Paint & Poles

The plan for today was to bring the 205 over to the inspection pit lead outside the Barn 4 car shop, where compressed air and multiple tools close at hand would make some of the work needed on the car easier. When I arrived the New York subway cars were in the way, but Jerry Saunders moved them out of the way and Joe Stupar ran the ComEd steeplecab to tow the 205 over to the pit lead.

I was able to spend virtually the entire day working on the car. Most of my time was spent sanding the car's side sheets and letterboard using a pneumatic DA sander and a pad sander (photo at left by Gwyn Stupar). Following this, at Gwyn's suggestion I used a roller to put another coat of primer on the side of the car, touching up rivet heads and corners with a brush. The sanding today was done with 60-80 grit sandpaper; tomorrow I'll go over today's prime job with 150 grit sandpaper and then put a coat of primer on the side sheets and letterboard with spray cans. Once that's done, the car should be ready to spray paint orange! I anticipate this happening in the spring.

One of the goals I had set for this week was to mount the trolley poles on the car. The poles had been sitting on the roof for the past couple of months, ready to go on, but without sufficient "head room" in the rafters of Barn 8. Joe Stupar was of invaluable help in getting these mounted today; at right, in another photo by Gwyn, he holds the east pole while I straighten it with a pipe wrench. The second pole had a kink right at the end that made it necessary to "heat and beat" it straight. Nick Kallas ran the torch for this operation assisted by Jon and Dan Fenlaciki, who are usually found working on that "other" Indiana Railroad car. Thanks to everyone who lent a hand! The 205 is now officially a "trolley car" for the first time in probably 50 years. The plan is to continue work on the car over the next couple of days on various fronts before its inevitable return to Barn 8. Stay tuned!

Labor Day Holiday

Today was a holiday for me, at least. My wife and I went to the Labor Day parade, walked around the new Pingree Grove forest preserve, and had lunch. Then we turned up at IRM.

The blue cars were in operation, with Dan Buck (L) the motorman and Chris Buck (R) the conductor. We noticed that there's another seat in the 308 that needs to be fixed and a window shade to be adjusted, but really everything seemed to be going quite well. There was a good crowd out, and the Zephyr and the bilevels were running. And the West End Jazz Band was playing, what more could you want?

It wasn't a holiday for everybody, though. Frank was hard at work on the 205 over by Barn 4. Here we see that he sanded down the entire side of the car in preparation for painting with primer. Shortly after this picture was taken, the poles were installed with the help of Joe Stupar and others (see above.)

Finally, our latest acquisition has arrived on the interchange track. Santa Fe Diesel #543 was sitting on its 16-wheel flatcar, with a Winton prime mover as a bonus. It's a Fairbanks-Morse H12-44TS, whatever that means, but it is very historic: it used to switch Dearborn Station. It's also as close as we'll ever come to having an FM Train Master.

Donate Now for the Trolleyville Collection!

An important message from our Executive Director, Nick Kallas:

There has been much speculation about the Trolleyville collection and our interest in any of the cars in the collection. At the August 8th meeting, the Board of Directors authorized the acquisition of up to eight pieces of equipment, subject to successful fundraising. The primary emphasis for acquisitions will be Chicago Aurora & Elgin equipment, including both steel and wood cars and comprising six of the eight pieces of equipment approved for acquisition by the Board.

Fundraising efforts have begun at the Museum and are now being extended to anyone interested in the preservation of this equipment at IRM. Repatriation is a buzzword in the museum community and we are hopeful that we can repatriate (bring home) this equipment to the Chicago area to operate it once again in the manner in which it used to run. Most of the equipment is operational and had been operated at Trolleyville prior to its move to downtown Cleveland. Acquisition of this equipment by IRM would be unique because of the "ready to run" condition and historic nature of the equipment and its relationship to the Chicago area.

While we realize these are tough economic times, donations have started to come in and commitments of cash are being made by individuals for certain pieces of equipment. As October 1st is the deadline for submitting bids, any donation, large or small, is greatly appreciated. If you would like to donate or pledge (please remember pledging is a contract) to this effort, send all contributions to IRM noting "Trolleyville cars" on the check memo line, or you can donate online using the following link:

http://www.irm.org/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=715

If you have any questions, please contact Nick Kallas, Executive Director, at
nkallas@irm.org or call me at the museum at 815-923-4391 ext 402.

Signed,

Nick Kallas
Executive Director
Illinois Railway Museum
P.O. Box 427
Union, IL 60180

A Little of Everything

It was a beautiful day out at the Museum and attendance seemed to be good. There was lots of activity in various places.

I started by installing another ventilator on the 277. I realized from pictures that one more is needed on the right side of the car, so I took one out of storage and painted it. It was also apparent that we will need to install the smokestack for the coal stove at the rear end of the car. (Obvious enough when you think about it!) I found the smokestack parts in storage; part was already restored and painted by Bob Bruneau, but the base needs some body and fender work.

Later in the day I inspected the motors and checked lubrication of the armature bearings. Everything seems to be fine. I also spent some time cleaning out tools and supplies from the 277 that I won't be needing soon.

I inspected the two blue cars. I found that one of the arm rests in the 309 had come loose and was sitting on a seat, so I repaired it and reinstalled it. The car is now ready for service.

I knew that the window wiper at the #1 end of the 308 was defective, so I decided to replace it. Fortunately, I have several spares. The installation is a little harder than it looks, but the device now works fine. We don't run the cars in the rain, but it's nice to be able to demonstrate how the "Armstrong" wipers work occasionally.

I also wandered over and took a couple of pictures of the Track Department working on Barn 11. Track 114 is now complete and is being leveled.

277 Update

Today I reinstalled the trolley pole on the 277. This is not easy to do with only two hands, but with some effort it can be accomplished. Everything is tightened down and I believe the trolley base is approximately tensioned -- we'll have to check the tension when the car is outside under higher wire.

I then inspected and lubricated the two compressors, and tested the air brake system. Everything worked as expected, so operation is near!

Then, armed with more caulk, I installed four ventilators along the south side of the car. I decided I needed to check pictures to be sure where the ventilator should be at the front of the car. As mentioned before, these ventilators don't actually ventilate anything, but they make the car look correct and keep rain from running into holes in the tar paper.

And in ground-breaking news, work is starting on the Car Department shop extension on the south side of Barn 4. Dave and Carl spent all day excavating the dirt for the floor of the extension, as seen here. And Max has been working for a couple of weeks to make the required changes to the electric service.

The 205 Out and About

I was out at the museum yesterday afternoon to get some preparatory work done on the 205. The plan is to tow the car over to the Barn 4 pit lead next weekend and spend a couple of days getting it ready for spray painting, which I hope will happen next year. In addition to the sanding and priming of the side sheets, I'm hoping to get at least some of the following tasks done:

- cut holes in the east end dash for installation of headlight and MU jumper
- make and install wooden backer to MU jumper for east end of car
- priming of roof ladder, touch-up painting on roof
- complete needle-chipping, wire-wheeling and priming of west end anticlimber
- Bondo work on letterboard at each end
- make and install wooden letterboard inserts to go over end windows
- install trolley poles

As seen above, the 205 was switched outside on Sunday; Joel Ahrendt ran the ComEd steeplecab in what ended up being a fairly challenging job, swapping the IT cars with the 205 so that the latter is now at the door and ready to head over to Barn 4. This was the first time the 205 had been outside since roof work was substantially completed earlier this year. If you're planning to be out at IRM on Labor Day, and would like to lend a hand, any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

Above left, we see the test piece for the new window post caps we are having fabricated by R&B Metals in Woodstock. These will be installed over the existing window posts, most of which are badly rusted away. And below, we see part of the lineup of CB&Q engines that was set up at the west end of the station tracks late in the day for photography. This photo was taken before the Zephyr arrived and before the 504 and 9255 were uncoupled. This sure is a good-looking trio!

CA&E Car Inventory of 1922

In 1922 the bankrupt Aurora Elgin and Chicago was split into two parts, the third rail division and the Fox River division, and the third rail division was sold to a new company, Chicago Aurora and Elgin, which started operations on July 1, 1922. (The whole complicated process is detailed in Plachno's book.) As part of this process, an eight-page inventory was compiled for each car in June 1922, and we recently received copies of these sheets from the Wendell Dillinger collection for our three cars. (The 431 was built in 1927 and so is not included, of course.)

There's a huge amount of data here, some of which is quite interesting, some of it is just puzzling. Who outside a couple of shop guys would care about the dimensions of truck live levers or swing link shafts? The information on painting is valuable. The 308 was repainted green in Jan. 1919, while the 309 was painted red in July 1921 and the 321 in Dec. 1921. I hadn't realized the red paint scheme started even before the Conway group took over.

In 1922 the cars still had "cash registers." A couple things I didn't know about were coasting clocks and disinfectant holders. To see the documents, go here. And there it is: everything you ever wanted to know about CA&E cars, and more!

Boiling Water!

We'll start with something more exciting than anything I could accomplish. The Steam Team test fired the 428 today, and it was great to see smoke rising into the air and hear the steam whistle blowing. Tom Schneider and all of his crew can be very proud of their accomplishments so far.

Watch out! We're blowing down the boiler!

It struck me again how much more involved this whole process is than just meggering a few motors and putting oil in the armature bearings. Congratulations!

Sorry, that's as good as it gets. I started the day by installing two of the repainted ventilators on the 277 with a combination of screws and nails. There are two more ready to go, but I ran out of caulk.

These ventilators don't actually ventilate anything due to the installation of air conditioning, but they were left in place until the end of service. They were removed when the roof was covered with tar paper. However, it was then no longer possible to know where the holes in the roof were, so over the years klutzes like me broke holes in the tar paper, as you can see here. So until the ventilators are reinstalled, there are huge holes in the roof covering, making it dangerous to run the cars if there's any threat of rain.

I got three more ventilators out of storage and put a first coat of primer on them. They're generally in good shape. We're lucky to have a complete set --it's amazing how many different forms of roof ventilators there were for such a simple function.

I then spent several hours repainting window frames and stripping others for the 277.

I spent some time showing visitors through the 309, after they started asking questions about the wood cars. Hey, it beats working!

Frank Sirinek gave me a copy of some interesting CA&E documents he got from Wendell Dillinger -- these are detailed descriptions of the cars from June 1922, about eight pages each, of our three wood cars. I'll have more about these after I've had a chance to analyze them. In return, I gave him (well, not him personally, IRM) a West Towns switch lock and key which I found in an antique store in Upper Michigan while on vacation. Who would have thought?

Dave's Depots -- Maryville, Illinois

Today's installment of Dave's Depots takes us to Maryville, Illinois. This depot is the standard "Amshack" that Amtrak erected in the 1970s in places like St. Louis, Cincinnati, Bloomington, IL, and other places.

I don't know which railroad owns the mainline that the depot sits on, as there is a lot of varied traffic, from steam, diesel, to even this RTA commuter train from the early 1980s. Railroads of all eras seem to pass by this depot, from modern BNSF unit coal trains, to L&N 2-8-2s and IC 2-10-2s moving manifest freights through town. More recently, I've seen a freight travel through town pulled by one of the Union Pacific Turbines.

Most passengers feel that the depot is a bit small.

Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Part I

While traveling on business last week, I had an opportunity to pay a quick visit to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg. This is one of the few state-owned railroad museums in the country, and as such has benefited from infusions of government money to promote capital projects. Most notably, it more closely follows the "professional" museum model of having a smaller collection of very well presented artifacts in a setting designed for viewing, with unrestored equipment kept out of the main museum (though still accessible in their outdoor lot).

The indoor portion of the museum includes, in addition to some model railroads and display cases with railroad artifacts, a large display hall four tracks wide with ample space between tracks. There is an overhead walkway from which all of the trains in the hall can be viewed. Some of the equipment is arranged in realistic trains; in the photo to the left, a pre-1950 freight train is at far left, with a 1920's passenger train beside it, a short hopper car train in the left foreground and a c1900 passenger train on the right.

The museum has some extremely historic equipment on display. Below left is a replica of the "John Bull" followed by one of the oldest preserved railway passenger cars, Camden & Amboy coach 3, built in 1836 and on loan from the Smithsonian. Below right is PRR 7002, the famous E2 Atlantic that operated as recently as the 1980's.


Among the trains in the main museum shed are several very interesting displays, shown below. Clockwise from top left: an exhibit showing ice blocks being loaded into a reefer by mannequins; a position light signal that can be operated by visitors; a below-ground pit for visitors to walk into to see the underside of a steam engine; and a locomotive simulator donated by Norfolk Southern that seemed especially popular.




























Next up: a trip to the "out back" sections of the museum!

Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Part II

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has a sizable collection of equipment stored outdoors, most in generally good cosmetic condition and much of it quite historically significant. Below left, two of the most historic electric locomotives preserved in the country are side-by-side. On the left is PRR 4800, "Rivets," the first GG-1 ever built; on the right is the only surviving DD-1, 3936-3937. This two-unit locomotive was built in 1911 for operation under the Hudson River into Manhattan and operates using a single huge electric motor in each unit, driving the wheels via side rods like a steam engine. Below right is PRR E6 Atlantic 460, the engine which famously headed the "Lindbergh Special" in 1927.

Below left is an odd little critter, an ancient side-rod Vulcan industrial switcher spotted next to the museum's turntable. And below right, proving that not everything at the museum is pre-1950, the only preserved Amtrak E60 locomotive heads up a short train of streamlined cars. With an impressive selection of PRR, RDG and Amtrak electrics, the museum has by far the best collection of mainline electric equipment in the country.

Across the street from the museum is the Strasburg Railroad, a privately owned tourist line known for its terrific steam program and fleet of wood passenger cars. Below left is the only *other* operating Decapod in the country, Great Western 90, backing down past its train; at right is the Strasburg yard, full of wood cars as far as the eye can see. What a fantastic place!

Finally I had to leave Strasburg for my meeting, but before leaving the area I was able to check out a couple of odds and ends. At left is a Philadelphia Peter Witt preserved in pristine condition on private property near Mount Hope, Pennsylvania, north of Lancaster; at right is a PRR cabin car situated next to the Phoenixville, PA Reading station, which itself has been maintained in good condition and now houses a catering company.

Dave's Depots -- Illinois Central Depot -- Murphysboro, Illinois

Just down the street from the previously-featured Mobile & Ohio Railroad depot, sits the Illinois Central Depot. Like the M&O, this secondary mainline of the Illinois Central is long gone. Actually, it appears as if the line through town ran right down the middle of the street.

The depot is large and ornate, almost as large as the Carbondale depot. Though, not on the mainline, Murphysboro is the county seat of Jackson County, and thus deserving of a nice depot.

The depot and adjacent freight house are in excellent condition, used by a local adult rehabilitation center.