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.

The Great Third Rail... Beam Project

Frank writes...

It's officially too cold to paint the 63 - Saturday was an unseasonable 68 degrees, but by the time I got to IRM Sunday the weather had reverted to more typical November temperatures in the 40s. That meant that the focus on Saturday was CA&E third rail beams.

With my father having completed two new third rail beams for the 460, it was time to retrieve two more beams and salvage the hardware so he can use it on the other two beams for that car. Our indefatigable president, Nick, and I hauled the two beams above into the "dirty room" at the new east end of the car shop. These came from Trolleyville and have been stored along Bruneau Drive for 15 years. (By the way, Nick coined the "project name" used here for the post title.)

These beams weren't usable when they arrived in 2010, and the condition of the wood hasn't improved. The first one partially disintegrated. But Richard and I were able to get all the hardware off both beams - many thanks to Richard for judicious application of heat as needed! - and the hardware was deposited on a wooden cart out in the barn where the two newly made beams had been put. I meant to take a photo but forgot. Richard also spent quite a while prepping a casting pattern that we are going to send to a foundry as part of an effort to cast more third rail beam hardware, since we don't have enough original beams for our entire fleet. Thanks, Richard!!

Later, I went over to Barn 8, used a jack to hold one of the 308's third rail beams in place, and unbolted it so I could remove these two bits. The plate on the left, which is a 5"x6" piece of 10-gauge steel, acts as a large washer, and there's one at each end of each beam where they bolt to the truck. On the right is a 6"x6-1/2"x3/4" steel plate with ridges that mesh into identical ridges on the trucks. These also go at both ends of each third rail beam, but on the back where the beams meet the truck. The idea here was that the height of each beam could be adjusted up and down easily in 1/4" increments, which was helpful to account for wheel wear. This isn't something we have to worry about at IRM, of course. I took measurements of both these items so we can start looking into options for replicating them for our new third rail beams.

There were also some miscellaneous projects underway, as always.

There was a lot of activity around the property getting ready for Happy Holiday Railway. Lights are going up all over the place and Christmas music was even being piped over the loudspeaker system in the afternoon as our tech folks checked all the speakers. Jim W. was hard at work putting up an extraordinary quantity of lights and other decorations in Barn 6. For the car shop's part, we had to move the line of storage cars currently occupying the connector track north about 30' or so because they want to spot the Belt caboose just north of the ruling curve on the streetcar line. It will presumably be festooned with lights once it's in place. Above, the first car to move was the TM container car.

Then a few of us pushed the next car, CTA 2008 (masquerading as "1992"), up to the container car. With its roller bearings, it moved easily and we didn't even need a car mover. This car is not part of the historic collection and is being stripped for parts.

In other news, Mike S. has been hard at work on our CSL air compressor wagon, AX545. It looks like virtually the entire thing except for the roof has now been needle-chipped and/or wire-wheeled.

Here's Nick again, this time testing the specific gravity of batteries for our CTA 2200s.

And now, a brief retrospective of the major project that the department has been working on the last couple of weeks. You may recall that New Jersey Transit 4, our ex-Minneapolis PCC car, was brought over to Barn 4. The reason it was brought over was to have its narrow street railway wheels, which are prone to derailing on our track, replaced with full-width railroad-profile wheels. Back in October, we shipped out a car's worth of PCC wheels obtained from the CTA back in (I think?) the 1970s. These were supposedly designed for the 5000s, so they didn't have the right holes cut in them. A generous benefactor in the local business community had the holes cut in these wheels, so NJT 4 was brought over for some "foot work."

This was a couple of weeks ago, and the guys started on the front left wheel. On the left is Bob, who lent us a battery-powered impact drill. The resilient wheels on a postwar PCC like this have an inner set of bolts ringing the wheel hub and an outer set of larger bolts around the wheel rim. These bolts hold together the axle hub, wheel, and some rubber spacers.

Hiccup number one was that some of the inner bolts on wheel #1 didn't want to budge. Here's Richard applying some heat, though with a rubber spacer so nearby, this could only be done sparingly. Unfortunately, two of the bolts just did not want to move, and on this wheel they were so close to the wheel hub that the impact drive wouldn't fit onto the bolt. Photo by Ted Kuhn.

After quite a bit of fighting, the guys started working on wheel #2, the left wheel on the second axle. For unknown reasons, this had a different size axle, so the impact drive fit just fine over the inside ring of bolts. Photo by Ted Kuhn.

In just a few minutes, the wheel came off. Here you can see a rubber spacer. By this time it was late, so work was suspended until the following weekend.

A week ago now, I came out to find that the guys had been hard at work that Saturday. Unfortunately, they had come up against hiccup number two. In the above photo, near the left and just to the right of that spring you can see the end of the "torque arm." Surrounding it are some bolts, though they're missing in this photo. These bolts clear a narrow-tread wheel just fine, but they foul a wide-tread wheel (the new wheel is seen to the right, of course). Now, Shaker Heights solved this by using bolts with heads ground down to a thinner profile. Unfortunately, on NJT 4, these aren't bolts, they're studs. And grinding down a stud with a nut on it is not a great plan if it means only a couple of threads are still engaged. The solution? Drill out the studs and replace them with bolts.

And voila: on Sunday, wheel #2 is completed and the new wide-tread wheel is installed. On Saturday, the guys drilled out those studs and installed bolts that clear the wheel. One down, seven to go.

So here's Jimmy working on wheel #4, the left wheel on the #4 axle, this weekend. Notice anything different? If you answered "are those Allen bolts?!?" you would be correct - the inner ring of bolts on this truck, for reasons I cannot fathom, uses Allen bolts. We have a drive for these on order. Stay tuned; with time, all the wheels on NJT 4 should be replaced, at which point we'll give it a thorough mechanical and electrical inspection. If everything's in good shape - and for a PCC that has sat for nearly 25 years, that's a big if - then it may be due for some testing to see whether we can put it into service.

Barn 15 Progress

 Dave Diamond reports:

A large crew from several IRM departments gathered on Saturday to work inside Barn 15, leveling  gravel along the outside tracks. Volunteers from B&G, Diesel, Electric Car, Track, and Signal shoveled for hours on Saturday to get this job done as we get closer to completion on our newest railroad storage barn. Thanks to all for spending a little or a lot of time!

I wish I could put names to all these faces.  That guy in the sunglasses looks suspicious....

Friday Snapshot

Not a lot to report today.  I was working on the first two third-rail beams, and they're basically done until we can install them on the 460, and that won't happen until after Christmas.

The front side.

  But they look good, if I say so myself.  Two down, two to go.

The back side.

Meanwhile, don't let Happy Holiday Railway pass you by.  Tickets are going fast!

Doodlebug Update

Thanks to our intrepid cub reporter, Gregg Wolfersheim, for sending us an update of recent restoration work on our Union Pacific "doodlebug," the M35.

Slowly the side of the M35 is getting needle chipped and wire wheeled. Then, some primer is applied before it starts to rust.

This is the sheet metal cover on the heat shield that has been shown earlier. It actually holds some insulation against the side of the shield.

Here it is attached with multiple screws and nuts. Some primer was applied to the fasteners. Note the curve which corresponds with the arch of the roof.

On the left is the lower heat shield assembly. It bolts to the upper on the right. During maintenance, this lower part is removed to get to the valve covers on the engine.

Get the Breeze at Luna Park

This has nothing to do with railway preservation as such, but it's an amusing picture of life in the good old days.  In the wall of the 1268, Tim found a crumpled-up copy of a multi-page guidebook put out by Luna Park, sometime between 1906 and 1909.  This was an amusement park located on the southwest side at 50th and Halsted.  It lasted only until 1911.  I think there were several of these parks in the city in the old days, but Riverview was the only one that survived into the modern era.

The following description of the park is priceless.  I'd like to see the "Human Roulette Wheel" or "Shooting Niagara" in operation.  They also had a miniature railroad, moving pictures, and flying airships!

"A trip through Luna Park is equivalent to a liberal education."   I'm not so sure about that....

They did have frequent band and orchestra concerts, with an impressive variety of popular and classical music of all sorts.  The guidebook includes lots of ads, mostly for liquor and cigars, it would seem:

There are two types of cigars: 5 cent and 10 cent.

Want to recuperate?  Take the Monon Route to French Lick and West Baden.  Hey, I've been there!

Of course, to get to Luna Park you'll want to take the streetcar.  The Surface Lines run everywhere!

You don't want just any old bourbon.  Get it from Mr. Fox:

Ask the waiter!

Anyway, once Main Street gets built, we should start putting in a human roulette wheel and flying airships at Electric Park.  It'll be a sensation!  Minus the bourbon and cigars, presumably....