Visiting Veterans

Today I drove into Chicago to pick up Bob Bruneau and bring him out to the Museum. Health problems have prevented Bob from attending regularly, and he is now the Car Dept. director emeritus, but of course he still has a lot of valuable knowledge and insight. He helped me with finding parts for various projects, and here we see him selecting which trolley bases we should use for the Indiana Railroad 205. He located some spare windows for the 277 and 518 which I would never have noticed, hidden as they were behind other parts in the paint shop. And I also borrowed a folder of 277 pictures, similar to the earlier 518 folder, so I will start on a history of the 277 soon. Also we got some in-service photos of the 205, which Frank will need to complete that car's cosmetic restoration. We'll probably try to do this again sometime soon.

Another old-timer (I'm sure he'll love that!) hard at work today was our long-time friend Steve Iversen, who was visiting from Oklahoma. Here he is helping Frank Sirinek by repainting the roof of the 3142.

And I had some time to work on the roof of the 277, although it was still hot up there. I must say that the new line breakers installed by Max are easy to lock out and tag, and it makes me feel much better knowing the power can't be turned on inadvertently while I'm up there.

I also varnished several more window frames, and installed the first completed 518 window in the car, as seen here. Unfortunately, now the window shade won't go up, but I ran out of time to fix this problem. Till next time.

Union, Illinois, East Troy, Wisconsin, and More!

Unlike my last visit to IRM, this past weekend had nearly picture-perfect weather for the entire weekend. I drove up from St. Louis early Saturday morning, arriving at IRM around 10pm. I immediately found Randy and helped him remove the pole from the IT 277, and also release the tension on the pole base. Randy was also kind enough to give me a tour of the 277 and the 518, as I missed "substitute members' day" the previous weekend.

The Indiana Railroad 65 was running some special trips for an out-of-state visitor that day, and I rode along on several of the trips. I also rode along on a qualification trip with the 1-50 series CTA PCC L cars, which was a nice ride. I never knew they had that much acceleration and speed.

Sunday, we visited East Troy. I don't have a lot of photos. The staff at East Troy were very friendly, and I even got a cab ride in TMER&L locomotive L-8 on the return trip from the Elegant farmer.

After returning to Union to pick up my car, I drove through the Illinois darkness on my way back to St. Louis, crossing the Poplar Street Bridge at the stroke of midnight. Overall, a good weekend.

Chuck Amstein Photos - Illinois Terminal Day

Chuck Amstein sent me a CD of the photos he took last Saturday. I'm posting some excerpts - there are a total of 341 clips, including several videos. For now, I'll just include IT pictures, though his set includes several other things that were operating that day, including the 65, L cars, a caboose train, and the North Shore.

As before, these are shrunk by a factor of 4 or 5, and rotated as necessary; no other changes.

Thanks, Chuck!

And finally, here are a couple of video clips.

Disassembling the 277

Today I started removing parts from the roof of the 277 in earnest. The trolley pole was removed, although it took longer than I had expected. I also disconnected the fuse box and moved it out of the way. Here are a couple of pictures of the roof after the trolley pole was removed. With the warm weather and cloudless sky, it was hot up there, so I didn't spend as much time on top of the 277 as I had planned.

David was on the property and helped with this work. Tomorrow (Sunday) he and several others are going up to East Troy, so watch this space for a trip report. Frank is in Pittsburgh this weekend on business.

My friend Ray Buhrmaster was visiting and rode the 65. He has always been a fan of the (original) Hicks Locomotive and Car Works, and told me about the work they're doing on car 64 at North Freedom. They have had a complete set of reproduction upper stained glass windows made for this car at a reasonable price. The floor was soaked when the museum was flooded last August, but one of the first things they did was to disassemble it and remove the waterlogged sawdust which had been inserted inside the floor as insulation. The project has been set back somewhat, but restoration will continue. That's good news!

I put a second coat of maroon on two 518 windows, a first coat on two more, and a final coat of exterior varnish on one, which should be ready to install next time.

And as I expected, the contractors are making good progress on Barn 11.

You Could Try This Yourself

Our blog has been up for about eight months now, using Google's Blogger software. (Usual disclaimer: I'm not connected with Google, am not being paid, etc.) Our experience on the whole has been very positive. It's generally been easy to use and the results look good, if I say so myself. Best of all, it's free. I don't have a tip jar because I'm not spending anything on this blog, and I knew from the start I didn't want ads. They make the pages load much slower, they're tacky and often offensive, you have no control over the content, etc.

I would recommend Google to anyone who wants to try blogging, at least for a limited-use application like this. Of course, you don't have your own domain name. Bandwidth might be a problem if you're expecting higher volumes of traffic, which we're not. We're now averaging about 50 hits per day, and have occasional spikes over 100, but I haven't heard any complaints or experienced problems with slow loading.

The blogspot site has some pretty good help available, and there's also an online help group so you can get advice from others with similar problems. That's been quite useful a couple of times.

So my advice to anyone who’s thought about blogging is to go ahead and try it. You have nothing to lose!

Are You a Litterbug?

An important public service message from Hicks Car Works:

Be honest, now: are you a litterbug? Are you in the habit of just tossing aside things like candy wrappers and napkins, pop cans, spikes, tie plates, brake shoes, buckets of bolts, air tanks, signals, switch stands, traction motors, trucks, machine tools, parts of old locomotives, cars, buses, and buildings, and unidentifiable chunks of old iron, steel, and concrete? Let's get in the habit of picking up after ourselves -- it isn't that hard!

Chuck Amstein Photos

Chuck Amstein, an IRM associate, gave me a CD of photos he took last July for the 309 dedication. These are great. I'm including just a small sample of the 275 pictures on the disk. They've all been shrunk by a factor of 4 (and rotated where necessary), no other changes.

They include the other equipment operating that day, plus visits to the steam shop and other places around the property. Maybe I'll add some more when I get time.

Thanks, Chuck!!!

From One Roof to Another

When I arrived, the first thing I needed to do was to move the 308 back from the pit to its berth in Barn 8 (see previous post). Frank Sirinek rode along on the brief trip and helped with the doors and so forth. The brakes work well, that I can verify!

Then I started painting some of the window frames with the new maroon paint I had matched. It looks very good. The picture really doesn't do it justice. I also put a coat of varnish on the insides of a couple of others.

And I started working on the roof of the 277. I finally got the cables running to the pole disconnected; they were attached with "quick disconnects" covered with several layers of petrified electrical tape, so it wasn't so quick. I also tried to disconnect the fuse box, so far without success. It was about ready to collapse anyhow, so removing it in one piece may be a challenge. I also noticed it's equipped with six 700 amp fuses for a grand total of 4,200 amps, so it wasn't doing us much good to begin with. Who thought that was a good idea? (If you need trolley power for lights or whatever on the 277, it's still available via the 518.) And I started loosening some bolts, etc.

And the contractor was working on Barn 11 - about half the roof is now in place. I'm sure they will make faster progress than I will!

Brake Cylinder Work

On Sunday, the big project was disassembling and inspecting the 308's brake cylinder, which had started leaking towards the end of the year. A bad packing cup was the suspect, and it did turn out that this was a problem; the torn packing cup was replaced with one from stock. A couple of other minor issues were discovered, including a return spring that will have to be replaced and a worn guide ring, which we will address over the winter and/or upon inspection in May. I wasn't able to help out due to illness but an all-star cast consisting of Richard Schauer and visitors Jeff Hakner from Branford and Nick Tomkavage from Seashore completed the work on the brake cylinder. Several others from IRM helped with switching chores as well. Thanks to everyone for their time and effort!

Randy adds: My thanks also to those who helped, particularly our visiting experts! When I arrived on Monday morning, the 308 was still over the pit, so I was able to take these pictures of the brake cylinder to show how the brake rigging works. You can't see that much of the cylinder itself when it's assembled.

(L) The piston end of the cylinder, with the live lever in red, the tie rod in yellow, and the top rods (which go to the trucks) in blue. When air is applied to the cylinder, the piston is pushed out, and the live lever is torqued against the tie rod to pull the top rod in, away from the truck, setting the brakes. (R) A view from the other end. The dead lever (in black) is attached to the "dead" end of the cylinder; when the piston is pushed out, the tie rod pulls on the dead lever to pull on the top rod (in blue) at this end, and each truck receives the same amount of braking force. Simple, isn't it?

Member's Day II

Today was a "substitute Member's Day," since the regularly scheduled service on Sept. 13 was rained out. The most important event, from my standpoint, was revenue operation of the Illinois Terminal train with cars 277 and 518 for the first time in more than twenty years. I got to run one trip.

Indiana Railroad 65, the Museum's first car, also operated several trips, as seen here. There was lots of orange for the pumpkin festival.

Here's young Dan Fenlaciki, the well-dressed conductor.

Here are views of the 518; in the one to the right, you can see how the windows need to be restored.

Here are several shots of the IT train meeting the 65 at Johnson. We had an impromptu photo session, and were shent by the dispatcher for holding up the railroad.

I also did some productive work; I compared the blueprints I recently got from Bob Bruneau to the actual construction of the 518; this cleared up some questions I had. And I found some parts for the 277 and 518 we'll need.

There was an emphasis on the Illinois Terminal. The 1565 and 101 were on display on the west wye.

And North Shore MD car 229 was pulled out of the barn for photo opportunities.

Lots of other things were going on, too many to list. There was a display of antique tractors.

Various pumpkin-related activities were offered. And "Take the Throttle."

Buzz was working on his turbine, a never-ending task.

And the contractors are putting the roof on Barn 11. Sorry, no pictures today, I was too busy.

History of Illinois Terminal #518

Car 518 on the rear of a U of I football special, laying over on the alley tracks in Urbana. The train includes the 534 and a combine, probably of the same type as our 277. All photos from the Robert E. Bruneau collection.

Note: These photographs are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without permission.

The Illinois Terminal Railroad was perhaps best known for its distinctive main-line interurban cars with their flat-top arched roofs, three-window fronts, massive radial couplers and other features designed by the road’s master mechanic, J. M. Bosenbury. These cars were all built between about 1907 and 1915, and held down most long-distance passenger service until the end in 1956. Seven of these cars survive, five of them at IRM.

Builder's interior photo of this series of car. The only major change between then and now is that the interior art glass windows were replaced with pieces of Masonite painted to match the rest of the varnished mahogany woodwork.

Car 518 was one of an order of twelve cars (516 to 527) from the St. Louis Car Company in 1911. It was always a trailer and was never motorized. It originally had tongue-and-groove wood siding and was painted Pullman green. This picture shows what the car looked like as built; the first car behind the Class B is probably the 518, certainly the same type, at least.

In the twenties the paint scheme changed to traction orange, with maroon trim, which is what all of our cars have been restored to. At some later time (before 1938) the wood sides were covered with sheet metal, held on with round-head wood screws. The sheet metal also covered over the outer stained glass windows, which are still there. During WWII, we believe, it was equipped with a trolley pole to facilitate back-up movements by an attached motor car, but there was never any control equipment. The pole was later removed. Otherwise, it was little changed during forty years of continuous passenger service. It appears that the 518 was never painted in the later IT blue-and-silver paint scheme.

The 518 on October 29, 1950. The pole is no longer being used: there's no retriever, it's just tied down. It will soon be removed. Photo from the Ray Burmaster collection.

Of the other cars in this series, the 527 was rebuilt into the bedroom car Illinois in 1930. The 525 was destroyed by fire in 1930 and the 526 on Christmas Day in 1950. Most of the others were scrapped between 1950 and 1952. The Illinois was later renumbered as 535, and the body is still in existence, serving as a residence next to the IT substation building in Harristown.

The 518 after arrival at Federal Yard, but before repainting. That little box over the train door is a connector for the 600V lighting.

In 1952, as passenger service was rapidly declining, the 518 was assigned to service as an “INSTRUCTORS CAR” at Federal Yard in Wood River (near East Alton). It was used as a classroom for instructing employees in such matters as safety, as I understand it. At first it kept its original paint and number, but was later painted box car red and numbered 0100. In this capacity, it was retained by the railroad for a couple of years after the end of passenger service.

About 1960(?), it was purchased by Maury Klebolt for his Illini Railroad Club in Champaign. Here it was repainted in the club’s orange and blue paint scheme, and it received the name “Illini”. It was used on a couple of Diesel-pulled excursion trips over the remaining IT lines, but spent most of its time in storage at Champaign. The Illini Railroad Club owned three IT cars: business cars 233 and 234 (named “Urbana” and “Champaign”) and the 518. It also operated the observation car Inglehome (renamed “Chief Illini”), though this was owned by the University for some reason. The flamboyant Mr. Klebolt had all of this equipment repainted in his own (University of Illinois-inspired) paint schemes.

By 1968, Mr. Klebolt had moved to San Francisco and interest in preserving the equipment waned. The railroad cars were donated to IRM and moved to Union on their own wheels.

The roof of the 518 after its arrival at Union, in 1969, before installation of the trolley hardware. Photo by Bob Bruneau. Don't recognize the location? This is Yard 1, facing south. Directly ahead is the roof of the 233. And that ugly thing to the left is the 321.

Here they were repainted to the Illinois Terminal’s orange paint scheme, and needed repairs were made. And the 518 had its trolley pole reinstalled, so that the 277 could be operated with it on our railroad, where there are no turning facilities at either end. It has been maintained in good condition over the years; it has been stored inside since the Lester barn was constructed in 1975.

The interior of the 518 in Sept. 1969. Photo by Glenn Monhart.

The interior of the 518 in Oct. 2008. Photo by Randall Hicks.

Our current plans are to make the necessary repairs to the 277 so that it can operate with the 518 in occasional revenue service. The 518 will once again be serving in an educational role, this time as a demonstration of what interurban service was like at its zenith.