Simms Collection -- Mystery Quiz #3

Time for some more excitement and thrills, with challenges you can't find anywhere else!   

To start with, I was actually going to include this picture, when I suddenly realized how obvious it was.  This car later became the 144, and how I wish it could have been saved!

OK, time to put on your thinking caps.

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Finally....

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Simms Collection -- Miscellany

I've been busy with other things, so this next installment has few real challenges.  The first image is badly damaged, so your guess is better than mine, but the rest are mildly interesting, I hope.

Signed for Belleville and East St. Louis

How often do you see something from either of these two lines?

St. Paul Southern #2

Grand Rapids Grand Haven and Muskegon #10

Finally, we have several views from Atlanta, I believe.  Some or all of these may be a fan trip.

Back to Beams

Work in the car shop never ceases.  The 306 team, for instance, are now working on fixing a few slow leaks in the air system, and when those are resolved, they'll be much closer to having the brake system in operation.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to take a picture of a slow air leak.  We'll just have to take their word for it. 

But what I do know how to take pictures of is the old same stuff -- third rail beams.  Frank pointed out that we have the ridged castings for adjusting the height of the 319's beams, so they need to be trimmed at each end.  That didn't take too long, as seen here.

And then I spent some time wire-wheeling the next shoe and cylinder castings so they could be painted.  Gerry helped with undoing a frozen bolt, and Fred helped me get them installed on the next beam.

And then I was able to put primer on the new parts.  It's going along well.

Finally, Tim is of course continuing on the 268 without pause.  For instance, refurbished seat pedestals have been installed, as seen here.  And Tim thinks that he himself deserves to be on a pedestal.

I'm not so sure.  If we did put him on a pedestal, who would do all the work?

Simms Collection -- More Mysteries

As I started digging deeper into the "I Have No Idea" folder, I realized that most of them were probably not as mysterious as the first group we posted, although they're still interesting.  So I will ask previous winners to hold off and let other kids have a chance.  At least for a day or two.

This one, for instance, is clear enough.  You don't often see what the FJ&G used before they got Bullets.

And this is obviously Cook County #1, which should probably be filed under CSL:

So here are the next mystery cars:

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Tuesday Postcard

On Tuesday, Ron Seavers and I were running the 431 again.  I won't even bother with a crew picture, we look pretty much like we did last week.  Attendance was OK for such a warm day, and everything went well.  But I only have a couple of pictures.

I stopped in the car shop briefly, and among other things John was working on grid boxes for the 306.  He showed me this one: I'd never seen anything quite like it before.  There are various ways of making emergency repairs to a burned-out grid box, such as inserting spikes.  But evidently on Shaker Heights they repaired them with big globs of weld, as seen here.  That makes it much more difficult to repair properly.

And then work continues on Barn 7.

Sunday Report

Frank writes…

Sunday was a productive day working on a couple of smaller projects.

One project was fixing the thermostat for the 18, which Steven removed last weekend. As seen above, Richard tackled the project immediately - as I always tell him, the hazard of knowing what he's doing is that bozos like me will keep roping him into helping with stuff like this! This thermostat is a Consolidated Car Heating bimetal design. I should have taken more photos - the intricacies of the device were pretty interesting - but alas, I did not. It turned out that the contacts were quite dirty and were not making good electrical contact, so after disassembly and cleaning, it was back in operation. Testing was accomplished by putting the thermostat in the refrigerator and then taking it out and warming it gently with a heat gun on low. We ended up taking it over to the 18, wiring it back in, and turning the heat switch on. As intended, the heat did not actually turn on, given that it was about 80 degrees. Success! Thank you, Richard!

Another project for me was helping Steve, who is hard at work on the Kansas City PCC, by tracing the lettering off the car. This meant tracing the "swoops" at both ends of the "spitballs" as well as tracing the car numbers. I also sprayed primer on the hardware for the 460's third rail beams - next time I'll cover that with gloss black - and helped with a couple other small things.

The siding replacement on Barn 7 means that we're temporarily afforded the best view in probably 40 years of the north side of CSL F-305 and E-223.

And I needed to go over to the Steam Shop for an errand, so why not see what they're up to over there? Above is Illinois Central Mogul 3719, which is undergoing a cosmetic restoration.

You'll notice that the engine has jacketing applied to it, which looks terrific! That will really make a big difference in its appearance. Kudos to the Steam Team for their work on this locomotive.

And here's the 428, which has been the subject of recent tender restoration work as well as machining on newly fabricated driving boxes.

Simms Collection -- Monday Morning Miscellaneous Mysteries

From the stupendous Simms collection "I Have No Idea" folder.  All conjectures welcome.

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Simms Collection -- Yet More CA&E

This time I'm limiting the content mostly to pictures that have captions on the back.

10-14-45

This the normal train
on Sunday after noon
1945

This is the substitute train
coming from Elgin
scene looking northwest

July 28, 1946
Stewart ave. Lombard

1946    CA+E
west bound Cannonball an eight car train.  Pullman car
is lead   2nd car Cincinnati
built for W.B.+A  rebuilt
by C A + E in 1938.  Three trains
left at 4:55 totaling 18 cars
First 4 cars would lay up
at Aurora.  The second 4
cars would lay up at Elgin
There was a shuttle for Batavia.

7-28-46
in the IC interchange
on Elgin branch


Then there are two pictures of street running on the Geneva-St. Charles branch.
The first one must be somewhere along Anderson Blvd (Geneva)
or 3rd Ave. St. Charles

And this is West Chicago, looking south on Fremont.  (See comments.)