HISTORY OF
CHICAGO AURORA AND ELGIN
409
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| Photo by Frank Hicks - July 4, 2010 |
The magic name "Pullman" conjures up, for most people, visions of luxurious long-distance train travel in heavy, well-appointed parlor, dining, and sleeping cars. While the company certainly did concentrate on main-line railroad operations, it also had a significant presence in the electric railway field which is not as well known. And since Pullman was by far the largest and best-known carbuilder in Illinois, the Illinois Railway Museum has acquired an extensive collection not only of steam railroad passenger cars, but also of 19 Pullman-built electric cars, ranging from a tiny four-wheel streetcar and wooden rapid transit cars to later steel interurban cars, an experimental aluminum car, and modern rapid transit cars. (Not to mention an entire Pullman Library!) The subject of this article is one of the steel interurban cars.
DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
Formed in 1905 from several smaller companies, the Aurora Elgin & Chicago Railroad consisted of two divisions: the Chicago division, operating the heavy third-rail line from downtown Chicago to the Fox River cities, and the Fox River division, with a lightly-built side-of-the-road interurban line from Yorkville in the south, up through Aurora and Elgin to Carpentersville. The period immediately after WWI was a difficult one for the railroad industry as a whole, and the electric railway field in particular. Wartime inflation, rising wage costs, and rapidly increasing automobile usage caused the company to go bankrupt, unable to meet its bond interest payments. The resulting reorganization is too complicated to go into here, but basically the company was split into two parts, corresponding to the two divisions, since the Fox River division was definitely weaker.
Dr. Thomas Conway was a highly-regarded professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who had had an interest in electric railways for many years. His 1908 doctoral thesis was entitled "The Traffic Problems of Interurban Electric Railroads", and he began providing consultant services to interurban lines in 1916.
A group of Philadelphia-based bondholders in the AE&C sent Conway to Chicago to safeguard their interests in the AE&C bonds. Conway believed that with the proper investments in new equipment and upgraded track, the Chicago division could be made profitable. A new company was organized: the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin Railroad Company, and on July 3rd (ironically enough) of 1922 it took over the third-rail lines of the Chicago division of the AE&C.
Immediate investments were made to upgrade the third-rail main lines and improve running times, but perhaps the most noticeable development was the introduction of new steel passenger cars. Although the industry had been building steel interurban cars for almost ten years, the AE&C was still running a fleet of wooden cars (of which IRM has a nearly-complete collection!) Conway's associate William L. Butler was in charge of designing the new cars, and the nearby Pullman Company was chosen to construct them.
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| Builder's photo - Pullman Co. - Bill Volkmer collection |
Among other things, Butler and his group undertook experiments to develop more comfortable seats and more convenient stepwells for the new cars, using a group of men and women of all ages chosen from the families and friends of the employees.
Conway believed in publicizing the new improvements, and several publicity photos were widely published at that time.
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| Demonstrating the new stepwell design - Bill Volkmer collection |
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| Bill Volkmer collection |
Besides their steel construction, the new cars had some mechanical and electrical improvements over the previous wooden cars. Tomlinson tight-lock couplers replaced the Van Dorns used on the wood cars. They have the advantage that they can be uncoupled by a switchman standing to one side pulling a chain, whereas with Van Dorn couplers it is necessary to go between the cars to pull a pin. And there are no loose links to get lost or stolen. Ordinarily the two types of cars were never coupled together, but a heavy adapter coupler could be used in emergencies. Each steel car carried an adapter in an underseat compartment.
The control system was updated to C-165 controllers with closed transition, which are not compatible with the C-6 controllers with open transition used on the wood cars. As a result, the steel cars have two jumpers over the train doors, one for traction power and the other for the buzzer circuit.
While the Pullman cars had a new control system, some of them, including the 409, were equipped with earlier DB-131 contactors taken from wood cars, in order to save money. We believe that it was about this time, for instance, that the 308 was converted from a four-motor to a two-motor car, losing one of its contactor groups. Of course we don't know, but it's possible the 308's contactors wound up installed on the 409!
Builder's interior photos at Pullman -- Krambles-Peterson Archive
Upon delivery, the new Pullman cars took over much of the main-line express passenger service. They also seem to have been often used on the Geneva-St. Charles branch while that lasted. All twenty continued to operate until passenger service was stopped without warning on July 3rd, 1957.
PAINT SCHEMES IN SERVICE
Entire body was red; doors and window sash were brown; gold lettering with black outlining. Sunset Lines herald is common. Roof color is not certain.
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| Photo by Wilbourne Cox Krambles-Peterson Archive |
2. Maroon ("Coffee and Cream")
Body and window sash were maroon, except for the letterboard, end windows, and window sills, which were cream; doors were light brown or tan; gold lettering with black outlining. Roof color is not certain. Cars appear to usually have had the Sunset Lines herald on the sides.
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412 at St. Charles, Oct. 30, 1937 Photo by Al Johnson Krambles-Peterson Archive |
3. Blue ("Early American")
There were at least two versions of this paint scheme, although we have not found a picture of the 409 in particular in the earlier one. The body was mostly a dark blue, with light grey along the windows, and red striping. The end windows and train doors were red. Roof was a light grey. Most of the Pullmans appear to have a grey stripe along the bottom of the side. Sunset Lines herald was common.
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| Bill Volkmer collection |
In the later version the roof was black, and there was no stripe along the bottom of the sides. The Sunset Lines herald has generally disappeared by this time.
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| 409 leading a three-car train at Lincoln St., Wheaton Oct. 24,1948 Photo by Henry Stange Krambles-Peterson Archive |
4. Final Red
Ends, doors, and sides below the belt rail were bright red ("Pimpernel Scarlet"), windows, posts, and letterboard were a light blue-grey. Yellow lettering with black outlining. Roof was black. The vestibule interiors were the same red as the exterior.
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| 409 westbound at Villa Park, June 26, 1957 Photo by Bill Janssen Krambles-Peterson Archive |
This photo is just one week before service was stopped without warning on July 3rd. At this point operation was continuing on a day-to-day basis while court battles raged, which is why the train is running as an extra, I would surmise.
REBUILDING
The Pullman cars appear to have operated with little change, other than paint, until the 1950's. They then started to be put through the shops one by one for rebuilding as necessary. The 409 was shopped in late 1956, but the only major change appears to be that the original wooden window sash were replaced with aluminum sash. As a result, the final red paint scheme is the only correct one for the car in its current configuration. At some point, the original seats were replaced with newer ones without headroll, as seen here, but we don't know when that happened. In any case, the car is preserved and restored as it was at the end of service.
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| Current interior (RH) |
PRESERVATION
After final abandonment of the CA&E was approved in late 1961, the remaining cars at Wheaton were put up for sale to museums, except for the St. Louis cars, which were retained in the hope that they might be bought by a rapid transit organization. The steel cars had a much higher price than the wood cars due to their greater scrap value, so only three of the steel cars were selected for preservation. The Illinois Railway Museum and Seashore each selected a Cincinnati; Gerald Brookins selected the 409, the only Pullman car to be preserved. All of the other cars from this series went to scrap in 1962.
In April 1962 the 409 was made up into a train with six wood cars and left Wheaton for the last time on its trip to Olmsted Falls. It was painted in a red and white paint scheme based loosely on the CA&E maroon paint scheme, and operated for many years in occasional passenger service at Trolleyville.
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| Joe Testagrove collection -1966 |
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| Joe Testagrove collection -1966 |
In later years it appears to have been repainted with the white changed to light yellow.
Gerald Brookins died in 1983, and for several years the Trolleyville operation continued with volunteers doing much of the work. The Brookins family continued to oversee the operation. But in 2002 the family decided to sell the property in Ohio and move to Florida. It was necessary to find a new home for the Brookins collection.
A volunteer organization was formed with the name "Lake Shore Electric Railway" to provide a way to preserve and operate the collection in the Cleveland area. The plan was to locate it near the lake shore in downtown Cleveland, and the CA&E cars would be operated occasionally for excursions on the Greater Cleveland RTA system. The 409 was moved to Cleveland in 2006 and stored in a subway tunnel on GCRTA tracks, but never operated in revenue service.
ACQUISITION BY IRM
The overall success of the Lake Shore Electric project had always been contingent on substantial investment by the city government of Cleveland, which never happened. By early 2009 the city's financial crisis had destroyed all hope of this possibility, and the decision was taken to wrap up the LSE project and dispose of the collection.
The 409 and several other cars were sold to IRM, and they were moved to the Brook Park shop building to prepare them for shipment to Illinois.
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| 409 at Brook Park, Cleveland Jan. 17, 2010 (RH) |
More than a dozen volunteers made journeys to Cleveland to prepare the cars for shipment, and the 409 and 451 arrived at IRM on Jan. 20th.
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| 409 at Union, Illinois Jan. 20, 2010 (RH) |
The 409 was repainted and lettered in the authentic end-of-service CA&E paint scheme in time for the Trolley Pageant on July 3rd, 2010. Since that time it has been used in passenger service on a regular basis, with occasional interruptions for minor mechanical issues.
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| 409 in operation in 2017 (RH) |
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| 409 in operation in 2022 (RH) |
MECHANICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Car Body:
Length: 56'10"
Width: 8'8"
Height: 13'2"
Weight: 103,000 lbs.
Seats: 56
Trucks: Commonwealth 7' wheelbase
Electrical:
Motors: 4 GE 254, 140 HP each
Controller: 2 GE C-165
Contactors: 12 DB-131
Reverser: 1 DB-409
Field Tap: 1 ME67
Line Switch: 1 ME160
Brakes:
Motorman's Valve: 2 M-23
Triple Valve: 1 U4A
Compressor: 1 D3F
Feed Valve: 1 WH C8
Governor: 1 WH type J
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to Art Peterson who supplied the photographs from the Krambles-Peterson archive.
Photographs from the Bill Volkmer collection and the Joe Testagrove collection are taken from the website of the late Dave Mewhinney.
Technical data are taken from CERA bulletins B-5 and B-105 (or personal observation!)
Information on Thomas Conway from CERA B-140 by Ronald DeGraw.
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