Vintage XXXIII

Frank writes...

Sunday was the 33rd Annual Vintage Transport Extravaganza, and I daresay a good time was had by all. We had something like 450 antique vehicles attend and the parking lot was full just about out to Olson Road.

My father and I were on the CA&E wood train, as shown above, along with car host Rene Ruano. With the 36 out of service and in need of leaf spring repairs, the 308 was pulled out of retirement and brought along as a control trailer, or "coach" as the CA&E called its trailers. It sure was nice to have the 308 back out on the railroad and hauling people for the first time in over five years.

Photo by Chris Buck

We can't let you get away without seeing a picture of the crew!  By the way, the Buck Brothers were along for at least one of the busier trips and helped by giving car talks and so on.

Here we are in Station Track 1 with the 1630 over on track 2. The four main line trains were the two shown here; North Shore 714-749; and the C&NW bi-level set, plus a pair of 4000s that ran shuttle service to Jefferson Street all day. Dispatcher Harold Krewer adroitly kept things moving, including regular meets with the shuttle train at Schmidt Siding, a capability that fell out of practice for years but has recently been resumed.

Early in the day, the C&NW bi-levels did a fast "load and go" stop at the depot while we were sitting on track 1. My father remarked that it was just like Wheaton!

And here's another shot of the three-car train at the station. For a few years, between when the 319 went into service in 2010 and when the 36 went into service in 2014, these three cars operated together semi-regularly.

I never got a chance to look around at the old cars on display, but I did manage to grab this shot of a lineup behind the depot. In the background you can see the 4000s at 50th. Car 24 was also at 50th Avenue, albeit just on display for the day.

Most of the volunteers were involved in operations or enjoying the car show. The bus guys, of course, had several buses and trolley buses on display, and Zach had his London Routemaster open for walk-throughs. Above, Zach took this photo in the morning of us pulling the CA&E cars out to the tail track past his bus, parked alongside Central Avenue on display.

Over in the shop, Joel was hard at work in the inspection pit finishing up inspection work on CA&E 431, which included replacing a couple of brake shoes and putting grease "cookies" in the center bearings. This followed the inspection of car 24, which was completed on Saturday. Good Nick was working on substation stuff. And as seen above, Brian was working steadily at the surface grinder, truing up the contact surfaces on resistance grids for ComEd 4. They're rebuilding a grid box for the locomotive and making sure all of the component parts are as good as new. I'll admit, this is more precise than when we rebuilt all those grid boxes for our cars - I would just use a wire wheel to clean up the grid element contact surfaces, slacker that I am. Jimmy and Bob, the latter visible behind Brian, also helped with this work.

Westbound Over the Creek

Thanks to Dave Zeman, who snapped this photo a couple of weeks ago during the evening Traction Photo Shoot. The four-car wood train was spotted here for photographers but did not go any further east than this (though of course the train made it to Johnson Siding the previous day during the pageant). What a sight!

Saturday report

Frank writes...

As previously described, the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend went well. The crowd was a bit light, possibly because of the 90 degree heat. We were able to get the cars out of the barn right around 10am, as shown above.

The two service streetcars, the 4391 and 1374, were delayed going into service because the Track Department was working on something at Depot Street. We ended up going into service via the connector track and South Junction to avoid this, though I wasn't able to get any photos of this "rare mileage" move. By going around the streetcar loop and then up the west wye to 50th Avenue, we effectively wyed ourselves twice, thus keeping the train facing the same direction.

Later in the day we got into a nice rhythm, with electric departures at :15 and :45 and steam/diesel departures at :00 and :30. Besides us, the CTA 2200s, the steam coach train, and the diesel-powered caboose trains were running on the main line. This 30 minute offset between electrics meant that we weren't both in 50th at the same time. But early on, before the steam engine and caboose trains were up and going, there were a couple of "meets" on the 50th Avenue east track. Above, the 2200s are fittingly signed to meet the CA&E at Forest Park.

A subsequent meet resulted in the woods and 2200s reversing themselves, and to get us out of the way for the 'L' cars to depart we did another rare mileage trip, this time to the west track. This track was designed to be a gauntlet track, so that both narrow (elevated width, i.e. CTA, CA&E, and North Shore) and wide (railroad width, i.e. South Shore and IC) cars could use it. But the narrow-width track was never put in, so elevated-compatible cars like ours face a wide gap between car and platform that we don't want passengers to have to jump. Anyway, while we were briefly stored on the west track the 1630 passed us going into service.

My father brought out a couple of bulkhead ads. The CA&E woods all have clips and retainer bars on the windows in the smoker/main compartment bulkheads for hanging these posters, which usually advertised events to which you could get on the CA&E. The 308 got an ad for the Villa Park Flower Show.

And if you ever wanted to learn about the Canary Islands, don't worry, the 309 has you covered. Note that these lectures were held at the "Chicago Natural History Museum - formerly Field Museum of Natural History." I guess that re-branding didn't take!

After five full trips and a "Jefferson Street Shuttle" trip, it was back to the barn. My father moved the 36 and 319, which are running Monday, to the connector track and I ran the 308 and 309 into track 84 up to the 150. Here the 308 waits for the "Brookins Special" switching with trolley buses in the background. A Chicago Marmon and the Seattle thing with the LED destination sign were in operation during the day.

Over in the car shop, Thomas, Joel, and some of the other guys were working on North Shore 160. One of the car's motors has had its string banding fail so one truck will get two newly-rebuilt motors so that the car can go back into revenue service for the first time in four years. It was pointed out to me that 160 is one of the ever-shrinking group of cars at IRM to have never been off its trucks since it was in regular service. It came out to Union on its own wheels in 1964 and hasn't needed to have its trucks pulled... until now.

A switch in time saves nine

Frank writes...

Sunday at IRM was a gorgeous day. When I first arrived and drove onto the property I was surprised to see West Towns 141 going around the car line. It turns out the car was in use for a charter; I was able to grab the below photo below of the interior. The car is in very limited use because the springs fitted to its trucks are much too strong, so the body sits too high and rides roughly. Specs for new springs are being drawn up, after which the trucks will be pulled and disassembled, the springs replaced, and everything reassembled. Then it should be ready for revenue use.

After that I spent a few minutes on Shaker Heights 18. Some additional fitting work was done to the steel plate I've been working on and it was successfully test-fit, as shown below. The next step is to drill a few more holes, procure the necessary hardware, and then paint and install this piece. Then that little project will be done, at least, and the interior of the car at this location can be put back together.

But most of my time was spent switching. There were a couple of switch moves that needed to be done. First, we needed to extract a couple of pieces of equipment that were buried deep on track 83 so that they can be used during the coming few weeks. Formerly the lineup from east to west (from the door) had been the CTA 2200s, IT 101, the C&NW bay window caboose, CRT 1808, and TM M15. But the caboose is wanted for a demonstration freight train to be run next weekend with Charles City Western 300 and the M15 is wanted for Milwaukee Transit Day in early October. So several pieces of equipment that don't operate very often were scurrying about the yards. Below, CRT 1808, which is tired but definitely operational.

And then there's the M-15, our homely homebuilt freight-motor-slash-line-car from the Milwaukee Electric and later the Municipality of East Troy Railroad. Bob Bruneau used to refer to this thing as the "M-ugly." It's seen out and about rarely enough that one of our regular operators who was putting his streetcar back into Barn 7 called on the radio to ask "what that green thing" was.

As that switch move was finishing up the CA&E wood cars came out. The order (from the door) had been 36-319-308-309 but we wanted to run 308-319 during the day next Saturday and 36-309 at night for museum members. We also needed to wye the 308. So the cars were reordered as desired, however we discovered something dismaying: one of the contactors on the 36 is acting up. It's not anything we can't fix (we'll need to diagnose the exact cause but that should be doable on the inspection pit) but without much time before Members Day it's doubtful the car will run next weekend. But that's the nice thing about having four wood cars - there's always a backup! So right now the tentative plan is to run the 308 and 319 for both day and nighttime operations on Saturday - weather permitting, of course. In the meantime I got the nice photo below of the 308 just west of the tower during its wye move. This car doesn't get around solo very often since it's a half-motor.

Thanks to Nick E and Greg who buzzed around in a golf cart getting switches for this move. Thomas, Richard, Joel, and Jeron were all heavily involved with the various switch moves throughout the afternoon as well.

Who Dares Stand Idle?

Don't just sit there.  It's Labor Day Weekend.  We've got work to do!  And since the wood cars are scheduled for all three days, somebody's got to be there to make sure nothing goes wrong.  Or at least take the blame if it does.  

Today it was just Frank and his father, generally known as Frank Sr.  We were too busy to take many pictures, but our friend Chuck was there, and I'm sure he'll have plenty of great photos to share.  Dick Lukin was there, and we talked with some visitors from Seashore, and so on.

We were running the 308 and 309 today, and everything went well.  We didn't even have our usual bugaboo, the dewirement.  I'm pretty sure we never had to pull a rope out of retrieve.  Of course, I suppose that means tomorrow will be a nightmare, but we'll see.

And the 4000's were running, as was much more common back in the good old days.

The earlier wood cars, I must admit, have the world's worst trap door design, so we generally tried to use the yellow steps whenever possible.

And to keep the passengers entertained, Frank brought out his portable Victrola and some old records.   Keep the home fires burning!

And we terminated at 50th Avenue for one trip, which is always good.

And look, there goes the open car!

The LGB train guys had their layout set up by the depot, as usual.

Say, did we ever mention anything about night operations?  I think we did!  At about 4:00, the North Shore cars came out to take our place, and they were going to be running until 9 or so.  Tomorrow night it will be the CA&E cars running late, so don't miss it.

And here's Greg Ceurvorst, ready to take the first trip.

We'll have many more pictures from this weekend soon, so please stay tuned.  And by the way, for Sunday and Monday we will have Burlington Zephyr service.  It'll probably be even better than this:

Father's Day Part II

Frank writes...

As alluded to earlier, I got out to IRM on Sunday about lunchtime to discover that the 308 and 319 had been pulled out of the barn but quickly put back in due to some issues with the reverser on the 308. Thanks to the crew of Bob Opal and Jeff Obarek, who had correctly diagnosed the problem, it didn't take long to narrow down the issue. A quick call to my father suggested a fix and after a bit of adjustment the reverser was working like clockwork again. So I pulled the train out of the barn and took it up to the station where it was swapped into service in place of the steel train, 409 and 460.

Here's the meet at Wheaton, er, East Union as the steel train returns from its trip with the wood train already in Station Track One. Pretty neat, eh? If you like this like I like this, you won't want to miss July 2nd, when we'll be reenacting the abandonment of passenger service in 1957.

The weather was gorgeous and it seemed like we had a good crowd. Scenes like the shot above, with a mob of passengers getting ready to board the steam train, are always a good thing!

The crew in the car shop had mostly been working on some repairs to the Army 45-ton diesel, but by the time I got done with this project - and went for a nice relaxing ride on the 308 - they had moved onto better and more electric things. I helped a bit with some air brake work that needed doing. The first task was to clean up one of the motorman's brake valves on CSL 144, which had been kind of tight. Above, Richard Schauer works on reassembling and lubricating this. (Note that next to him is a main bearing from the 251 - see last week's post.) The other task was to clean the feed valve from CA&E 460, which had been acting up a little. Joel and Richard worked on this job and Joel also reinstalled the 144 brake valve and the 460's feed valve. All in a day's work.

And finally, a quiz for you out there in cyberspace: can you name this sprightly chap posing on our own Charles City Western 300 back in the 1950s? The winner gets a free hot dog from the diner!

Song of the Interurban

Frank writes...

Sunday was a gorgeous day; predictions of possible rain didn't come to pass and it turned out to be mostly sunny and mid-70s with a nice breeze. Fortunately for me, I had signed up to run the 308 and 319, so I got to spend my day out of the railroad. Also fortunately for me, nothing went wrong and the cars ran quite nicely for four trips. David Streeter was my conductor and my wife Bevin also tagged along to ride trains and get in some reading, not necessarily in that order of priority. Also out were the diesel coach train and IT 415, which ran on the streetcar line and made a couple of rare (for a weekend) mainline trips.

The highlight for me was bringing out my Brunswick Parisian portable phonograph. My who-what, you ask? Well, a side hobby of mine is old (think pre-1930) phonographs and records.  Recently I was looking to acquire a portable phonograph to play 78s on the go when I came across a Brunswick Parisian for sale on eBay.  The Parisian was a super-compact model made in the 1920s that used an "oscillator," basically a folding paper cone, instead of an internal wooden horn to save space.

Weird, eh?  Anyway, the one on eBay wouldn't have caught my eye except for a note that had been written on the back of the original instruction card:

"I bought this in 1930 when I was conductor on the Aurora and Elgin R.R. Used to take it to work with me and play records on the trains. -Dad Nickerson."  Well I couldn't pass that up! So here's Nickerson's original phonograph, back on the 308 and reunited with a CA&E car for the first time in probably 80 years.

The original paper cone is pretty tattered so I used a quickie homemade replacement made out of a manila envelope. But it still sounded loud and clear (albeit a little warbly due to a finicky speed governor) when we played a few records on Station Track 1 between trips.  I can only hope Conductor Nickerson would be pleased!

And there was some exciting streetcar-related news.  First, what you're looking at above is Greg Kepka using a "car mover" lever to move the 205. Greg, Joel, Dan and Richard spaced out the cars on track 73 a bit to ease access to the ends of the car because the same sign painter who lettered the CA&E Trolleyville cars in 2010 is scheduled to come out to IRM next Saturday and apply the silver pin-striping to the 205. After that, and a couple of small items, the car's cosmetic restoration will be complete.

And in addition, the Car Department has returned not one but two streetcars to operation within the past week. First was the 144, whose rebuilt air compressor (see last week's post) works like a charm. Second is the 415, about which our intrepid on-the-spot reporter Joel Ahrendt filed a report:

Saturday, June 4th marked another car returning to service. After a rough start to the day because of rains and charters, a large group of Car Shop workers (Joel A., Richard S., Nick E., and Zach E.) and regular member applicant Kevin wrestled a new air tank onto the 415.  There was much grunting and adjusting but the tank was mounted under the car and tested out.  The old tank had developed a "second drain hole" which was not appreciated! Fortunately for us, we were able to find a company willing to make the tank we needed.

The curious thing about the car is the way the air pipes are run.  Normally, the air comes out of the compressor, runs through pipes to cool it down, then into the first tank (known as the wet tank), and from there to the second tank which is where the air is drawn from to use.  This one has the air coming out of the compressor directly into the first tank, out of that to the cooling pipes, then into the second tank.  We think this was changed to this arrangement when the IT rebuilt the car.

Set Up Running

Frank writes...

I headed out to IRM on Sunday planning on doing some needle-chipping on the 36, but as it happened that didn't happen for a couple of different reasons.

This was the first: the inspection pit lead, where I had planned to spot the 36 to work on needle-chipping, was ocupado.  The "Highliners" have arrived!  A four-car set of ex-Metra, ex-Illinois Central double-deck MU cars was delivered to the museum on Thursday.  Cars 1534 and 1630 (I feel like I've seen that number somewhere before but I can't put my finger on it), built by St. Louis Car Company, and cars 1637 and 1645, built by Bombardier, are the four cars chosen for acquisition.

A crew consisting of Richard Schauer, Greg Kepka and others has already started working on the cars, beginning with the 1534, at the west end of the string.  Above, Greg, "Doodlebug Dan" Mulvihill and Joel Ahrendt (in the red hat) are contemplating the motorman's position on the 1534.  Richard and Greg started charging the car's batteries, which were dead, and were able to get the motor-alternator set running - at least until I stopped by, at which point the MA set promptly died for reasons unknown.  I'm going on the theory that my arrival was not a causative factor in this, but who knows?

Early evening found Greg scraping some blue spray paint off of the Metra emblems on the cars which had, for some reason, been covered over.  This seemed to be going pretty well until someone reminded him that he has seven more to go after this if he's going to do all four cars!  I believe that the intention is to keep two of the four cars (one from each builder) in the permanent collection and to eventually dispose of the other two, but the decision as to which cars will be saved has not yet been made.  Richard said that last year a comprehensive survey of the condition of the 70 or so of the 84 "Highliners" then in service was made, along with input from Metra shop personnel, and we picked four of the cars in the best shape.  So we've got a good starting point.

And the second reason that I didn't get around to doing needle-chipping was that when I arrived on the property at about 1pm the wood cars, which were scheduled to operate, were still in the barn.  A misunderstanding had led to the North Shore cars being taken out instead.  I enlisted Joel's help and we brought the 319 and 308 out of Barn 8, down the connector track and around the car line to the west wye.  When we brought the cars into Station Track 1 the plan was to simply hand them over to Jeff Obarek, the revenue motorman, but there was actually a big crowd at the museum Sunday so instead we were enlisted to run a revenue trip.  I fear Joel and I made for a sorry sight in our work clothes, but the trip was packed and the passengers seemed happy.

After our return the train was handed over to Jeff and his crew, who made two more trips.  It was a beautiful day and between the steam coach train and the interurbans all of the trains seemed rather full.

By this time it was late afternoon and I still had a switch move to do, so I pulled the 36 out of Barn 8 and set it out on the connector track - taking a few minutes to snap a portrait.  Unfortunately this side of the car has neither been lettered nor had a second coat of blue applied, but it still looks pretty sharp, especially with the newly-painted roof.

When the revenue train was done for the day, Jeff brought it onto the ladder track where we uncoupled the 319 and 308 and put the latter car over on track 83 (again, after a quick portrait).  Then I ran the 36 into 84 on top of the 319 and coupled them up; the two Brookins cars will form our revenue service train for July 3rd, which is "CA&E Day" (the anniversary of suspension of passenger service).  Right now the plan is also to have two separate two-car trains running for the Trolley Pageant on the 4th, the "black roof train" of the 36 and 319 and the "grey roof train" of the 308 and 309.

So I ended up operating all day instead of needle-chipping.  Oh, the horror!  How will I ever get over my disappointment?