What Lies Beneath!

The other day, while walking on Lemp Avenue, near my new home, I noticed this, pictured to the right. Actually I noticed it because I nearly tripped over it while crossing the street. Yes, streetcar tracks still exist under the pavement in St. Louis. My St. Louis streetcar books are packed up, so I do not know what line this was, but it is very interesting, as it appears as if the street has been paved only once since the end of streetcar service.

As some of you may know, I'm in the process of moving prior to getting married next month. After law school, I elected to live in the suburbs, just over the city limits. I'm moving back to the city, in the Benton Park neighborhood of St. Louis. Benton Park is just south of downtown, and “up the bluff” from the Mississippi River. Benton Park is near the Anheuser-Busch brewery, and also down the street from the old Lemp Brewery. Lemp, before Prohibition, was the largest brewery in the United States.

The Lemp family also owned an interurban, the St. Louis, Columbia and Waterloo Railway, which ran from the top deck of the Eads Bridge all the way down to Waterloo in Monroe County, Illinois. The Lemp brewery did not survive Prohibition, and went out of business, failing to diversify as A-B did. The interurban line folded next. The Lemp family lived down the street from my new home in a mansion that still exists. The Lemp family was marked by several suicides, and the mansion is considered to be "haunted." The Lemp brewery facility still exists, being used for many purposes. It once had a cable railway to pull cars up the bluff from the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (MOPAC) to the brewery.

Dave's Depots -- Saint Louis Union Station, Part II

One of the "advantages" of working for my law firm is that is you do not like the view outside your office window, just wait, chances are you will move. In the two years I have been working as an attorney, I have had offices on all four sides of the building, and on two different floors. My first office had a nice north view, where I could see the Merchants Bridge (Terminal Railroad Association) the McKinley Bridge (Illinois Terminal) and on a clear day all they way to Chain of Rocks and even Alton. This office was replaced by a south view where I could only see into the judge’s chambers in the Federal courthouse next door (where I once saw a judge sleeping on his couch). My last office had a good view of the Alton and Southern yard in East St. Louis, and a “good” view of East St. Louis.

The man I worked for recently made partner, and was thus given the requisite partner-sized office. This move necessitated my move from the east to the west side of the building.

The good news is that I have a great view from my new office, including a view of Union Station, the tarin shed and the rail yards in the Mill Creek Valley. As you can see from the photo, the Union Station train shed is very large. You could actually fit the new Amtrak station (which is also very nice) inside the train shed without any problem. An added bonus of the new location is that I can also watch trains on the Metrolink Light Rail system pass by, and view some of the new car wraps Metro is experimenting with. Of course, all of this watching out the window may mean a decrease in my productivity....

Alternative Fuel Vehicle

Due to the rising cost of electricity, the museum has elected to investigate the possibility of replacing streetcar service with dog carts. A test installation of this technology was authorized and was conducted in Barn 6 over the weekend, as seen below. It was generally agreed that the technology is worthy of further study, including further capacity and endurance testing as well as cost analysis comparing the price of electricity vs Alpo.

Beehive of Activity

There was a lot happening today, much of it in preparation for Members Day - ahem, Museum Showcase Weekend. One thing that had nothing to do with Members Day was the revenue operation of the 308 and 309. The cars seemed to run fine all weekend with nary a problem, today operated by our illustrious crew caller, Jim West.


I spent most of my day working on the 205. The first order of business was to sand down the rough spots in the paint and re-spray them. As seen at right, these were pretty numerous due to my lack of skill in spray-painting, but by the end of the day the situation had been rectified and the car not only had a nice smooth coat of primer, but had lost that unsightly newspaper masking.

I did some work on other areas of the 205 as well. I cleaned off and spray-primed the switch group covers under the car, as seen at left. At some point coming up I can spray-paint these black, which will help the appearance of the car considerably. On this side of the 205 the switch group boxes are the only really obvious under-floor equipment besides the trucks, on which I haven't decided exactly what to do. They'll need to get painted black one way or another though.

I also did some Bondo work - at left is seen the impressive amount of Bondo applied today to the bottom of the second window post from the west end left-side door - and some wire-wheeling. The corner post at the northeast corner of the car was wire-wheeled, as was some more of the anticlimber at the west end.

Late in the day, an exciting development occurred - the Return of the Tangerine Flyer! The 277 made its return to the high iron today after some inspection work by crew of Car Department workers, but with an improvement over its previous appearance last October: this time observation car 234 was in tow! The three-car train made quite a striking appearance on the railroad; two car line trips and one main line trip were made. The latter was the first time the 234 has ever been on the museum's main line east of Seeman Road, as the railroad was extended to its current terminus since the last time the 234 had operated on the main! Weather permitting, this train will be operating this coming Saturday, the 19th - so don't miss it!

Moving along

I was able to get a good deal done on the 205 over the past couple of days. Tuesday night I spent some time going through the car and removing objects that were obviously not needed - pieces of wooden blocking, plywood, old coffee cans and even a decrepit wooden door whose origins are unknown. Wednesday I spent some time helping switch the 205 around to aid with the 3142 motor work and also got to do some more needle-chipping. As seen in the Kirk Warner photo at right, taken of me sitting down on the job, I needle-chipped the car's two HL switch group boxes; these can now be primed and painted black.

I was also able to paint the roof ladder green to match the rest of the roof and painted the lower half of the east end anti-climber green as well. The photo at left shows the car at the Electric Park trolley bus turnaround on a "rare mileage" run courtesy of ComEd 4 and Henry Vincent; the newspaper masking is obvious, and will be left in place for the next week or two to allow me to (I hope) do some more primer spraying after a bit of touch sanding rough spots.

Overall, the 205 project is getting quite a bit closer to completion. Once the small amount of required re-spraying is done the car will be ready to spray paint orange, though at the moment I'd like to put that off until next spring so that the window post caps now on order can be sprayed at the same time. Some of the tasks I was hoping to get to this week, like cutting holes in the east end dash for the headlight, did not get done - but those can be accomplished in Barn 8. Measurements were taken for the wooden inserts over the end windows, which will not only allow for final installation of those windows but will also allow completion of Bondo work on the letterboard at the ends and priming of those areas. Roof work has been completed with the painting of the roof ladder, which is quite a milestone. The end is in sight! Thanks to all who helped out with switching and other work this week!

More Miscellaneous Maintenance

Frank finished up his current round of painting on the 205 today, over by the pit. The good side and most of the ends are now nearly ready for finish paint. Here are some details. It will look great in Indiana Railroad orange!

The interior will be left as is.

The lower half of the anticlimber was green, the upper half orange.

Meanwhile, several of the guys were hard at work installing the repaired traction motor for the 3142 in its truck. The car was then reassembled, and successfully tested later in the day.

Note that these are outside-hung motors (on the outer side of the axles.) This allows a shorter wheelbase for the sharp curves on streetcar track. Interurban trucks always have the motors between the axles, for a longer wheelbase and better stability at high speeds.

I spent some time repairing seats in the 308 and 309 which had gotten out of whack. Frank and I then spent most of the afternoon switching cars in Barn 8. This turned out to be harder than it looks, but everything is safely arranged back on track 84, with the 277 and 518 at the door.

Sand and Paint, Sand and Paint...

Today was Day Two of the 205 "Work Party" and Day One of "Frank's Boss Is Wondering Where He Is." It was a pretty quiet day on the property, with Tim Peters' work on "L" car 1268 the only other obvious activity. I sanded down yesterday's paint job and then sprayed a coat of primer on the car. Overall the surface finish thus produced is quite satisfactory, I think; there are a number of runs (nobody ever accused me of being a good spray painter) and some other spots I want to touch-sand tomorrow, but overall the side sheets of the car are a good deal smoother than when I started. Success!

In other news, I also primed the roof ladder, which will later be painted dark green, and attached the trolley retrievers that had been primed back in early May. The trolley ropes look a lot better cleated to the retrievers and not hanging slack. The photo accompanying this post is a cell phone photo; note the newspaper masking festooning the car for spraying on primer.

Know anyone with experience spraying Centari who would be willing to turn this car orange?

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.