Central City

Central City, Colorado is an old mining town high in the mountains above Denver; its current industry is casinos, of which there must be at least two dozen. One of them has this narrow gauge 2-8-0 from the Colorado & Southern plinthed in front. The locomotive seems to be complete and well cared for. Behind it is a combine which also appears to be in very good condition; I was unable to find out anything about it. When we get home, there will be lots more pictures of this and other items of interest. You can bet on it!

Dave's Depots - Illinois Terminal Depot/Substation - Hamel, Illinois

This is an ongoing series of posts by Hicks Car Works contributor David Wilkins, as he roams the country on business travel, and shares his finds with us.

A couple of weeks ago, when I had to go up to Peoria, I found that I-55 was backed up due to some serious road construction. I decided to "Get my Kicks" by taking old Route 66 as far as Springfield. I did not see Martin Milner or George Maharis though. From Edwardsville north, old Route 66 follows the old Illinois Terminal traction line to just past Hamel. There, the IT splits off in a northeasterly direction, as I took an older alignment of Route 66 to Springfield.

Right in the middle of downtown Hamel sits this depot/substation combination. It is currently used as a tanning salon. I believe the IT literally ran down the middle of the street in Hamel. The building is in good shape.

Time for painting

I was able to make it out to IRM on Sunday for a rather warm and humid day in the low 90's, yet still a productive one. Much of the afternoon I spent on a couple of trips to the Sherwin-Williams store in Crystal Lake, accompanied by Frank Sirinek and with additional help from Rod Turner, to get a match made for "Indiana Railroad orange" using that company's industrial enamel paint. What we ended up with was close, if not identical, to the original sample, so I painted a small patch of it onto the 205 (below) to compare with our sample. The color may be slightly off, but in that case we'll have a reference to work from and should be able to get it spot-on the next time we go back. In the meantime, we have a gallon of paint that I can start to put on the car as a first coat. Exciting stuff - it's been a while that I've been hoping to start turning this car orange!
Another example of painting progress sits just two cars down from the 205 on track 73. Chicago Surface Lines 9020, the only surviving Chicago streetcar trailer, is getting some fresh red and cream paint courtesy of Frank Sirinek and Dan Fenlaciki, as seen below. Once this car is repainted it will make a great companion to CSL/CTA 460, displayed next to it and repainted by Frank a few years ago. Unfortunately no cars were preserved that ever hauled trailers in Chicago, so the 9020 will remain a static display piece.
After this I sauntered over to the shop, where Joel Ahrendt (below left) was working with Greg Kepka on putting a fresh coat of paint on the roof of the 160. Even the indefatigable Nick Kallas (below right) stopped by to help hold the ladder in place! I helped Joel for a bit with painting the roof on the car, a job which he was able to complete before dinnertime.









And now make sure you take a deep breath of that fresh air because we're about to take a voyage from the realm of clean electric traction over to the odiferous land of internal combustion! First, the Diesel Department fired up the museum's Alco RSD15 (below left) for the very first time on Sunday. Former AT&SF 841, it is currently in LS&I/GBW paint. Note the expectant onlookers gathered around for the show, which turned out to be fairly impressive, as Alcos often can be. And at below right, yet another newly-acquired bus was spotted. This one, a former CTA fishbowl, was roaming the property under power and is apparently getting some new windows installed.

Arvada Junction

Lots of people have said I needed to change my altitude, or something like that. So we're staying for a few days with relatives in Arvada, a suburb of Denver. And high on the wall of a building in downtown Arvada is this beautiful mural of Arvada Junction on the Denver & Northwestern interurban. Narrow-gauge interurbans were very rare. This is out of my territory, but I believe the two steeplecabs are hauling coal in wooden gons from mines at Leyden to the line's Denver power plant, while a local car turns onto the branch to Golden. What a great picture!

Here and There

As mentioned earlier, Bob Kutella and Rich Witt have agreed to start working on refinishing windows for CA&E #36 as a background activity. The first one has been sanded down nicely. I provided some white primer, and I will order the epoxy we need to fill a few checks and cracks in the wood. Tim Peters helped with expert advice on what to order. I brought over three more windows for them to work on, and then got three replacements from storage to fill up the spaces on the car. I also did some sorting of parts, and took them over to the container. I talked to Rod about replacing a leaking valve on the 319. And the first recovered seat cushion was installed in the 308.

Then I went over to the 321 to check on the tarp, which needs to be done on a regular basis. Everything's fine. But here, we see the motor fuse box, which was held up by lag screws that have fallen out of the rotten floor. A robin decided this was a good place to build a nest, since it's pretty well protected from the weather. And the nest is decorated with loose strands from nearby tarps! After taking this picture, I lifted the tarp to look inside, and there was a baby robin working its way out of the egg. I decided it was best to move away and let Mommy get back to her work.

And meanwhile, the farmer was busy making hay over on the south 40. So there's our nature notes for today.

Recovering Seats

When the old material on seat cushions starts to break up, as it did on this one from the 308, the only solution is to replace it. Today's helpful hint: Black duct tape will not work! This artificial leather type of material went by several trade names, such as Fabrikoid or Pantasote.

It's held to the seat frame with hundreds of small carpet tacks, each of which has to be removed. I'm not sure whether the frames date back to the car's construction. This frame had been on its second covering, and I installed the third. That may be approaching the limit to how many different sets of tacks you can drive into the wood. The modern material is less prone to ripping, though, so I can space the tacks somewhat farther apart. I suppose one could instead use a power stapler, but I prefer to stay with the original system, however time-consuming.

When done, it looks like this. For our level of service, this should last indefinitely.

Back to Work

After the parade has gone by, it's time to get back to work.

I had noticed a few minor problems with the 308 when we were running it in revenue service on Sunday. Two seat cushions had ripped, so I removed them and took them home for new material. The cushions I can do myself. A couple of seat arms were loose and needed to be tightened up. Also, one of the buzzer cord hangers was loose, and was fixed.

Most of the time, though, was spent stripping paint from the 36. Fortunately, I may be able to get some help. I talked to Bob Kutella and Rich Witt, and Rich in particular may be willing to help by sanding down and repainting the windows as a background activity in the shop. This will be very useful. Here they are looking at the first one, which Rich had started on.

Bob was polishing the brass handles for seats in the Sand Springs car. He does a very meticulous job, of course. In fact, it reminded me of Gilbert and Sullivan:

"I polished up the handles so care-full-lee..."

And here is the 36 again, as I slowly make my way down the side of the car.

Finally, Doug Johnson, a friend of Norm Krentel from Michigan, sent me a great 8x10 print of a photograph he took when they were visiting IRM a couple of weeks ago. He somehow failed to notice that I was standing in front of an otherwise beautiful train, but it's still a very nice picture. Thanks, Doug!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

My July 4th Trolley Pageant post is going to be rather photo-bare. I left my camera locked up safely in LSE 150 for the day! Therefore, I'm using other people's material to highlight the day. (Thanks to Gwyn Stupar for photographing me as the "serious trolley conductor!").

I had to do the St. Louis to IRM and back trip in one day. I had to attend a wedding on the 3rd and had to be at work on the 5th. Thankfully, I had a bunch of frequent flyer miles accumulated from my business trips with American Airlines. My day began with a 6:35 am flight out of St. Louis-Lambert International Airport on an American Airlines 757. After arrival at O'Hare, Frank picked me up from Terminal 3. We had originally planned to eat lunch at Allen's Corner, but they were closed for the holiday, so we ate at the McDonald's at the Hampshire exit on the Tollway.

Here's a video of the 2 car South Shore train during the parade:

After our job briefing with Rod Turner and Joe Stupar, we went to prepare the 19 for service. The car is starting to really transform into a beautiful car. Frank S. and Mike S. have done a great job refinishing most of the seats. The parade lineup looked impressive. After we passed the Depot in review, Frank and I immediately went into service on the car line. The open car proved popular, as we were full for most circuits of the property.

Here is a video of the IC MU Cars. I was the conductor on these during the 2009 parade:

IRM Member Gwyn Stupar is turning out to be quite the excellent photographer. Here's the link to her photo stream on Flikr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44474109@N03/

After our last trip, we put the car back up, changed and headed back to O'Hare. I managed to get an earlier flight on standby, thanks to my status with AA. By 8:10 I was in a seat on an ex-TWA MD-80 headed to St. Louis.

Here is a video of the IT freight train:

The IRM and back in one day from St. Louis is something I do not recommend for the faint hearted. It was a busy day, but a fun one.

Finally, as always, it was great to see all of the IRM members and chat, even for just a short bit.

The Big Parade

This year's Trolley Pageant featured 47 pieces of operating electric equipment (which doesn't include several freight cars) and if that isn't a world record I'd like to know what is.

Since I was one of the participants I didn't get to see much of it, so picture submissions will be welcome. The 308. 309, and 319 ran as a train, with a one-man crew.

In the morning, some of the equipment was staged at 50th Avenue. I thought about letting people walk through the cars, but I didn't want them tracking creosote from the platform on the floors.






Two photos by Terrell Colson

In this business you sometimes have to associate with rather shady characters.

We then moved down to the west end prior to the start of the parade at 1:00.

The 309 even got to run a few feet out onto the interchange track, which I don't think it had done since its arrival in 1964.

This is just a small part of the impressive array of operating equipment.

We then proceeded in order past the depot, in my case at high speed, blowing the whistle. Eight hours of work for 15 seconds of glory. Be that as it may, we got many compliments from visitors over the pageant, and how big and well-run it seemed to be. That makes it all worth while.

Photo by Terrell Colson

Then, since revenue service needed to resume, I spent much of the afternoon down at the east end. It was very peaceful. I also have some pictures to add to the scenery album.


And I should hasten to add that several members put in many days of work over the past month to make this all possible, much more than I did. It was a huge undertaking. Thanks to all who helped out!

A Really Big Show

I'll cover both July 3rd and July 4th in my post; I'm sure that my father will chime in with more photos and info on happenings on the 4th. Suffice to say, everything went off swimmingly!

The weather was terrific both days. On the 3rd, we put together the three-car wood train with a full crew, as shown in the previous post. We ran one revenue trip before lunchtime then followed it up with the abandonment reenactment trip at about noon. Below right, the line-up on Station Track 1 before the reenactment trip included five CA&E cars - quite a sight!









We ran a couple more trips after this. The crowds on Sunday were depressingly small; on no trip did we have more than maybe 40-50 people on the entire train. Assigned to run the "clean-up" trip at 5pm, we elected to mix things up a bit and broke the train (i.e. uncoupled) there in the station, just like they would do dozens of times a day at Wheaton. Motorman Joel and conductor Ron departed on the final trip (below), after which my father and I ran the blue cars back to Barn 8. When the 319 returned to the barn we made the train back up in preparation for...

The Big Event

July 4th was the largest trolley pageant IRM has ever put on, and by a good margin too. The weather was outstanding: hardly a cloud in the sky and low 80's. I picked up David Wilkins at O'Hare in the morning and we drove out, arriving at about 9am to witness staging activities already well along due largely to the efforts of Rod Turner and Joel Ahrendt, assisted by Joe Stupar, Greg Kepka and many others. Our assignment for the day was Veracruz 19. Below left, cars wait in Barn 8 to emerge for staging; below right, our plucky streetcar.









We were staged at the north end of the 50th Avenue west track, right next to - as it turned out - the CA&E wood cars, which were staged on the east track. Joining us in the 50th Avenue area during the staging period were the Sand Springs car, CSL 1374 and 144, the New York subway cars, "TM" L7 and the Broad Street subway car.
The 19 is single-ended, but David and I quickly got the routine of swinging the pole around and moving the retriever from back to front for back-up moves down to a science. Shortly before 1pm we were sent out to the eastbound main alongside the parking lot, and the pageant started just around 1:10pm. We were probably the 15th or 16th move, so we got to see a lot of neat stuff go past us including an impressive run-by of the three-car CA&E steel train to lead off the pageant. Car 460, in the lead, flew black flags in memory of the late Julie Johnson, whose donations made possible the acquisition of our ex-Trolleyville cars, including Veracruz 19.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during the pageant and didn't take many afterwards,
but hopefully we'll be able to post more photos taken by others soon. I'd also recommend checking out the IRM webcam time-lapse at http://www2.irm.org/cam/timelapse.html (you may have to select 7-4-11 in the date box) - it is truly amazing how much activity took place over the course of the day. For a good eight hours there was hardly a minute when two or more trains weren't in motion, and a tremendous amount of credit is due to the dispatchers who made it all work: Joel Ahrendt, car line dispatcher; Adam Robillard, main line dispatcher; and Jamie Kolanowski, who dispatched the pageant. Rod Turner was unflagging in his efforts to get everything ready beforehand and put everything away afterwards, and literally dozens of volunteers made the whole thing possible by crewing all of the trains for the day.

After the parade we ran the 19 for several revenue trips before spotting it in front of Barn 4 to take a break. At about 4pm we ran it for a few more trips and then put it away. The crowd for the day seemed good, and the ever-popular open car was always full. Overall it was a terrific day and a great success for IRM and for the Electric Car Department.

Sunset Lines

Today was the 54th anniversary of the sudden end of passenger service on the CA&E, and we commemorated the day in bigger and better fashion than ever.

We operated a three-car wood train all day, and here's our crew:
(L to R) Frank, myself, Joel Ahrendt (motorman), and Ron Seevers.

At noon, we had the abandonment re-enactment: passengers were told that service had been suspended and they had to get off. Of course, they quickly found other means to get back to the station!

After abandonment, all five cars were lined up at the west end, as seen here. (L to R) 319, 308, 309, 431, and 409.

Two steel cars, 409 and 431, were running all day. The 460 will be added for the pageant tomorrow.

I should also mention that we have the Dallas crew helping out this weekend. Several members from Dallas who are associated with the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority come up to IRM each year to operate. Thanks, guys!

Everybody seemed to have a good time, and we got several compliments from people who enjoyed being part of the re-enactment.

In other news, the paving seems to have been completed and looks great, but I never got around to photographing it. Come on out and see it for yourself!

Keep America Beautiful

I don't know how many of us remember Lady Bird, but that's still good advice.

Unsure how you can help? Your tax-deductible contribution to IRM will enable us to build barns, repaint equipment, improve the buildings and grounds, and generally enhance the appearance of America's largest railway museum. What could be better than that?