Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Another exciting weekend in the Trolley Bus Department.  On Friday, Jerry Saunders moved an entire row of motor coaches out of the Hoffman Garage to facilitate the unloading and garaging of the SF Fageol-Twin 614.  I arrived in the afternoon to help move some parts from the back of the garage.  On Saturday, Jerry and I chased our new coach through the bustling streets of downtown Union, IL, taking videos.

SF Fageol-Twin 614 arrives at IRM on 09/12/2009.

Upon arrival, we found that unloading it was very simple.  After all these years, the handbrake still worked great, so we tipped the trailer back, and with Jerry at the wheel, we let gravity do all the work.  We then towed it into the Hoffman garage with the department Dodge Ram locomotive.  After lunch we pushed it back out on Central Avenue and went to work on the initial cleaning and inspection.  We found the coach to be in a bit rougher shape than our last OERM coach, the Seattle Twin 633 – which took us 5 hours to get running, so we expected the Fageol to take us more time.  We turned out to be correct as it took 5 and a half hours to get the Fageol to run itself back into the Hoffman Garage under its own power.

The 614 awaits unloading in front of the Hoffman Garage while the CA&E cars go into service - 09/12/2009.

To be fair, we had much more help Saturday.  A big thank you to the usual suspects, Richard Schauer and Jerry Saunders as well as Warren Lloyd, Charlie Strong, Al Reinschmidt, and Nick Kallas (yes, you read that correctly).  This crew gave us a big hand in the unloading and initial cleaning of the coach.  As always, our trucker Mel came through with his usual professional job and transported the coach across the country without incident.

After unloading, the 614 sits in the loop in front of the Andersen Garage - 09/12/2009.

Naturally there are some issues with the 614.  Unfortunately the seats did not fare as well as the 633 – most are split, sun baked and/or downright torn up.  Although the windows were covered, this coach lived out in the desert longer than the 633, and I suspect whoever came up with the great idea of covering the windows didn’t think of it until several years after the 614 arrived at OERM.  As we experienced with the 633, there are some wiring issues which have to be tracked down.  And dirty!!!!  It took a month of weekends to get the 633 looking as nice as it does today; I suspect it will take at least twice as long with the 614.

Jerry Saunders and Al Reinschmidt start the LONG process of cleaning out over 30 years of desert dust - 09/12/2009.

On Sunday, Jerry and I did some paint touch-ups on the NY Cars and worked on the insulation for the power cables on the roof of one of the cars.  We are planning on washing the interior of the cars on Friday for their first day of revenue service on Member’s Day this Saturday.  We are also planning on some nighttime runs after dinner.