Trolleyville in 1984 - Wulfert Collection

In late 1984, the management at Trolleyville decided to dispose of two of the four Fox River cars that founder Gerry Brookins had acquired back about 1954 to start the collection.  The 302 was the worst of the lot and was scrapped, and the 306 was sold to IRM.   The other two, 303 and 304, were in better condition and remained a part of the collection until the end; they eventually went to NORM and Fox River.

On November 24, 1984, Bill Wulfert was there to take several pictures of the 306, as well as some of the other cars.

Fox River Electric 302, prior to scrapping.

Washington DC PCC #1304 - now at Seashore.
(This car was acquired by GE in 1962 for testing as the automated car "Tomorrow".  It has since been restored to its original condition and is operational.)

Met car motor truck with WH 114 motors.
(Trolleyville acquired two Met car trucks, intended for the parlor car Toledo.  They were never used for this purpose, and IRM later gave them some CTA 4000 trucks to put under the Toledo in exchange for these trucks and the Westinghouse motors needed for one of our Met cars.)

 Fox River Electric 306

Unidentified wheels in the weeds.

 CA&E 460 and 409

409 interior

High wire act

Frank writes...

I showed up early Sunday afternoon without a particular project in mind, but a crew was going out on the line car shortly so I came along to help.

The train, shown above, consisted of ComEd 4 and North Shore line car 604, which is no longer self-propelled due to bad motors. We went out ahead of a revenue steam coach train trip. Initially Greg Kepka and I jumped off east of Karstens to do some brush cutting, but the chainsaw wouldn't cooperate so we hoofed it to Johnson Siding where the rest of the crew was making some wire repairs. Fortunately the weather was spectacular so it was a nice walk. Once the next revenue train, the wood "L" cars, passed eastbound the line car headed west to a spot near signal 251 where the CA&E cars have been de-wiring on an irritatingly consistent basis. Sure enough, there was a badly bent catenary hanger that had put a noticeable groink in the wire. It's now fixed so we're hoping that the de-wiring issue - at least, this one - is solved.

Here's the view looking east as we head back to Johnson to meet the "L" cars, which you can see in the siding, to let them past. All of the repair work that was done was between signal 201 and Johnson Siding so that we could duck into the siding to let the revenue trains past.

I didn't spend much time up on the roof. Mostly I acted as gofer running tools and parts up the ladder and swapping poles to change direction, spending the time in between salvaging usable components from discarded wire hangers and straightening up the interior of the 604. Above is the rooftop crew: Richard, Greg, Thomas, Nick and Shelby.

And here's our intrepid motorman, Joel, who ably ran the 4 all day. It's always good to have a motorman with a light touch when you're sitting 15' up in the air!

Here the crew makes some repairs between the east Johnson switch and the Seeman Road crossing. Quite a few broken or bent hangers in the catenary section were fixed, including the one that we think was causing the CA&E cars grief, and some other fixes were made at various places as well. Maintenance like this, while not flashy, is necessary to keep our demonstration railroad running smoothly. Another vital component is track, and Frank Devries was hard at work on Station Track 2, working with a contingent from the Army replacing the rail on the eastern half of the track. This will be a big improvement and a big "thank you" goes out to both the soldiers and to our own volunteer Track Department!

Under Pressure

Today was another great day out at the Museum, with nice weather and progress in all directions.  For me, the best thing is that the air system on car 36 has now been fixed and holds air pressure, without any audible leaks.  Joel helped by going over to the air brake parts car with me to select a drain cock, the final missing part.  I kept expecting him to promise me I'd "save big money", and sure enough, I did.  It took a while to finalize the mounting brackets for the tanks, and then retighten a couple of unions, but the air system works as advertised, and the brakes set and release -- what more could you want?  There wasn't much to take a picture of, though.

Next, I started on fixing the hole in the roof of the 460, as mentioned last time.

There are two layers of canvas, and under that is a thin layer of some sort of silk material.  In any case, there's no doubt the 460 is in need of a complete roof job at some point in the future.  In the meantime, I at least want to repair the wood structure properly.  This is what it looks like after removing what's left of the drip rail and peeling back the canvas.

The drip rail was held in with screws, and easily removed.  I took it over to the shop for our sheet metal experts to handle.  It's made of a fairly thick copper sheet.

Then we remove the two layers of thin wood over the curve of the roof, back to the first carline.  Fortunately, there's no damage to any of the structural parts of the roof.  And then, as seen here, I started installing dutchmen to which the new pieces of roof can be attached.  

There's really no way to bend the wood to the required curve over this short distance, so I took some thin wood stock home to steam and bend to shape in my workshop.  The dutchmen are attached with screws and glue, as seen here.

And, in other news....

New Motors

Tim has received the two rebuilt motors for the 24 from Calumet Electric.  They look good as new!

On these GE-55 motors, each brush holder has four separate brushes, so there's a total of 16 brushes needed for the two motors.  That seems rather unusual.

Up To Date

Everything's up to date in the Kansas City PCC; they've gone about as far as they can go.   Frank Sirinek is justly proud of the work that has been done over the past several years.  Steve Iversen spent the last week helping in a heroic push to finish the interior cosmetic work.  It looks fantastic!

Above: the car has been equipped with relatively modern car cards from the present-day Kansas City transit system.  I myself have never been to Kansas City, and want to go there.  I hear they have great ribs.

The car still needs some body and mechanical work.  The exterior was painted by Frank Hicks many years ago, and he would be the first to admit it's not a permanent job, but it looks nice for now.  Anyway, great progress is being made.

Meanwhile, out on the line, the 1630 was running, though I didn't get a chance to snap it.  And the 409 and 431 were running.  

And there were lots of other things going on in the car shop; the track guys were working out on the station tracks, B&G was doing various things, the coach department was active, etc. etc. etc.  But there's always room for more!

Visit to Spencer

Over the July 4th weekend, our "staff photographer" Chuck Amstein had a very rewarding trip to the Spencer Shops in North Carolina.  He reports:

Southern Ry. depot, Salisbury, NC, restored and now used as an event center for dinners, weddings, etc.

North Carolina Transportation Museum, Spencer, NC.  Former Southern Ry. Shops and Roundhouse.

N&W 611 was a guest this weekend --

The one surviving Piedmont & Northern electric locomotive--

These two trolleys were supposed to be run on weekends in Charlotte after they finished their streetcar system, but that didn't happen.  I rode #85 (the last streetcar to operate in Charlotte) around 1997, powered by a trailing generator.

Turntable rides for the kiddies, including me--

I was invited on a backshop tour to see the Texas being restored.  I thought, gee, I didn't know they had a 2-10-4.  Actually, it turned out to be the real Texas of Great Locomotive Chase fame.

Now, the real reason for my trip:  Throttle time in the 611.  You don't get this opportunity every day.

Photos only before or after, no photos allowed while the train is moving.

Each participant ran back & forth on 1/4 mile of track about 10 mph, very carefully supervised, for 30 minutes.

Air Tank Installation

Today it was time to install the newly-tested and repainted air tanks on the 36.  Dan Mulvihill had offered to help, but I decided I could probably do it myself, and let him work on other projects.  I did get some help from Victor and then from Dan in getting the air tanks onto the cart, to avoid damaging Richard's beautiful black paint job any more than necessary.

I had all the parts on hand to construct a simple scaffold so the tanks could be rolled into position and then chocked while the support bands were attached.  First, they have to go under the headlight resistor cabinet (the rusty box with the holes in it) and then up under the support frame.

By the end of the day both tanks were in position and all piping was in place.   Rod helped by making new gaskets for a couple of unions that didn't survive disassembly. 

On this end of the two tanks, the supply line from the compressor goes into the "wet" tank, closer to the camera.  At the other end, a pipe goes from the wet tank to the dry tank.  Back at this end, three pipes lead from the dry tank to 1) the feed valve 2) the two motorman's positions, for the brake valves and whistles, and 3) the sleet scrapers.  Unfortunately, we can't find one of the drain cocks for the tanks, so I wasn't able to try pumping up and checking for leaks.  On Saturday, if we still can't find the right part, I may try plugging the drain hole temporarily.

I also wanted to start on the roof of the 460, but ran out of time.  At least I got nice and dirty.

Photo by Buzz, who was working on seats for the Ely.  Evidently by making a more intelligent choice of what to work on, you can avoid all the dirt and grime.  I'll have to think about it....

More from Sunday

Frank writes...

As previously noted, I worked as conductor on the CA&E wood train Sunday, helping with two revenue trips and then the abandonment commemoration. Everything went smoothly and the passengers seemed to enjoy the unusual experience. A couple of well-prepared visitors even came dressed up in period attire!

After CA&E cars were put away, I switched assignments and went into streetcar service as conductor on the Veracruz open car. The weather was beautiful and the car was packed pretty much every trip around the streetcar line! I didn't get a chance to take any photos but my father snapped a few.

Here's Bill Thiel, my motorman. Bill has worked for years helping Frank Sirinek with some of the streetcar restoration projects that the latter has headed up.

And here's the three-car North Shore train. The steam coach train ran all day but up until abandonment mainline traction was all CA&E, all the time. The two service trains in the morning were the four-car wood train and the two-car steel train (409 and 431) while the 460 ran shuttle trips between 50th Avenue and Jefferson Street. After abandonment the North Shore cars came out for mainline service, as did a six-car train of modern "L" cars (2000s, 2200s, and 2400s), while MD car 229 ran shuttle trips from 50th Avenue. At one point while we were bringing the wood cars back post-abandonment we passed the super "L" car train near the tower. That was pretty neat - ten electric cars in just two trains alongside each other. Only at Union!