Invest in Main Street

As the fiscal year draws to a close, let us encourage you to invest in the Main Street Visitor Center!  It's certainly the biggest, most ambitious project IRM has ever undertaken, and can be a landmark in the railway preservation field.  Check out the details on the Museum website.  This will become a reality if everyone helps!  Of course, your contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.  

OK, I admit it might not turn out to be quite as impressive as this view of Decatur, but it will have a double-track car line with interurban and city service!  And sometimes even IT cars.  What more could you want?  All aboard!

Summer Sleet Scrapers?

One of the more distinctive things about the CA&E was the massive design of the third-rail beams, which included a large air-powered sleet scraper mechanism.  Of course, in preservation nobody is running cars on third rail, and we would avoid operating in sleet conditions, but the cars just wouldn't look right without this equipment.

20 c. 1934

431 - Today

Pictures of cars in service show that sometimes the cars had no sleet scrapers.  And we have concluded after examination that all of the wooden beams had holes and slots where the scraper cylinders were attached, and that during the summer the scrapers would be removed as needed and repaired in the shop.  

36 - 1937

309 c. 1934 

The alternate theory is that there were "summer beams" that had third rail shoes, of course, but no provision for sleet scrapers.  And the entire beams would be changed out as necessary.  I have now abandoned this theory -- Frank talked me out of it -- but I'd be glad to hear from anyone who wants to support it.

The serious, practical reason for arguing is this: we'll need to make a number of new wooden beams to equip all of our steel cars, and we don't have enough hardware, particularly the scrapers.  One or two of the steels can be authentically restored without scrapers, since we generally run only during the summer.  The question is whether we still need to drill holes and provide slots in the beams.

You've heard of "rivet counters", of course.  We'll see you and raise!

Mo' Snow

Frank writes...

The big news Sunday was, of course, Happy Holiday Railway, which ran on schedule despite another 5" of snow having fallen overnight. A huge thank you goes out to all the volunteers who spent the morning clearing snow! I didn't arrive until late in the afternoon, but managed to snap some photos of progress around the Electric Car Shop.

Above, Michigan 28 is currently the subject of exterior as well as interior work, as the front end of the car appears to be getting repainted orange. Just a year ago this kind of work would have been impossible in the cold weather, but the heated Barn 4 shop area opens up all kind of possibilities.

Two tracks over, the shop guys were able to complete installation of two more wide-tread wheels on NJT 4. These are the two wheels on the left side of the rear truck. Three down, five to go! Progress on extracting the last two intransigent bolts on the #1 axle, left side, was also made, though the bolts aren't out yet.

And smack in between the 4 and the 28, Tim was hard at work on the 1268. One side of the car, as shown, now has all new tongue-and-groove siding, while the other side of the car has all sub-siding repairs done and looks ready for new T&G siding of its own.

Here's the "third rail beam cart," with the two beams my father has completed so far as well as the hardware for the next two, barely visible between the two finished beams. This set of four beams will go onto the 460.

More progress was made during the week by Mike S. on our air compressor wagon, AX545. The wheels and other "underbody" areas were primed.

As for me, I spent some time taking measurements for an upcoming project, and then spent a while longer sand-blasting and priming more parts for a spare grid box. This work is time-consuming, but that's the point of having it done in advance: if we need to rebuild a grid box in short order, which periodically happens, it's nice to have this part of the work already complete.

Green Bay Car Report

Chicago sports fans surely want to send Green Bay packing this weekend, but here in the Electric Car Shop we have our own little green and yellow piece of Wisconsin, Green Bay & Western steam railroad coach 109 - and our intrepid cub reporter Gregg Wolfersheim is on the sidelines with the latest. Gregg, over to you!

Another step in creating an end beam for the Green Bay car is pictured here. Some relief holes were bored into the back and bottom of the oak. These are where rivet heads will have room to reside in.

The south side of the car is finally in green. Only the trim needs to be added over the arched windows.

The north side was painted around the window openings and along the sill. Soon, most of the finished sash will be put back in place.

The east end was sanded some more, and then painting commenced.

The upper part of the end is now covered.

And, now the lower area is done.

Another Busy Wednesday

The car shop was a beehive of activity on Wednesday.  Probably the most active project was the Michigan Electric 28.  Here Pete is repainting the door between the baggage and passenger compartments.

Norm, Fritz, and Phil were installing new ceiling panels in the baggage compartment:

I started on the next third-rail beam for the 460.  Two new pieces of maple were jointed and so forth, and the slot for the sleet scraper was cut in.

And then they were glued and clamped.

Among other projects, some of the Freight Dept. guys were working on wood for the tool car.

L to R: Bill, Victor, and Bob (I believe)

Buzz showed a replacement knob for the stove in the Milwaukee Road caboose he's working on.

Steve Iversen was visiting from Oklahoma again, and here he's fighting with obstreperous PCC brake parts.  I'm not sure who's winning.

Tim (not shown) was hard at work under the 1268, rebuilding the end of the car.

And here Norm takes a break from the 28 to help:

And finally, Jon shows off a new axe he bought for the tool box in the 65, which hasn't had its full complement of wrecking tools for a long time.  It needed to have the handle shortened and trimmed, but will help make the car more complete.

The New-Fallen Snow

Frank writes...

I was out at IRM again on Sunday, this time without the rest of the family, but something seemed a little different... oh, that's right, it's the 10" of snow on the ground that fell over the course of the day Saturday. This caused the cancellation of the day's Happy Holiday Railway operations, but our volunteers were out by 8am Sunday shoveling and snow-blowing, and all Sunday trains ran as planned. The guys even cleared out the Barn 7 doors so the 3142 and 749 could go into streetcar service.

I arrived just in time to run the 3142 for a few laps while the regular motorman, Jeff, took a well-deserved mid-afternoon lunch break.

After that, it was back to the car shop. A huge thank you goes out to Richard, who got the pattern for our first reproduction third rail beam casting ready. I worked for a little while on cleaning it up so it's ready to go to the foundry.

This is the piece that bolts to the underside of the third rail beam. Holes will be drilled out so that the shoe can hang from this using links. We are getting seven of these cast because that's how many we will need in order to make the rest of our fleet complete.

Our old friend Steve was visiting from Oklahoma, and he spent the better part of the day putting a coat of primer on our CSL air compressor wagon, AX545. Above is how it looked when I arrived...

...and here's how it looked when I left. Pretty spiffy! After priming is complete, the next step, of course, is a coat of CSL work car green.

Jimmy and Greg made more progress on NJT 4. The Allen bit we ordered came in, so they were able to remove both wheels from the left side of the rear truck. Here, Jimmy is removing one of those Allen bolts. Both of these wheels need a bit of work before the new, wide-tread wheels can go on - one has a bracket that will get installed before the new wheel makes access difficult, while the other wheel had a stud that loosened and came out, so that will need to be reinstalled. We also came up with a plan for removing the frozen bolts from the #1 left wheel. It's coming along!

Pretty much the whole car shop crew spent the morning clearing snow, but they were up to various tasks in the afternoon. Richard manned the "food bus," parked inside the entrance to accept donations of food for the Marengo food pantry. Greg and Good Nick worked on assembling a good set of batteries for the CTA 2200s while Joel worked on various shop and equipment improvements and cleanups.

Thinking of getting into the "Giving Tuesday" action? Consider the IRM Visitor Center! The transformational impact of this structure is impossible to overstate, and with everyone pitching in, it will happen sooner rather than later. Thank you!

A Trip on the Happy Holiday Railway

Frank writes...

I snagged tickets a while back to take my wife and daughter to HHR on opening day, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely, you won't be surprised to know.

Above is the impressive HHR train, consisting of a six-car bi-level set in real push-pull operation with C&NW 411 on the west end. The operation is a bit different than typical summertime service. The train departs westbound, goes to Jefferson Street, and then returns east via Station Track 2. If there are any passengers who just missed their train (and there usually are), the train makes a quick stop to board them before proceeding east to Kishwaukee Grove and then returning to the depot. To avoid having to clear switches, the train holds the main at Johnson and Schmidt Sidings. We had a great time aboard the train, and kudos go to Santa and the elves, all of whom were in great spirits.

Before our trip, we toured the Model Railroad Exhibit and the new "Jingle Junction" heated tent where Mrs. Claus was welcoming kids and Bob Opal was playing festive tunes on the piano. Of course we also went through Barn 6, which Jim Ward has decorated with an incredible 800-foot illuminated pathway said to contain over 100,000 lights. The above photo doesn't do it justice, but it does include the 319, which is wintering in Barn 6 for a change.

As soon as our Santa train trip ended, before we were even off the platform, the fireworks show began. Here's the view of the 749, one of the two "streetcars" in service, stopped at Depot Street with a burst visible in the background.

We viewed most of the fireworks show from the lawn behind the depot. As with last year, it was a really impressive display! The fireworks show is only this first weekend. Unfortunately, HHR has been cancelled for tomorrow (Saturday) due to the dire weather forecasts, but additional trips have been added on December 19th and on Saturdays in December to compensate. Make sure to tell your friends to get their tickets now!

Kewaunee Green Bay & Western 64 Update

We were afraid we would have had to say a sad goodbye to our favorite wooden steam road coach by now, but we've lucked out, and KGB&W 64 - aka GB&W 109 - is still being worked on in the Barn 4 Electric Car Shop! Truly, our cup runneth over. And our intrepid cub reporter, Gregg Wolfersheim, is on the case with another progress report.

Some sash work was accomplished a few weeks ago on the Green Bay car. A new volunteer, Dick, is seen on the right cutting beading to length. Some guy was nearby working on a third rail beam.

Buzz even helped opening up the recess where the glass sits. In the background, Dick is cleaning old caulk out of the frames.

Our ace woodworker Jack, finished repairing the north side sill. It's shown in white primer. Also, above the one paired windows is a template for the trim that will be made to go over the arch.

On the south side, Jack is installing the trim that goes under the sill. It helps to also hide the top of the siding boards.

On the east end of the car, the beam had rotted out and broke off years ago. We're now taking this all apart to replace it.

With the beam all removed, we cleaned up the rusted areas.

The deck plate and a wood platform are now on the floor! Behind them is what's left of the beam.

The new oak beam is being planed smooth and the length cut and squared up.

The outer ends of the beam are tapered. Jack made a cut with a skill saw from both sides. However, the inner 2 inches or so, can't be reached with the power saw. So, we finished the cut with a hand saw.

One end is done. Now we're finishing up the other end. The next step will be to prime and paint the steel. Holes for the bolts (over 20) will be bored through the oak. Hopefully it all fits!

Sunday Report

Frank writes...

Sunday I split up my time between a few different small projects.

Above, you can see the "shoe hanger" casting that we removed last year from one of the third rail beams stored along Bruneau Drive since it was acquired from Trolleyville. You'll notice that the bolts have seen better days, which is to say, the bolt and nut have rusted into a single piece that isn't even hex-shaped anymore. I figured this could stand to be fixed, so a few minutes with a cut-off disk got rid of these bolts.

The three bolts hold this small casting, whose technical term is a "glottis," against the shoe hanger casting. The shunt from the third rail pickup shoe is clamped down by this thing, and then the current passes through the fuse, which is held in by the top bolt. "CA&E" and a number starting with "3" is stamped into the back. My best guess is that this thing is bronze.

And here's the shoe hanger with new nuts and bolts. We'll want to replace the shunt and fuse later, obviously just for the sake of appearance, but now the bolts can be loosened and those components easily swapped out.

I also sand-blasted this spare grid box end casting (actually, I think this one originally came from the 321).

It was then primed. I'd like to have a spare grid box "kit" on hand for the next time we have a grid failure. In theory, we ought to be able to pull a box off a car, disassemble it, wire-wheel the contact faces on the grid elements, and reassemble the whole thing in about a day. As a practical matter, it tends to take a couple of weeks, but that's largely because we don't have all the components (like mica tubes) already on hand and because it takes time to clean up and paint these castings.

I can tell you're flabbergasted at the monumental progress I made in just a couple of short hours! While your heart rate slowly settles back down, let's see what else was happening.

On Saturday, the #1L wheel was removed from NJT 4, though it was necessary to torch off the two obstinate bolt heads to do it. They've since been drilled out, so I assume the plan is to use an Easy-Out to try and remove them.

Also on Saturday, Mike and another volunteer were doing more wire-wheeling on our CSL air compressor wagon, AX545. The roof is now cleaned up, so if they have more work to do before they start priming the thing, it can't be very extensive.

Zach and Brian were working on stenciling the grid covers for the inside of IT 1565, our "Class B" boxcab locomotive. We tried spraying these a few weeks ago, but with the overspray, it didn't look right. Above, Zach is having much better luck by painstakingly painting them by hand using a pounce brush. At bottom left is a test piece that was used to refine the method. The key is to keep only a small amount of paint on the brush so that it doesn't run in under the stencil.

The above and below photos were taken by Zach. Above, the curtain is drawn back...

...and voila! That's pretty sharp!

Finally, I spent a while helping Richard move buses, though in the end only one got moved because the next two that were intended to be "switched" refused to start. I remarked to Richard that I'm a bad luck charm - the buses must like me about as much as I like them! But no matter; we also took the more modern of the two Janesville buses, the one that will be used as a "Fill the Bus" food pantry collection site for the CARE Center in Marengo during our Happy Holiday Railway event, over to the other end of the property to get refueled.

We also took a side trip to see the progress on the new barns. The Southwest Storage Building extension is now complete, and we've been granted occupancy. The new South Storage Building, which was funded by the Motor Bus and Trolley Bus Departments, is very nearly done. It appears that nearly all the interior electrical work except for some hookups at the main breaker panel is complete. And above you can see a photo taken inside the cavernous Barn 15, where the electricians have been running conduit. The boxes are going in along the walls, but the lights aren't in yet overhead. Nevertheless, the work on this building is moving very rapidly. After dinner, I caught Joel in his office, battling manfully with an Excel spreadsheet in an effort to get as many cars as possible to fit into the various available barn tracks once Barn 15 is open for business.