Oil on Canvas: Masters of the Bix Arts School

The first priority today was to fix two (actually three) windows in the 308 where the screws were pulling loose from the latches. This involves removing the windows, drilling out the holes, gluing in hardwood dowels, redrilling, etc. All pretty routine, but it takes time. The car is now ready for revenue service again.

I then started on the interior of the 277. I cut out another plywood panel, painted, and installed it, and installed the next "croquet hoop" and painted it, as seen here. This also entailed installing one window shade box, removing another, and installing/removing various window shade tracks for the various parts. I'd say real progress is being made.

Next, up to the roof. I started a final stretch of the canvas, and did somewhat over half of it, as seen here. This is harder than it looks, because I'm kneeling on the canvas as I stretch it, and then have to tack it down while holding it. After a while, I decided I'd had enough, since I wanted to go on to painting. And it was, of course, hot up there. In any case, I think the current method for stretching seems to be sufficient.




As we leave the French Depressionist wing of the Museum, we may make our way to the next gallery, where masters of the American minimalist movement of the early Twentieth Century known as the Bix Arts School may be viewed. (Note on French pronunciation: since Beaux Arts is pronounced "boh zahr," Bix Arts is obviously "bih zahr.") Here we climb a ladder of minimally functional black grab irons, where we see an untitled oil on canvas masterpiece by an unknown artist of the St. Louis School. Part of it is being restored by one of the Museum's many highly-paid professional art conservators. Here we may admire the artist's dramatic use of a single color for the huge expanse of canvas, the exquisite choice of Tile Red to represent the agrarian roots of the class struggle, and the uncompromising refusal to include any superfluous patterns or bourgeois ornamentation.

Remember that the display and restoration of these artifacts at our Museum is made possible by all you hoity-toity millionaire patrons of fine art, so thanks to all of you!

We Get a Lucky Brake

I was wrong. (Yes, it's happened before.) On further testing, I decided the problem with the 308's braking system was indeed the feed valve, which was stuck open. (The clock at the #2 end wasn't reading correctly; this won't be a problem in regular service.) I removed the feed valve and took it to the shop for disassembly and cleaning. Here are the parts of the control portion spread out on the bench. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the valve portion apart, so it still doesn't work properly. However, Bob Heinlein got me a spare which he had rebuilt and adjusted a couple of years ago, and when installed in the 308, the braking system now works OK. I wanted to take the cars outside for testing, but it started to rain off and on, so I'll rely on the results of static testing for now. Thanks, Bob!!!

Here's a picture of our air brake test stand, which among other things works well for testing feed valves. The feed valve is a regulating valve which is supposed to supply a constant 70 lbs of air to the brake system; if it sticks open, instead you get whatever pressure is in the main reservoir, which goes up and down. When that happens, the brakes don't operate correctly (although you can always stop! Sometimes, however, the car stops when you don't want it to.)

After that, I went back to the 277 and finished painting the ceiling on the right side of the main compartment, as seen here. I should now be able to install the baggage racks, and after some more painting on the walls, maybe even some of the seats.

Dave's Depots - Lincoln Depot, Springfield, Illinois

Work recently took me to Springfield, Illinois to appear before the Circuit Court of Sangamon County. Of course, Springfield is where Abraham Lincoln made his home as an adult and practiced law. Springfield has a host of Lincoln-related sites, from the Lincoln Library and Museum, to the Lincoln Home.

One of the interesting Lincoln sites sits next to the Sangamon County Courts building. It is the Great Western Railroad Station. This is where Lincoln left Springfield on February 11, 1861 to head to his inauguration in Washington. On the rear platform of his train, Lincoln gave an improvised farewell speech to the assembled crowd:

"My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."

The depot remains, and in good shape. The building is owned by the local newspaper, who maintains it.

Springfield also has several other depots, to be covered later, including an Illinois Central Depot, a Chicago & Alton Depot and the Illinois Terminal facility. I only wish I could have taken "the traction" back to St. Louis, to avoid the drive.

Minor Difficulties

On Sunday, the crew noticed a few minor difficulties with the 308. First of all, the brakes don't always release after a light reduction. I checked the operation to make sure it wasn't a feed valve problem; no, it's the triple valve. This happens sometimes because after a light reduction the brake pipe comes back up slowly and the valve doesn't move. We'll try lubricating it some more.

Then it was noticed we had a broken spring on one of the trolley bases. I'd never had to replace one before, and got a much better appreciation of little things like this. It was quite a project, and took me about 3 1/2 hours to complete. I had to run the cars outside so I could have the pole pointing straight up. Here we see the 309 with the big blue flag, and the 308 with its pole reaching for the sky. After what seemed like hours of pounding, I managed to remove the pins holding the springs, and replace the broken one.

Just getting the replacement spring out of the spare base was a difficult project. Each pin holds the ends of two springs, and they're held by cotter pins which are hard to remove, etc.

The replacement spring is rusty; the others are still coated with tar from when the CA&E was tarring the roofs back in the fifties.

I'd had enough of working on the roof, so nothing got done on the 277. Instead, I started repainting the ceiling in the main compartment. I recently got the paint mixed, and it seems to be a good match. Here we see it after painting, both before and after removing all the masking tape and drop cloth.

I was sent a video starring Joel Ahrendt picking up flimsies on the fly last Saturday; it was made from Tom Hunter's pictures by Jason Nates. I'm unable to include it here, but if you want to see it, send me an email and I'll attach it. Warning: 3 MB.

Nederland, Colorado

In the little town of Nederland, high in the Rockies, we happened upon these railroad cars on display, far from any railroad. This nice Burlington coach is C&S #544. It appears to be in good shape, although it badly needs paint. A door has been cut in the side, and I couldn't tell what sort of interior it might have; workmen were busy building parts of a circus museum of some sort which will incorporate these cars.

There's also a waycar and this baggage car. I'm a little dubious about its identity as an 1872 UP baggage car, but who knows?

Pictures, We Get Pictures

People who were riding the train with us this past week sent me some interesting links.

David Fullarton rode the 251/714 train on Memorial Day and took video from the front end. Here are links to two YouTube segments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z-d_-F7F0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55ef5jwAvoc

Our old friend Tom Hunter rode the 309 on Saturday, and took a large number of pictures. Here are just a few which illustrate picking up flimsies:


The dispatcher (Adam Robillard) attaches the flimsy to a loop of string and mounts it in the hoop.

As the train approaches, conductor Joel Ahrendt reaches out to put his arm through the triangle formed by the loop of string in the hoop. He doesn't have to actually catch anything with his fingers.

He has pulled the the string away from the hoop, and can now unroll and read the order.

Tom says he will also make a movie out of this sequence. So stay tuned!

So thanks!

The Blue Brothers

Today was the first day of public operation for the two-car blue train this year; the train was made up last night and both cars operated successfully for five trips today with Jim Nauer operating and myself as conductor. The day was not without incident, though. The 308 had some issues with a finicky triple valve that did not always release when a light brake application was taken (there were no problems with heavier applications). Other than a few hard stops there were no real issues, but this will be addressed. Fortunately we currently have a functional spare M3A triple on hand and will probably swap this in until the problems with the triple valve on the car can be fixed.

The other issue was that one of the springs on the 308's #2 end trolley base broke, as shown at right. This didn't affect operations at all; since the two-car train is bused together we simply used the poles on the 309 all day. This should be a straightforward and, hopefully, fairly simple fix.

After the end of operations I changed into work clothes and went over to Barn 4, where Joel Ahrendt, Joe Stupar and Stan Wdowikowski, with help from Dan Mulvihill, were working on reassembling rebuilt components for North Shore 757's type DH-25 air compressor. I mostly just sat around and watched (and took photos) though I did lend a hand for a few minutes.
Shown here, L-R: Joel and Stan tighten down the crankshaft; Joe, Joel and Stan working on lining up the reconditioned armature (foreground); and Joe replaces the top cover after installation of the field coil assembly (foreground, around the armature).

309 In Operation

The 309 returned to service today. Early in the morning, I made a test trip, helped by Stan, Charlie, and Joel. The oil problem appears to have been solved, and the car was released for service.

Since I only had one trainman, Joel Ahrendt, and the attendance seemed rather limited, we ran all day with only the 309. We made a total of six revenue trips, and all went well. I was too busy to take more than one picture! Mostly we operated out of 50th Avenue again. We had many compliments on the car and on the ease of boarding from the high-level platform.

Also today we started picking up train orders from the new hoop frame near Spaulding Tower, which was a first, at least for me. The orders are caught by the conductor, of course, and I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of this, but I'm sure some will be posted soon. Among other things, we got a chance to talk to Tom Hunter who was visiting, and he took a lot of good shots.

We learned that our friend Bill Thiel had had serious health problems; after a liver transplant he was in hospital for six weeks but was scheduled to be released tomorrow. Several of his friends and relatives visited the Museum, and Frank Sirinek was showing them around. Here's wishing Bill a complete recovery!

We made up the two-car train at the end of the day, so tomorrow both the 308 and 309 should be operating.

In Memoriam

Oliver James Sturdee Hicks, 1914-1941

May 30th was the traditional Memorial Day to remember those who gave their lives in the defense of freedom. This is my father's cousin Sturdee, who was a seaman on the cruiser HMS Calcutta. The Calcutta was sunk in the Mediterranean while covering the evacuation from Crete in May 1941. Thousands of men like him died to protect the freedom and security we enjoy today.

Rest in peace!

Platte Valley Trolley

The Platte Valley Trolley is an operation of the Denver Rail Heritage Society. At present it has just one car, a Gomaco-built open car powered by a Diesel generator. It runs along the Platte River through Denver from downtown, past the football stadium, along a mile or so of an abandoned railroad spur. The two volunteers shown here, a man and his wife, were taking turns running the car and providing commentary as we rolled past various places of interest, such as a children's museum.

Here the car is approaching its terminal under a major downtown highway bridge. The Gomaco car is an excellent replica; it uses trucks, motors, etc. from Melbourne. The society, as you can see from the webpage, has big plans: they want to build a carbarn and museum, install overhead wire, and move their Denver & Interurban car there when it's restored. (In the background is the Elitch amusement park.)

This waycar currently serves as an office and workshop for the operation. Unfortunately, the open car is stored outside, behind the chain link fence, and is showing its age. But it's an interesting and enjoyable ride, and demonstrates another facet of railway preservation in contrast to the two I already posted from our trip to Colorado.

New IRM Recruiting Posters

Dateline East Union, Illinois -- Today, the Illinois Railway Museum unveiled some new recruiting posters. The posters are to recruit new volunteers to the museum. It's unclear whether the posters will have the intended effect. The posters, designed to capitalize on the popularity of a certain politican from Illinois, were unveiled at a ceremony at the East Union Depot. Details are sketchy, but the following images were released to the assembled media:

Happy Birthday, Frank!

Here we are celebrating Frank's birthday in 1985. This must be IRM, but a lot of things have changed!