Dave's Depots -- Mobile & Ohio R.R. -- Murphysboro, Illinois

Today's installment of Dave's Depots takes us to Murphysboro, Illinois. Murphysboro is the county seat of Jackson County, and as such, has two impressive depots, both of which are along abandoned right of ways.

Today's depot is the Mobile & Ohio Railroad Depot. This depot is about 4 blocks west of the Jackson County Courthouse, along Illinois Route 13. The structure is in very good condition, but it appears as if the last business in this building, "The Depot" eatery, is no more.

Sources indicate the depot was built in 1888. Also, the M&O maintained a large shop complex adjacent to the depot, until a tornado struck the facility in 1925. This depot is along the same M&O line as the previously-featured Sparta, Illinois depot.

The structure is on the national register of historic places.

Ventilators, Windows, Visitors

Today I decided to start on the 277's ventilators. Bob Bruneau had painted four of them with primer many years ago, and they were stored in the 306. So I brought them over to Barn 8. Two I lifted onto the roof, but the other two were partly rusted out and needed to be fixed, as seen here. This is just what Bondo was made for! The clamps are holding the wood backing prior to application. The paint sticks which Diamond hands out like candy are just right for this purpose.

After the filler has set and has been sanded, another coat of primer is applied and they look like this:

I might point out that these ventilators no longer function, due to the installation of air conditioning. But they may eventually keep rain from running into the car through the holes in the tar paper!

Then I cleaned up two windows for the 518 and installed them. I also loosened up a seat frame which was stuck in the middle, and got it to move, so I could install the seat cushion. Seating in the 518 is now complete.

Next, some more windows. This is one of the 277's storm windows, which I had epoxied last time. (L) After stripping the first layer of interior paint, we see the light green with which it was first painted. (It is light green, you'll just have to trust me.) And by the way, that light green looks strangely familiar -- where have I seen that before?

After complete stripping, (R) a first coat of white primer. Since this window will always be stored in the up position, I decided to leave the original paint on part of it, in case anybody in the vast future is interested.

And after some more body work, a coat of brown primer on the exterior.


I was pleased to note that the Museum was quite busy for a weekday. The diner was crowded when I went over there, and we were running a two-car North Shore train. Some sort of blue tank engine arrived on a trailer, but it had a mask over its face so I couldn't see who it was....

Finally, I met some visitors from the Kentucky Railway Museum, Ned Brown and Willy Ward, old acquaintances of our own David Wilkins. Ned is the Safety Director there. I showed them the interior of the 277, and we talked about L&N steam engines, FRA inspections, David Wilkins, and other topics of interest. It was all good, though. We're always happy to see visitors from other museums!

The Red Ox

The Red Ox is a steakhouse-type restaurant located about ten miles straight south of the Museum in Hampshire, along route 72. It has a very extensive menu. Entrees are generally in the $15 range, somewhat more for some steaks. This includes soup or salad, vegetable, and potato or rice. I had the broiled grouper with parmesan crust, which was excellent. Next time I'll have to try a steak. Service was excellent, and the ambience is quite pleasant.

Here's a view of the outdoor patio; the air was rather humid, so it was more pleasant inside. There's also a full bar. The Red Ox is highly recommended.

Help Buy the Trolleyville Cars!

A large collection of electric cars from the Trolleyville collection has been put up for sale, and of course IRM is very interested in acquiring several of the CA&E cars, possibly others. These cars are all in excellent condition, and can be operated in revenue service with very little work. They do not need huge long-term restoration projects like most of the acquisitions that become available.

$$$ But obviously this will be expensive, so we need your help! $$$

IRM will need money not only to purchase the cars, but to pay for their transportation from Cleveland, which will probably be nearly as much, and for indoor storage and track space. For more details, see the documents posted here, particularly the "Trolley Car Auction Letter." (Warning: link requires membership in IRM list on Yahoo.)

We need to submit our bid by October 1st at the latest, so donations to the Trolleyville fund are needed soon, or at least firm commitments.

I think you'll agree that IRM is the best possible permanent home for the CA&E cars. And as a reward, I'm ready to start running "Take the Throttle" type trips for anyone who makes a substantial contribution to the Trolleyville fund, either with the 308/309 we currently own, or with the new cars when we get them running.

Contributions should be sent directly to IRM. Be sure to indicate that this is for the Trolleyville collection. Write the word "Trolleyville" or "Brookins" or "Cleveland" on the check -- that ought to be clear enough. Thanks!!!

Vacation

Randy is heading out of town for a much-needed and well-deserved vacation on Thursday. We expect him to be gone for about two weeks. To our loyal readers: do not worry. The Hicks Car Works blog will be in the "capable" hands of Frank and your humble author. Expect to see "Dave's Depots" posts book reviews, 205 progress reports, and other exciting, interesting, engaging and informative content.

518 Report

I spent most of the time working on windows, since I had some fans going in the 321 to make it more comfortable. Mostly these were windows from the 518; a couple needed varnish (on both sides), a couple needed paint, and one from the277 needed some woodwork and expoxy. Not a lot to take pictures of.

In the 518 itself, there was an extra walkover seat frame, so I managed to remove it and take it over to the 253 for storage. And another one was loose, so I fastened it in. And I repositioned a seat frame in the 277 securely.

More of Everything

The first thing to do was to reposition a bracket on the roof of the 277. I then started working on the trolley pole in the shop. With some help from Bob Heinlein and Dan Bixler, we removed the old shoe, fixed up some of the parts, installed new shunts, and put it all together.

Then I did more painting on the interior. The rear of the main compartment has an aisle between the heater compartment on one side and the toilet compartment on the other. I put a finish coat on all the sheet metal parts. It's difficult to take good pictures in this confined space, so I hope these before and after pictures help.

The next project was to mop the linoleum floor in the main compartment, and then apply two coats of wax. Again, this is hard to photograph. But it looks much better and helps protect the historic linoleum.

I also found the right ladder and installed several more screws to hold the lobster trap in place. The 277's rope guard is missing, so we'll have to have a new one fabricated, but it's a fairly complicated assembly. But the lobster trap will serve temporarily as a rope guard to keep the trolley rope from rubbing on the bottom of the canvas.

In other activities, Stan and Warren moved the recently-arrived trucks for the South Shore line car into Barn 8.







And here's some inter-departmental cooperation, as the 3007's bell is mounted for a photo op later in the day.

The 3007 and some other Burlington equipment were posed out on the station tracks in the afternoon. This just wouldn't be complete without a picture of other railfans taking pictures....

In crime news, I noticed that somebody had pulled the 309's pole out from under the hook. But because the rope was securely cleated to the retriever, the crooks were baffled and no harm was done. This just shows how important it is to cleat the trolley ropes when cars are stored in the barn, per Car Department policy.

So I called the Union cops, the state police, and the FBI. They're hard at work on the case, and arrests are expected soon.

Dave's Depots -- In the Heat of the Night Edition -- Sparta, Illinois

This edition of Dave’s Depots takes us to Sparta, Illinois. Sparta is a town in Randolph County, Illinois. The depot sits along the old Gulf Mobile and Ohio line south from St. Louis. The line active through Sparta, no longer as a mainline, but as a branch to a coal power plant north of town on the Kaskaskia River. The line north of the power plant to St. Louis is abandoned, and part of the right of way was reused as a new path for Illinois Route 3.

Many of you may recognize the Sparta depot, and the entire town, as the setting for the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night. The movie starred Rod Steiger, Sidney Poitier, and Lee Grant. Sparta became “Sparta, Mississippi” for the movie, and many local buildings were used. The movie is actually a pretty good one, winning four Academy Awards that year. The Sparta depot is featured in several scenes. In the opening, Poitier disembarks the train in Sparta, to await a connection. At the end of the movie, Poitier boards the train again to leave town.

The movie also featured trains of the Missouri Pacific. Early in the movie, an escaped convict is running from the police and the requisite hound dogs, when he crosses the MoPac tracks near the Mississippi River and then attempts to flee to "Arkansas" over the river on a highway bridge. This part was filmed in nearby Chester, Illinois. You can still drive across the bridge today.

Ironically enough, in the movie, Poitier is supposed to be heading back north when he boards the train at the end of the movie. In real life, he’s heading south.

Today, the depot is in good shape, used as a local art gallery.

277 Update

I started by putting primer on the rest of the surfaces of the lobster trap, as seen here. After about four hours, it was dry to the touch.

Meanwhile, I did some more painting in the interior. The parts of the duct I had scraped down earlier were rolled with a first finish coat, as seen here. And more of the smoker bulkhead was painted. I also did more sorting and cleaning inside the car.

Finally, Gerry Detloff helped me raise the lobster trap onto the roof. It's hard to take a good picture inside the barn, at least from the ground. I'll need the right size ladder to install the rest of the screws holding it to the roof.

Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum

On Friday I was able to pay a brief visit to the...in North Judson, Ind. The museum was closed so I didn't get to see the C&O Berk or any of the other prides of the fleet stored inside, but here's a few pictures of what's available outside.

The depot looks very nice. Until one of us gets a chance to visit when the place is open, this is not a full treatment of the site.

This dispatcher's tower was recently moved to the property and is being restored. Spaulding used to look much like this.

On the left is the regular service caboose train. I'd have to say these IC Highliners look a little out of place.

And then there's South Shore cars 4 and 31, which have been scalped.

Finally, I suppose this is meant to be Thomas. It's a Porter 0-4-2T which went through several industrial owners before being saved. The museum's website has lots of information.

Building a Better Lobster Trap

The first thing to do today was to check up on the 308 and 309; everything looked fine. They operated both days over the weekend. On Saturday, I was the motorman with Greg Ceurvorst as conductor; after two trips it started to rain so the train had to be put away. Yesterday the cars operated for the Transport Extravaganza as seen here, with Jim Nauer and Dave Hammer.

Then it was on to the 277's interior. I sanded down some of the areas already painted and put on a first or second coat of white primer, including the sheet metal air conditioning duct seen at left.

Then I started to fix up the 277's lobster trap, as mentioned last time. This design is much easier to rebuild than the North Shore's. The longitudinal members are just steel plates, and the slats don't have much of a bend. On the North Shore all of these parts are wood and have to be steam-bent or cut to shape.

Three of the slats were missing parts, so they had to be removed, as seen here. I was able to re-use all of the machine screws that hold them in, however.

I scraped off all of the loose paint and rust and put brown primer on everything. This, of course, is the underside of the assembly. Next time I'll turn it over and paint the top side.





And here's a detail from an in-service photograph which shows what the trap will look like when it's installed. The next thing to install will be the ventilators along both sides of the roof.

And the Camp Grant is down to a pile of pieces, most of which are already in the dump trucks. Here we see a workman torching apart the underframe, and a pile of parts we're saving, such as a drawbar and the brake cylinder.

Soon the Camp Grant will be just another bad memory, like the mobile classrooms.

Illinois Terminal Fan Trip - 1963

Our friend Tom Cornillie found this advertisement for the Illini Railroad Club in a used book store in Oakland, Cal. The year is 1963. Tom points out that $19.95 was a lot of money in those days. When they got to Avon Yard in Indianapolis, they visited CA&E car 308 which was stored there at that time. Thanks, Tom!

The picture, of course, shows an earlier fan trip using only 233 and 234. I don't know the IT well enough to tell you where this is, but notice that the bracket arms are still in place over the track, so it wasn't long after electric service ended in 1956.

Update: Dale Jenkins says: "The train is between Bement and Monticello; southbound. That is Illinois Highway 105 in the foreground. This is the same site that had a large pyramid to mark a location of a famous Lincoln debate." Thanks!