In early 1963, tarpaper was installed over the failing canvas to stop the roof leaks. Some truck repair work was also done.

When the museum – renamed in 1962 without the “Electric” and now known as IRM – moved from North Chicago to Union in 1964, car 101 moved with it. As with the other interurban cars, it moved on its own wheels. It was part of the second “hospital train” and moved from North Chicago to Union on May 31st in the company of IT 277, 1565, and 1702, as well as the two Milwaukee Electric interurban cars, North Shore 604 and 1004, ComEd 4, and the private car “Ely.”

Norm Krentel snapped this photo of car 101 in March 1968 in a very new Yard 1, near where the north end of the 50th Avenue platform is today, in the company of IT 277, CA&E 309, and IT 1565. Just days later, Norm would leave for a tour of duty in southeast Asia aboard the USS John A. Bole. Norman Krentel Photo.

For its first six years in Union, car 101 was kept in storage – outdoors, along with everything else in the collection – while Bob Bruneau kept watch on the car for leaks. In 1970, the car was chosen to be the focus of work to make it operational. The car was fully inspected in 1971 and found to be in good structural condition, but the electrical and control equipment was badly worn. Work on the car paused, but Bruneau began methodically rebuilding the car’s electrical components, often taking them home and working on them during the week between visits to the museum.

Car 101 was moved into the museum’s first car barn, Barn 4, in 1972, and work picked up again in earnest the following year. The biggest job that needed to be done was to replace the car’s roof canvas, and as part of this, rotten roof boards were removed in 1972. Roof hardware like the ventilators and trolley bases were also overhauled and new wooden components such as saddles and roof boards were made. Although work was delayed by the project to move the Electric Railway Historical Society collection from Downers Grove to Union in 1973, roof woodwork on car 101, including carline repair and replacement of some tongue-and-groove siding on the roof, commenced in early 1974 and was completed in the fall of 1975. New canvas was installed that November and roof hardware was reinstalled in the spring. In July 1976, the car operated for the first time since its retirement 20 years earlier, though it was found that the line switch needed rebuilding, a job performed in August. That September, for the annual Member’s Day event, car 101 ran for the public for the first time at IRM. Only the roof and letterboard sported fresh paint; the rest of the car was splotched with primer where the paint had failed.

Car 101 was test run for the first time at IRM in July 1976. Here, the car is near the west end of the line on one of its first trips. This was in the midst of a major project to rebuild the west end of IRM’s railroad, including leveling the “cut” the tracks passed through and constructing Schmidt Siding, neither of which had been completed when this photo was taken. Norm Krentel, the photographer, was heavily involved in making car 101 operational again in 1976. Norman Krentel Photo.

Although the car’s paint job was completed in the ensuing years, 101 did not enter revenue service. The center doors were deteriorated and needed rebuilding; one set was rebuilt, but work on the other set halted after it was removed. Plywood blanks, painted green and cream to match the car, filled the hole. Car 101 was usually operated during the annual Trolley Pageant, and sometimes on Member’s Day or other special occasions, but mostly it sat on display. By the early 1990s, the car was effectively out of service. This was partly because it was a single car and didn’t fit the museum’s operating needs well: it was too big for weekday service, while two-car trains were needed to carry the loads on weekends. It was also in part because Bob Bruneau was leery of the car going into service at all, and as the original purchaser of the car – not to mention Curator of the Electric Car Department – he had final say.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, car 101 was generally on static display in one of the museum’s barns. Here it is pictured during a 2005 switch move, missing trolley ropes and retrievers and exhibiting its plywood center door. Photo by the author.

But in 2006, interest in seeing car 101 return to service had grown enough that Bruneau acquiesced. Car 101 was brought into Barn 4 in the spring, and that March it operated under power for the first time in roughly 15 years. It was operated in service a few times over the next couple of years, and in 2008 its second set of side doors was finally finished and reinstalled on the car in place of the old plywood blanks.

Car 101 was returned to operation in 2006 and is shown on Member’s Day in September of that year. Photo by the author.

Since 2006, car 101 has operated a handful of times each year for IRM visitors, often for Labor Day and Museum Showcase Weekend evening operations when passenger loads are lower and a single car suffices. The car’s interior is largely unchanged from when it left service in 1956, though a great deal of restoration and rehabilitation work was done over the years, mostly by Bob Bruneau. It is one of only two survivors of the Great East Side Electric Railway System, both from the same series of center-entrance cars. But car 101 is the only “Yellow Hammer” still in operation.

Appendix A – Car 101 Specifications

Builder: American Car Company, 1917 (order #1092)

Seating Capacity, Original (Parlor): 43

Seating Capacity, End of Service (Coach): 54

Trucks, Original: Brill 27MCB2X

Trucks, 1924 to 1953: Commonwealth 81

Trucks, 1953 to Present: St. Louis 61A

Motors, Original: 4 x WH 548C

Motors, 1953 to Present: 4 x GE 205A

Control: WH HLF-28A

Brakes: AMM (M22A)

Air Compressor: D2-EG

Length: 53’8”

Width: 8’11”

Height: 12’2”

Weight: 58,525 lbs.

Appendix B – Car 101 In-Service Modifications

c.1920? – marker lights installed over end windows

c.1920? – whistles replaced with horns

1924 – Brill 27MCB2X trucks replaced by Commonwealth 81 trucks

c.1920s? – parlor seating replaced by coach seating

c.1920s? – partition between main and smoking compartments installed

c.1920s? – advertising card racks installed in car

c.1920s? – fare register system removed

c.1920s? – coat hooks removed

c.1920s? – boiler-tube pilot replaced by bar-stock pilot

c.1920s? – flag brackets lowered roughly a foot

c.1920s? – coupling chains removed

c.1930? – stirrups and grab-irons added to left end of each side

c.1930? – Brill “Exhaust” roof ventilators replaced by box-type ventilators

c.1932 – Westinghouse couplers replaced by Sharon MCB couplers

1930s – rope guard removed from over headlights

1930s – window guards removed

1930s – Knutsen retrievers replaced by Earll retrievers

c.1930s – straight horns replaced with curved horns

c.1938 – upper sash side windows removed and plated over with sheet steel

c.1939 – off-side end windows changed from single-pane to two-pane, single-sash type

c.1939 – roof headlights removed, bracket for removable headlight added to dash

c.1939 – wooden access ladders removed from roof

c.1940s? – seats in smoker reupholstered in black leatherette

c.1949 – safety glass installed in motorman’s window

c.1949 – curved horns replaced with straight horns

c.1950 – field tap connections removed from motors

c.1952 – drumhead-style end signs removed

1953 – Commonwealth 81 trucks replaced by St. Louis 61A trucks

1953 – WH 548C motors (61:28 gearing) replaced by GE 205A motors (53:21 gearing)

Bibliography

Central Electric Railfans Association. Bulletin 99: The Smaller Electric Railways of Illinois. Central Electric Railfans Association, 1955.

Cox, Harold E. The Birney Car. Byrne Printing, 1966.

“Edwardsville Car Goes Into a Snowdrift.” Alton Evening Telegraph, February 22, 1912.

Godwin, Mark. “The Electric Railways of Madison County.” Madison County Historical Society News, Vol. 7, No. 6, November 2019.

Humiston, John. “St. Louis & Alton Division Car 101.” Rail & Wire, Issue 159, May 1996.

Jenkins, Dale. The Illinois Terminal Railroad: The Road of Personalized Services. White River Productions, 2005.

Middleton, William D. Traction Classics: The Interurbans – The Great Wood and Steel Cars. Golden West Books, 1983.

“New Cars for East Saint Louis and Suburban Railway.” Brill Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 8, October 1917.

Scalzo, Stephen. “The Alton Streetcar Story.” Hicks Car Works, published May 29, 2013, hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-alton-streetcar-story_29.html.

Scalzo, Stephen. “The History of the East St. Louis & Suburban Railway.” Hicks Car Works, published October 10, 2020, hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2020/10/east-st-louis-suburban-railway.html.