Saturday Car Work

As mentioned in my father's post, all four Hicks Car Works contributors were out at the museum on Saturday.  I spent much of the day making more progress on the 205.  My biggest accomplishment was painting the west end of the car with a first coat of orange, as shown below.  This means that the side and both ends of the car, all sections being cosmetically restored, have a first coat of orange.  Only a few small pieces still need to be installed and/or painted orange.  Note that the bottom half of the anticlimber at this end is still in primer; I'm out of IRR green and need to get more mixed to remedy this.

I also did some less photogenic work on the car including spraying a quick-and-dirty coat of gloss black onto the east truck, a job which was done earlier to the west truck, and more cleaning up of parts inside the car. And I cut to length and primed a bit of wooden window beading that somehow had never been installed when the Portland-installed drop sash was removed, back when dinosaurs roamed the blog.

NEWS FLASH - I stopped by Chicago Rapid Transit 1797 over in Barn 4 and was treated to the above view of the interior, which is very close to finished.  Tim Peters and Frank Kehoe have done a spectacular job of returning this car to its 1938 appearance in a remarkably short period of time.  Tim informed me that the 1797 will be making its operating debut at IRM next Saturday, for the first day of Museum Showcase Weekend, running rain or shine with restored wooden trailer 1268.  This will be the first time the 1797 has carried any fare-paying passengers since retirement from the CTA in 1958, so don't miss it!

Definition: Nick [nik] - verb: to secure (a person, services, etc.) for some cause, enterprise, etc.; to dragoon: I got Nicked and spent an hour or so working on repairing metal display signs in Barn 7.

As I was finishing up with fixing some of the Barn 7 display signs that had gone askew David and Al showed up, bringing the 3142 back into the barn.  I snapped a couple of photos; they're certainly dressed for success!

Saturday Operations

 Saturday was a beautiful day to be outside, so two of my friends were put to work hauling passengers again.  Jim Nauer was the motorman, and everything went well.

 

Meanwhile, David was running the 3142, and Al was doing his line training.

In one of those rare occurrences, all four of us were at the Museum at the same time.  Frank sticks out as the only person doing actual restoration work. 

Lots of other things were going on, too many to list.  Art Schwartz from the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum was visiting, for instance.But I forgot to take his picture.

The train was pretty full for all of our runs.

And there was a birthday party charter for a young boy, and Take the Throttle, and Nancy was wandering around in one of her period costumes.  A good time was had by all.

Next weekend will be Museum Showcase Weekend, formerly known as Member's Day, so there will be several special operations, including night-time runs.  You won't want to miss it! 

Visit the Lake City

 Let's take a tour of our newest parlor car, the Lake City.  The interior is generally in beautiful condition, although some parts are missing and it's partly disassembled.  We'll start at the rear, the large open platform end of the car.  Roger Kramer is our tour guide.

The first compartment is a parlor; several parlor car chairs IRM had in its collection will be placed here.

 The woodwork is beatiful.

 Then we make our way down an aisle past the ladies' lounge to the open section part of the car.

 Then there's the men's lounge, a large box smoker with the usual facilities.

Then down the aisle again toward the front of the car.  

Roger wanted me to mention that we need 18 more of this exact type of light fixture, since they're all missing.  This is one he got on eBay.  And lots of money is still needed to pay for the car, the moving, and the inside storage.  So please help out!  Thanks.

Beam Me Up

Today was a great day for working.  I started by checking the blue cars and was pleased to find that Jeff, Sam, and Ron did a fine job of putting them away and locking them up.  That's better than I sometimes do.

On the 36, the next job was to remove one of the end windows, which had received a sheet metal patch at Cleveland.  That's not good. 

 

Yust vaht I taught.  After removing the metal, there's a large rotten section.  I'm still undecided whether to patch it with epoxy, or replace the whole wooden frame.  I'm leaning toward replacement, but I'll let the others look at it on Saturday.

Meanwhile, two repainted side windows were installed, and a blank put in the end window.

The next job was to raise one of the third-rail beams on the 308, since it had been noted on the car report.    As you may be able to see here, it has dropped down, but the bolts are tight and it's in no danger of coming loose.  Still, it looks wrong.  After some considerable effort, I managed to get it aligned.  And I think I know what the problem is: there's a metal plate behind the beam with ridges that are supposed to mesh with ridges cut into the mounting bracket.  If the plate is slightly askew, they don't mesh properly and the plate can slide down while the truck is vibrating in service. It's not easily noticed, but once I know what to look for, we can go around and check all of the others.

Well, that was a good job done.  Now I can load up the tools and take them all back.

Ed Oslowski has been hard at work on the 277.  Usually he and I are not out at the same time, but he was there today, and I was able to help him a little with locating the spare parts he'll need.  He's making great progress on refinishing all of the windows in the car.

 

I'm now much more of an DM&IR fan than before, so as I was wandering about, I noticed this beautiful coach being repainted.  Now where I have seen a similar car recently?

Then I met up with my old friend Roger, who let me into the Lake City so I could take some pictures.  Maybe I'm missing something, but I hadn't seen any interior shots yet.  So that will be posted next!

 

Then I spent some time stripping paint from the lower part of the #1 end on the 36.  It really wasn't as unpleasant as one might have feared.  Three of the boards just could not be stripped, for some reason, so I sanded them down vigorously, and everything will be fine with two coats of primer.

 Finally, the Car Dept. regulars were staging the North Shore fleet for a calendar shot: the Electroliner meeting a five-car steel train.  It will be much better than these grab shots, I'm sure.  Only at IRM!

Help Us To Avoid Accidents

A bit of safety advice from Chicago Railways, just in case your fedora-wearing kids were thinking about playing marbles on the streetcar tracks.  Note the faithful drawing of an Old Pullman, right down to the Baldwin trucks and the "Have Fare Ready Please" lettering next to the door.  Thanks to John Smatlak for sending along this 1909 gem.

Labor Day Labor

It's a long-standing tradition at IRM to celebrate Labor Day with just that: lots of labor. So let's get to work!

The blue cars were running today, and generally we had a good crowd of visitors. Everything seems to have gone well. I helped a little with getting them ready for service.

And here's our operating crew: Sam Polonetzky, Ron Seavers, and Jeff Obarek.

I started by putting a finish coat of Fleet Grey on two windows in the shop. They should be ready for installation next time.

And then continued with grey around the door frame and on the handrails on this corner of the car, where the door had been removed.




And I took another trip out to check on the 321, including inside the car to see if it had been taking on water during the recent rains. The answer appears to be no.

The weather, however, was rather unpleasantly hot and humid, so I preferred to work in the shop. Al Reinschmidt wins this week's door prize. He's done a great job refinishing this side door; there was just a little more painting needed, then I was able to assemble it and put it back on the car. This will be needed whenever the car is wyed.

The inner metal panel had rusted out, so this is a replacement. I marked and drilled all the holes so it can be installed next time. And I did some other miscellaneous tasks on the 36.

Meanwhile, Frank was working on painting the 205. It looks great! Here he is working on the doors at the west end, and the east end which has already been painted.

By the way, on RyPN I noticed this article from a newspaper in Mississippi that Dudie's Diner is being restored - again. Our blog is mentioned, which is nice, although I could do without the extra apostrophe. Hick's Car Works, indeed.

Frank adds...

My father pretty much covered things in the above post.  I managed to get both sets of doors on the 205 painted orange; I ran out of time before I could paint the west end of the car but that should happen next weekend, after which I can start putting on finish paint.  At right, my father is seen assembling the side door for the 36 prior to installation.



One of the more unusual ways in which the Insull interurban lines modernized their fleets was the "Silverliner" treatment done by the North Shore to some of its cars.  Lines of shaded grey "shadows" were painted on the sides of their cars to simulate stainless steel.  At left, we see just how effective this treatment was, with one of the museum's Silverliners over the inspection pit.  It almost looks like a real Budd car!


In other news, I recently visited Bob Bruneau, longtime Electric Car Department Curator and now the Curator Emeritus, in the retirement home.  His condition is frail but his memory is sharp as a tack and he's always interested in calls, letters or visits.  E-mail me at fullparallel at wideopenwest dot com if you'd like his contact information.

36 Report

The blue cars were supposed to be running today, but it rained off and on for part of the time, so they never left the barn. It's probably just as well. Anyhow, the various Car Dept. projects proceeded as usual.

I was able to paint the upper end of the 36 with a first finish coat of both blue and red. The blue is fine, but the red doesn't cover very well and at least a second coat will be needed before the finish painting is done. Nonetheless, I think it looks fine. (Sorry, the scaffold filter on my camera seems to have stopped working.) All of the doors and windows were painted red at Brookins. It's not quite the right shade of red, but at least they're not green. I plan to remove both the doors and the end windows for refinishing in the shop eventually.

Speaking of Brookins, I met a visitor from Cleveland who had been a volunteer at North Olmsted. His name is Chris Emery and he had worked on the cars, so I showed him through the 36 and 319, and then into our woodshop and Barn 4. He was on his way to Mt. Pleasant, where I'm sure he'll have a good time.

I went over to the shop and put a second coat of primer on the windows I did last time; I also applied filler as needed and attached the molding strip our friend Rich Witt had made. Pictures of repainted windows get rather repetitious, however, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Tim Peters has been making remarkable progress on the 1797. The interior looks fantastic!

That reminds me of a story. On our recent trip, I happened to be talking to somebody about IRM, and he asked me, "Do your volunteers do good work?"


I was so surprised by this question, I'm not even sure what I said. After all, I'm one of the volunteers. It's too bad I didn't have some of these pictures in my pocket to show him. They speak for themselves.

Finally, since there was wet paint on the east end of the car, I decided to put the D-16 to work as a platform, and started removing paint from the metal plate on the west end of the 36. At some point in the next few weeks, we plan to switch out track 82 for various reasons, and the 36 will be wyed so I can start stripping the other side.

You, sitting there at the computer. You need to get out more. You should take an excursion. Get out and meet people and have a good time. And help a good cause while you're at it. Luckily for you, I have the solution: the Nebraska Zephyr Excursion from Chicago to Quincy and back! Don't delay, seats are limited!