Robert Clemons Collection - Northern Indiana Railway

This is a collection of photographic prints from the collection of Robert Clemons, all donated by Thomas Clemons to the Illinois Railway Museum. Many thanks to Thomas and the Clemons family for their generous donation. All images are copyright Illinois Railway Museum. Images may not be reproduced or distributed without authorization.

These photos are mostly of the Northern Indiana Railway, or NIR, and associated lines.

La Porte & Michigan City Traction (LP&MC) car 211 or 212 is on Main Street near Michigan Avenue in La Porte circa 1915

NIR 162 is at the Notre Dame Avenue shops on February 20, 1938. It was built by Brill in 1899 for Cleveland Electric Railway, their 602 (later 302, then 672); went to Northern Ohio Traction & Light, their 816; and arrived in South Bend in 1922.

MC&LP (later NIR) 217 was rebuilt from MC&LP 2, a 1902 Jewett product. It was later rebuilt again as NIR 308.

NIR 300-307 were built by Cincinnati in 1907. Car 301 is shown in South Bend on August 15, 1932, showing off its reconfiguration for one-man operation. George Krambles Photo.

NIR 304 has also been converted for one-man operation by reversing the direction of the car and installing folding doors.

The NIR 300s were real beauties. NIR 307 escaped being one-manned but did acquire a name, "Keshena." These cars had Type M control and were occasionally operated in two-car trains coupled back-to-back.

Earlier in its career, NIR 307 suffered this indignity, apparently while operating over the Winona Railroad.

NIR 308 is pictured at the car barn. This car was built by Jewett in 1902 and rebuilt a couple of times, eventually emerging with a similar appearance to the 300-series Cincinnati cars.

NIR 320, a former Jackson & Battle Creek Traction 44-48-series trailer, is pictured on September 7, 1934

Another view of NIR 320, this time at the car barn. This car was purchased in 1919 from Michigan United Railways.

And NIR 320 is pictured in the yard. By this time it appears to have been one of the few cars not painted in traction orange.

NIR 351 was one of a series of 10 lightweight cars built by Cummings Car & Coach in 1930. It's pictured at the builder's plant in Paris, Illinois.

NIR 356 is shown in Michigan City. Barney Neuberger photo

NIR 360 is in service in Michigan City in this Ed Frank photo. These cars were returned to Cummings in 1935 and afterward used by Indiana Railroad as their cars 90-99.

NIR line car 571 was constructed in 1923 by modifying a freight trailer.

NIR work car 580 is a rebuilt streetcar (this info is written on the print but may be incorrect; this number does not appear in a published NIR roster)

NIR Birney 603, built in 1919 by Cincinnati, is pictured at the Notre Dame Avenue shop in 1939

An unknown NIR 300-series car is northbound on Franklin Street in Michigan City. A close look reveals the car's bulky storm windows and a following Birney.

NIR 308 is shown in operation in South Bend on August 7, 1932. It is on East Division Street, about to back into Francis Street.

NIR/Southern Michigan Railway freight motor 504 is in South Bend on June 24, 1935. It was built by Niles in 1909 as Southern Michigan 1. I can't identify the type of truck under the car. 

Chicago-New York Electric Air Line (CNYEAL) 101. This car and sister 102 were built by Niles in 1907.

CNYEAL 101 passes a steam engine and PRR gondola at South La Porte

CNYEAL 102 is in La Porte in 1909 with a plow attached.

CNYEAL 103, the "Ohm," was built by McGuire-Cummings in 1909 and sublettered for Gary South Bend & Chicago.

Long after the wires came down, on January 17, 1962, this photo was taken of the NIR freight house in La Porte.

Start to Finish

On Tuesday I could finally start to finish the interior of the Jewell Road shelter with a first coat of the interior paint.  I think it looks quite good, and with modern technology, paint matching generally gives excellent results.  The lower part of the wall got a coat of white primer first, so it was still wet.

The next picture was taken before I started working on the east wall (on the right).  Of course, these phone-camera pictures are not as good as seeing it in person.  But if you don't like this match, you're pretty hard to please.

I got permission to remove a large section from a different shelter that had been in the way, so I was able to start working on the interior east wall.

And parts of the roof:

And finally, the east wall started to get white primer:

So that was rewarding.  Meanwhile, I wasn't able to get many pictures of what else was going on, but several of the usual weekday guys were at their usual weekday work.  Frank Kehoe brought out the patterns we talked about yesterday, but I think they've already been identified, so I won't bother with more pictures.

But here's the current status of the 1268 interior:

Tim is hard at work preparing the veneer for the center ceiling.  He had this made on special order.  Getting it stained and varnished properly is a challenge.

Here are some views of his laboratory.  Various combinations of stain, sealer, varnish, and so on are being tested by our trained expert technicians.  Or one of him, at least.

Eventually it will look great!

Spring Forward

Frank writes...

Sunday was a beautiful spring-like day and there was plenty of activity at the museum.

I, of course, was working on seats in the 460. Above, the narrow bulkhead seat on the left, inside the smoker against the main compartment bulkhead, was replaced. Thanks to Jimmy and Will for help in getting this seat back into the frame.

The second seat for the day was back-to-back with the first one, on the other side of the partition just inside the main compartment. Here is the "before" photo, albeit after the cushion was removed, of course. The condition of this seat, with a noticeable rip in the fabric, is typical of a lot of the ones we've removed from the 460.

This seat has some air equipment underneath it. There's a big handle for the main brake cutout, a smaller one to cut out the feed valve, the feed valve itself hiding behind the seat frame, and then the brake cylinder drain cock located next to the baseboard heater.

And here's the "after" photo with the new seat installed. A big thank you to Richard for making it possible to get this seat done! We are replacing 26 seats in this car, and this is seat #21, so we only have five to go. Our current expectation is that the new seats in the 460 will make their debut for the Bunny Trolley Hop event in April, or possibly on Sunday, April 6th, which is opening day.

In other news, more progress has been made on the storage building extension at the south end of the property.

And Ted was working on cleaning up and painting storage bins. This isn't thrilling work, but it's important. It will be instrumental in helping us in the complete reorganization of our spare parts, fasteners, and components. There was a lot more happening that isn't pictured. Nick, Greg, and Zach were switching cars and working on testing the second substation, which is back online after a couple of years of upgrade work. This substation will power the overhead on the property and on the main line west of the East Switch, as it did until the last couple of years. Jimmy and Will were working on fixing air leaks on the IC MU cars. Joel and Jeron were working on inspecting CTA 3142, including switching it back to Barn 7 at the end of the day with help from Matt, and also on some miscellaneous shop tasks. The Electroliner crew were hard at work, at one point using the shop lathe, though I'm not sure for what. Richard was also making progress on the rail display in Barn 8.

Mystery Patterns

Our friends at Meskan Foundry recently came across some old casting patterns from about 25 years ago that are labeled for IRM, but they didn't know what the patterns were for.  They handed them to Frank Kehoe who lives close by, and he sends us these pictures.  I'm stumped too.  We don't even know which department this could be for.  The patterns are about 24" across and 18" wide.  There are two of each for some reason.  Don estimated it might cost $3,000 to replicate something like this.  Identify them and they could be yours!

Saturday Sample

 As usual, there were lots of things going on at the Museum on Saturday.  Here are just a few of them.

One thing remaining in the completion of the Barn 4 extension is getting the trolley wire installed so cars can easily be moved into the barn and over the pit, and back out.  The B&G department has been helping in installing this.  

The east end wall of the old barn was right beyond the east end of the pit, and the wire had to dip down to get through the door.  So the trough had to be rebuilt to make it level.

Jim Ward spent a lot of time sorting parts in the new supply room, but I didn't get a picture.

I continued on installing new wood and painting it in the shelter.

Norm is working on rebuilding the front door of the 28.

And here Buzz is working on parts for the Milwaukee Road caboose.

The Track Dept. was hard at work on various things, but I didn't get any pictures.  Sorry!

Thursday Brief

 Never a day goes by but that things are getting better and better here at IRM.  I was mostly working down south at Jewell Road, so only a couple of views of people in the car shop.

Gerry continues working on parts for rebuilding the 306 seat frames.   Phil was working on parts for the door motors, but I don't have a picture.

Several new pieces of interior siding for the Jewell Road shelter were cut to length and painted.

Tim was staining interior trim parts for the 1268.

And after some work, the rear wall of the shelter is looking more complete.

Several pieces of the roof have been replaced; I'm not sure whether that was done at Johnson's or here by the B&G guys.  In any case, it is evident that there was no ceiling as such, but the inside of the roof was painted the same color as the walls.

So that's going to take some work if we ever want to have the shelter open for visitors, which I think is the ultimate plan.

Doodlebug Progress

 More pictures from Gregg Wolfersheim of his work on the doodlebug:

Following up on my last report: The area above the vestibule is still original to the car. Some pieces have some problems as can be seen here. One of the roof boards was pretty well gone, so a replacement was inserted. 

I've been slowly removing paint in various places. This is the front. Needle chipping removes most of it.

I follow with a wire cup.

Then some primer.

Above the motorman's position, the roof is flat. This is copper sheet that is painted. The tack molding was rotted out, so a new piece was inserted and primed white. That is the horn at the right side, but the bell would sit right behind it. Unfortunately, we don't have one to mount there.

Quick Update from Monday

 On Monday I took a few quick snapshots of active projects.

Tim continues refinishing woodwork for the 1268.

Pete and Fritz have been working on this door.

And this is a new baggage door for the Michigan Electric 28.

Here we see Fred and John painting seat frames for the 306.

Finally, I spent all day making and installing new siding pieces for the interior of the Jewell Road shelter.  

Sunday Photo Gallery

Frank writes...

I was out on Sunday for more work on the 460 seat project. I managed to snap photos of a number of different projects to document recent progress.

Perhaps the most exciting news is that the storage building extension at the south end of the property is going up. This spring is expected to see three buildings erected down at the south end: this extension, a new standalone storage building, and Barn 15.

Many thanks to Richard and also to Jimmy, both of whom helped get two more seats installed in the 460. These included the first of the bulkhead, or partition, seats to be redone, shown here. These are a bit narrower than the regular seats and don't rotate. We also installed the last redone rotating seat in the smoker, visible in the right corner.

Over in Barn 4, a crew of people including Joel, Ted, and later Jeron were working on inspecting the 3142. This involved replacing some worn pins in the brake rigging, which should reduce "slop" in the system and reduce wear. Shown here is the new wire trough over Track 41, which was installed by the B&G crew. The last sections will be installed soon and will bring the wire underneath the "stowed open" position of the overhead door. At the roll-up door itself, we'll install a flip-up wire bridge which we obtained a little while back so that the wire is continuous when the roll-up door is open.

Over in the lean-to extension, Jim has embarked on the thankless task of sorting our vast collection of fasteners so that they can be stored in an organized and accessible fashion. Let us be the first to thank him for this valuable work!

In Barn 8, Richard is making rapid progress on the rail display. He's added some of the rail to the second shelf, so I'll try and get a photo of that once it's all set up. In the meantime, you can read some of the interesting history on the placards in the lower shelf.

Joel also pointed out that the last of the 3142's seats were varnished, as shown above. These didn't need to have new rattan installed, but they were looking a bit worn, so some fresh varnish spruces them up nicely and helps protect them going forward.

And finally, this photo isn't mine, nor was it taken Sunday. Jon Fenlaciki sent in this photo of Buzz taken on Saturday of him lettering a wooden mail box he made for Indiana Railroad 65. This was mounted on the motorman's console just inside the front door, behind the fare register, and is thought to have been used for company mail. Let it not be said that IRM volunteers aren't sticklers for details!

In Memoriam -- Ray Buhrmaster

We regret to announce the death of an old friend, Ray Buhrmaster.  He was very active for many years at Mid-Continent and was in charge of the long-term restoration of the Hicks-built wooden coach #64 there.  He and his son Bill were always very cooperative with us here at IRM, and we were able to arrange trading parts to our mutual benefit.  He will certainly be missed.

Obituary information for Ray William Buhrmaster