Museum Miscellany

On our California trip we briefly stopped at a number of small local museums of various types.  Here's a sample of ones we saw on the return trip.

Folsom, Cal. has a local railroad museum of the typical sort: an old depot, a passenger car, and a caboose.  As well as a pioneer village that wasn't open.

And they also have the old gallows turntable still in place.

The Saltair pavilion at Salt Lake City is still in use, although it no longer has interurban service.

It's an impressive building.  You just have to imagine the SL&U trains pulling up in front.

The railroad museum in Ellis, Kansas has a depot, a caboose, and this park train, modeled after the Train of Tomorrow.

But Ellis is also the boyhood home of Walter P. Chrysler, so we went to see that.  Just so I could tell my friend Bill Stewart I had been there.  Walter Chrysler's father worked for the railroad, and so did Walter himself as a young man.  The museum itself was quite interesting.

I asked how they came up with the unusual "Chrysler" for the normal German spelling "Kreisler", but this seems to be lost in the mists of history.  The spelling was changed well before WWI.

Too bad they didn't have any Chrysler Building kits for sale.

You may have heard of Atchison, Kansas somewhere or other.  Its railroad museum has a good-sized static collection, including this nice 2-8-0.  They do have an operating park train of some sort.  It was early in the morning, so no one was around, but there's nothing to keep you from touring the collection, apart from a sign forbidding vandalism.  OK, I promise!

There are several Burlington cars in the collection:

The  Budd coach Silver Gleam, and an RPO, the Silver Pouch. 

Flags were at half-mast due to the Las Vegas massacre:

The original stone depot building serves as the city's history museum.

Finally, in Laclede, Missouri we visited the boyhood home and museum of General John J. Pershing, the man who won WWI and founded the Pershing Rifles.  It seems like only yesterday I had to be able to recite, on command, all the facts of General Pershing's life.  The town of Laclede itself seemed to be stuck in the 1930's.

But wherever you may travel, there's no place like home.

Repainting Here and There

We've been running the 319 in revenue service for a few years now, and everything has been fine except that when the car is outside in direct sunlight, it's obvious that the walls were not completely painted, and coverage is spotty, to say the least.  Most people won't focus on this, I hope, but when serving as conductor I find myself wondering who did such a shoddy job.  Well, look in the mirror.

 All I can say in my own defense is that inside the barn with just the car lights and a drop light or two for illumination, it looked much better.  So when we have a nice day with plenty of natural light, the thing to do is pull the car out and apply another coat or two of paint.  A couple of months ago I redid one side of the smoker.  Yesterday I finished the smoker and started on the main compartment.

After painting, it looks like this.  The paint is still wet, which probably magnifies the difference.

 And at a different angle, with flash.  It looks like a different color, doesn't it?  Here you can even see, at the bottom, the reflection of the sun shining on a seat back.  The weather was perfect for this, although it was rather windy, constantly rattling the windows and doors, and occasionally even rocking the boat a little.  That's not a problem unless you're trying to edge something like this:

So I hope to finish this job before winter sets in.  Luckily the ceiling looks fine, and most of the walls below the window sill are better, or at least the imperfections are less noticeable.

I didn't spend much time seeing what other people were doing.   Henry Vincent proudly shows off a conductor's chair he refinished at home.  He points out that there are no glue joints in this chair; it's entirely held together by little steel rods.

Riveting continues on the Michigan Electric car.

And outside, the B&G guys are hard at work.  Here Andy Choutka is working on 50th Avenue, which is a constant maintenance problem.  As Bob Olson was pointing out, Jim Blower used to repaint the station every year or two until he died, then we had Carl Illwitzer doing it, and now it's Andy's turn.  Bob says it's too bad we can't get vinyl siding in the correct color, ha ha. 

But probably the biggest news was pouring concrete for the southward extension of the parking lot.  At lunch time, work was finishing up on forms for the curbs of these little islands that will be surrounded with pavement.

And a few hours later, the concrete was in place and being finished up by the contractors.

More at Carson City

Behind the visitor center at Carson City is a large storage barn and workshop.  Only part of it is normally accessible to visitors.

This is V&T #25, which is operable and regularly used in revenue service.

Behind it is a combine built by Kimball and Ward in 1873, with link and pin couplers.

But the real jewel of the collection is this restored McKeen car, the only one in existence.  The body served as a diner for many years, and it was completely rebuilt and operates occasionally.

The entryway:

The porthole windows are hinged at the top, and can be held up by those long hooks.  Make sure they are fastened correctly, or you'll have a real headache!

Two of these unique light fixtures survived, and served as patterns for the rest to be replicated.

The one concession to practicality is the power plant.  The original McKeen motor was notoriously difficult to operate and maintain, and trying to build one from scratch would be impossible, so the engine room has this modern Diesel.  

The power truck looks quite authentic from the outside:

And here's a more ordinary-looking doodlebug on display, a 1926 Edwards car:

I should point out that the Friends of the NSRM have an excellent website with a complete roster, and thanks to them we can link to detailed histories of each of these items.

Outside in the yard, since there was no train running that day, they were offering handcar rides: you can propel yourself up and down the track a couple hundred feet.  I managed to talk them into trading a handcar ride for a tour of the car shop.

The main object of interest in the shop at this time is V&T 17, which was built as a director's car for the Central Pacific in 1868.  It is thought to have been at the driving of the Golden Spike.  In 1876 it was acquired by the V&T, and later served in movies.  In any case, it needs complete rebuilding.

Down the center is a large steel I beam to support the structure.

The truck pedestals have V&T cast into them:

Part of the structural problem is that the truss rods have no turnbuckles, and there are no real needle beams supported by the queen posts.  It's amazing.

The end beams are collapsing, that's not unusual for old wooden cars.

Much of the exterior siding is full of holes; it looks like somebody went nuts with a drill for some reason.   But it's actually due to -- wait for it -- woodpeckers!   I had to laugh.  I'd never come across this problem before.  Of course, the siding will be completely replaced.

The side framing is this early style, section by section, instead of the much better car-length trusses built into later wooden cars.  In this design, you'll notice that the truss rods appear to be an afterthought.   And as I mentioned, there are no turnbuckles for adjustment.

The other car on this track is nearly complete, I think.  It's a tunnel car for transporting miners who are too dirty to ride in regular passenger equipment.  But you don't want rocks falling on their heads when you go through a tunnel.  It was built from a flat car by the V&T is 1875, and should be fine for tourist service.

And out in back, there are several bodies of various sorts. 

Here, for instance, is a 1907 Pullman combine built for the Tonopah & Goldfield:

This may look like the body of an interurban car, but it was a Hall-Scott motor car built for the Salt Lake and Utah.

And this, believe it or not, is what's left of a McKeen car built for the CGW.

The museum has an incredible collection of old equipment, most of which is not accessible, and we were running out of time, so I'll have to go back some day.