Illinois Railway Museum Blog

I am very tardy getting these few pics up and posted, but I just had little opportunity to wear my 'reporters' hat lately.

At the Controls

The BIG STORY was the continued progress on Chicago Rapid Transit 1797.  Several volunteers have pitched in and are involved.  The exterior of the body is nearly complete, with the recent addition of the lettering on the car, letterboard and gold numbers.  It looks great.  So, now work is starting on the electrical and control systems.  First, the air compressor was examined and able to be freely spun by hand.  Step 2 was to hook up a 600 v 'stinger', and the compressor ran and pumped air.  Step 3 was to work on wiring so that the compressor could be run as intended, with the trolley pole up and the air compressor governor in the circuit.  All that was accomplished in short order.  Then on to the reverser, and finally that seemed to work and sequence properly.  Next was the line switch which needed a missing overload trip relay.  WOW - they were moving right along.  By the end of Saturday, the pole was up, 90 lbs air in the pipes, and Tim Peters (above) was at the controls, sequencing the contactors in the group switch.  All of the above are steps needed to get to that point.

The motors brushes have been removed so there is no chance of the car lurching along during this testing and troubleshooting phase.  Amazing to me there is no provision for a motor cutout switch to isolate the motors!

Inductance Coil

Al Reinschmidt was working on a new core and repairs for a roof mounted inductance coil destined for Cleveland Transit System 4223.

TMS Truck Two

Mike Stauber and Frank Sirinek are hard at work repainting the second truck for the Milwaukee (TM) 972 project.

Floored

Rich Block was on site and he continues the work on getting a new floor installed at one end of our long running CTA 4000 project.  There is a fairly complicated process of underlayment and reinforcing mesh being installed to replace the totally rusted out Keystone Flooring panels which are no longer manufactured.  Next will be to mix and pour a lightweight concrete product, MASTIPAVE.