Where Did It Go?

Summer's almost over, but we still have plenty of time left for great activities at IRM.  More about that later.  Today the weather was perfect, and we had a good crowd of visitors.  I was busy on Car Dept. projects, but operations seemed to go well.  The caboose train was running, with the IT Geep on the head end.

And the 1630 was powering the coach train.

The old and the not-so-old.  Depending on how old you are.

And two CTA singles were running the mainline also.  Another one of those implausible pictures you'll only see at IRM.

The operating crews included a number of relatively new people.  That's great, because we can always use more help.  And here's one of our newest members, who joined just a few weeks ago.  Rob has been showing up regularly ever since.  He went to our storage locker and picked out a uniform jacket and pants, and even managed to find a cap that fit.  So he looks quite spiffy.  And best of all, it was free!

   And at the end of the day, he's getting ready to sweep out the cars.  So I guess the moral of the story is:  this could be you.

Meanwhile, there was plenty of activity as usual in the car shop.  Chuck and Ed were working on the PCC truck, and it's going together nicely.  I should have taken more pictures of the various projects.  Buzz was making a seat for the velocipede, John McKelvey and Jane Blackburn were doing upholstery,  Victor and Bill were working on the cabin car, Joel and his crew were doing inspection on the 714,  and so on.

Anyway, Tim Wills was out and worked on handrails for the 451.  He also helped me mount this bracket on the car.  It's heavy and hard to handle, but we managed to get it into place, and I was able to install some but not all of the bolts needed.  At least it won't fall off.  This bracket mounts under the stepwell and supports the pilot.

Nick is working on arranging the move for the 453.  He and I spent some time making measurements needed by Silk Road for moving the car.  We don't have a schedule yet, but when everything's in place we'll let you know.

And again, I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to the 453 Fund.  Your generosity keeps the Museum going and growing, and it's something we can all be proud of.

Now, in case you haven't noticed, next week is Labor Day Weekend, which features night-time operations.  The CA&E wood cars are scheduled to operate all three days, including night runs on Sunday evening, but we need crews!  In particular, I need a complete crew for Saturday, or it will have to be cancelled.  I plan to be there both Sunday and Monday, but we can still use help on those days also.  Have a talk with your conscience, and let us know what the conclusion was.  Thanks!

Larry Konsbruck Memorial Service

Larry Konsbruck, the son of long time and deceased member Bob Konsbruck, passed away on August 3 and his family will have a remembrance of Larry's life at IRM on Sunday August 25 starting at 5PM at the Central Avenue Pavilion. Larry worked alongside his father at IRM for many years on a wide variety of projects over the years including giving IRM its very first proper electric substation to allow the correct operation of IRM's collection of electric railway equipment.

  

Illinois Terminal streetcar 415 has been made available for the memorial service and will make a trip around the streetcar loop after 5PM and may also take a mainline trip if the family desires this. The car line trip will start at Central Avenue. The memorial service is open to all IRM members, as is the streetcar ride to the extent the car's capacity allows.  Larry's family obviously have first right to the seats in IT 415 for the remembrance trips.

---------------

Ray Weart

Director

Illinois Railway Museum

SUCCESS on Car 453!

We are overjoyed to announce that the fund-raising drive has been successful in raising the money needed to purchase, transport, and store car 453!   It will be coming soon to a museum near you!

A large number of people contributed to make this possible, and we thank you all.  Two donors in particular gave substantial amounts.  One of them came from a long-time member, who wishes to remain anonymous, in celebration of his 45th year since joining the Museum in 1974.  The other came from Jeffrey L. Wien.  Jeff comments:  "I felt that I was playing the role of a White Knight in making my donation.... I donated to the 453 fund because the 450 class were the last interurbans built in the U.S. and to me were very aesthetically attractive.  Now we will have 75% of the surviving 450 class!  It should also be mentioned that as a former North Shore Line employee, that I have always favored North Shore equipment, but this time I wanted to make sure that a rare piece of CA&E history is preserved.  Julie Johnson would be pleased."

Now -- if you have not yet contributed, don't worry.  We still need to restore the 453.  At a minimum, we will want to hire a professional to sand-blast and repaint the exterior to match the other steel cars.  We are in the process of applying for a matching grant to make this possible, and so we would ask you to hold off on any more donations to the 453 at this time.  Once we have made a more detailed determination of what needs to be done, and applied for the matching grant, further contributions may be worth much more.

Nick is working on the arrangements for moving the car.  Of course, the Electric City guys will need to do some re-arranging of their own to get the 453 to where it can be loaded, but they are eager for both the money and the barn space, so we hope it will not be long.  Now it's the 453 vs the Electroliner -- which will be first to get put on its trucks?  Jan will be taking your bets at the bookie window during regular hours.

Another Kaboom!

I was on weekday service again, and it was briefly exciting.  The morning was mostly light rain, but there were visitors arriving, so I got out the 415 as usual.

I actually had a good-sized crowd for the 11:00 departure.  We went around the carline, and then proceeded to Depot St. and I got ready to stop and throw the electric switch.   Then: Kaboom!   There was a lighting strike not too far ahead!   The DC went off, and we came to a stop.  It never came back on, so I had to unload the passengers where we were.  They were all very accepting of the situation.

The substation would not reset, so there wasn't much I could do.  Luckily Gregg was in Barn 2, working on the doodlebug, and he agreed to run the Army Diesel to put the 415 away.  That took us a while, but we got it done without much trouble.  I believe the B&G guys were trying to find out what was wrong and isolate the problem, but when I left DC was still off on the property.  Luckily we never lost AC.   Thanks again to Gregg for helping out in an emergency.  I was told that Max is in hospital.  We certainly wish him well and hope he recovers soon.

The rest of the day was occupied with sorting parts and cleaning in both the 321 and 451.  I just regret missing the photo opportunity of a lifetime!

Three Steps Forward

Today was another great day out at the Museum.  I don't know if we're actually competing with the Air and Water Show, as somebody said, but at least you aren't going to strain your neck and damage your vision by constantly looking up at the sky at IRM.  That's good enough for me.

It took some effort, but I managed to get the final stepwell on the 451 into position, by jacking it up in the same manner I used for reinstalling the contactors in the 36.  Not all of the bolts are in place, but enough so that it can't possibly fall out.  The easiest way to complete this job will be to put the car over the pit at some point, but that can wait.  In any case, that was a satisfying accomplishment. 

You will notice that the bracket for the trap door is also installed.  I brought the door over, but it doesn't quite fit.  Another of life's many conundrums.  We're sure to get this fixed, as soon as better minds than mine have had a chance to ponder the problem.

But meanwhile, there was lots of interesting activity going on at the Museum.  The steam train was running, and that's always a magnet for photographers of all sorts.

And then, today we had an actual interurban freight train.  This shows off the best work of our Freight Car Department.  Now it seems to me that the Burlington Route was not actually an interurban, but you can't have everything.  In any case, this waycar looks great.

The B&O wagontop boxcar is just perfect.  It doesn't get any better than this, even in HO.

The Indian Refining Company tank car:

The Great Northern Hopper:

I love molasses.  Don't you?

And the train was powered by the Com Ed 4.

You can't fit many people into a single waycar, so we also had the wood L cars running.

There are property improvements going on, as always.  Here are a couple of views of the newly poured foundation for the inspection pit in the Steam Shop.

And work continues on installing utilities in the Multi-Purpose Building.  Either that, or we have some awfully industrious moles.

Reggie was working on the 213.  

And the Michigan Electric 28 got some more hot rivets installed, thanks to the team of Jane, Stu, and Dan helping out Norm on this long-term project.

And of course Tim was working on the 1754.  He never seems to take a break.  It must be an optical illusion.

Now for the bottom line.  The people at Scranton want to move the 453 out soon.  If we don't take it, it will probably wind up in front of some shopping center getting wrecked by vandalism and weather.  Nigel won't be back until Monday, so I don't know where we are on funding, but I'm sure it isn't yet enough.  We need your contributions now!   Thanks!!!!

Tuesday Report

Yesterday I was running the 415, now that I'm on the weekday extra board.  We had many more visitors than usual for a weekday, I think, so the car was sometimes completely full.   That's always good to see.

Other than that, I was too busy to get many pictures.   Concrete was being poured for the inspection pit in the steam shop.   I didn't want to get too close and be in the way.  Next time I'm out we'll get to see what it looks like.

And then there's also work going on for utilities behind the MP building.

And our old friend Steve Iversen was working on the steps for the Kansas City PCC all day.

And that's all for today.

Weighting For An Answer

We need to know how much each truck on one of the CA&E St. Louis cars weighs.  If you have any leads to reliable information, please let us know. You can either send me an email, or comment, or use the blog contact gadget in the right-hand column.  I can't thank you enough!  

Diesel Days

I never thought it would come to this when I joined IRM back in 1974, but Diesel Days is now one of our biggest attractions.  This year there are three days, starting today.  And I got to be on the crew of the Zephyr, which of course is the pride of the fleet, I think.  There is nothing in existence quite like the E-5.

We had a bigger crowd than I would have expected for a Friday, and everybody seemed to be having a good time.   I'm told both the Take The Throttle and Cab Ride options are sold out, or nearly so.  That's a testimony to the success of our marketing operations.

Shelby the Zephyrette explains the details of luxury train travel back in the good old days to an appreciative audience.  On most of our trips both coaches were pretty full.

A great variety of motive power was used during the day, but I was too busy to get pictures of most of it.  There were lots of photographers around, so I'm sure good photos will turn up.

For instance, these two locomotives must have something in common, but I'm not sure what it is.

This RS-3 was used for exploring the south yards by the Take the Throttle participants.

We could use some more crewmen on both Saturday and Sunday, I believe.  And you still have a chance to take in all the action.

Extravaganza Extra

To add to what Frank has already posted, we had a great time during the Transport Extravaganza on Sunday.  I managed to get a few pictures of our train, which operated without a hitch.

OK, I'll race you to the switch!

We had an excellent crowd of people.  On all trips except the last, the train was nearly full.  We really needed three cars.

I was too busy to see much of the antique automobiles, except for this one, which happened to be camped out right next to the tail track.

But then there was also the inspection car.  The track guys put up a great display, with the doors and hoods open.  I don't remember seeing it like this before.  I must say, it looks like you would have to be pretty desperate to use the jump seats.

But as usual, a good time was had by all!  Next weekend is Diesel Days, which includes Friday this year.  If you like Diesels, you won't want to miss it.

Vintage Transport Extravaganza

Frank writes...

Sunday was the 29th Annual Vintage Transport Extravaganza and by all accounts it seemed to go very well. The weather was very nice, though on the warm side in the mid/upper 80s, and the crowd seemed good. I was told we had more people than last year.

I was conductor on the three-car CA&E train (309, 36, and 319) and we certainly kept busy! Dispatcher Dan Buck kept things moving like clockwork. Starting with our first trip at 11am we ran every hour, on the hour for a total of six trips. The other three mainline trains - the coach train, the Zephyr, and a three-car train of 4000s - also ran hourly all day so that there was a train every 15 minutes. The dependability was actually pretty nice: it was gratifying to be able to confidently answer a customer question like "when is the next Zephyr trip?" even when that train wasn't even back in the station yet. There were also 6000s running shuttle service out of 50th and at least three streetcars on the car line; I noticed the Matchbox, 4391, and the open car in service.

The catch was that I didn't have time to go look at the autos because we only had 15-20 minutes between trips, but overall it was nice to stay busy. After all, the air-conditioning on these cars only works when we're moving. I also didn't have many opportunities to take photos but I did grab the above shot of the train. Since we were "opposite" the 4000s we stopped in the east berth of the station each trip and mooched off of the stairs being used by the 'L' cars. That was beneficial because we hardly had to use the traps and the customers had an easier time getting on and off the train. I should say, though, that on a hot day, the east berth of Station 1 with its broad expanse of unshaded gravel is a wonderful little slice of Orange Empire in mid-summer.

Here's the obligatory crew shot in front of the 36 towards the end of the day. Andy Sunderland, motorman; yours truly, conductor; and my father was trainman. That suit is just as warm as it looks.

After putting the train away I briefly helped Nick Espevik with switching some spam cans. Then Joel pointed out that significant progress has been made on the North Shore gateman's shanty shown above. It has now gained a brand new roof, including some new framing, replacing the former roof which was in sorry condition. I'm not sure what the actual plans for this structure are but Joel is determined to fix it up. IRM has two of these shanties; the other one has long been used as our ticket booth and has seen more modification. But this one sat for many years where the west end of track 40 now sits, as the cornerstone of Bob Bruneau's "Hooverville," where it housed oil drums used for journal lubrication. While it was thus a victim of some level of benign neglect, it's also in more original condition.

And finally, our quiz of the week. Tom Schneider and the guys in the Steam Shop have come through for us yet again, producing this very nice... thing. Can you guess what it is?