Illinois Railway Museum Blog

This Blog entry will cover several topics not strictly related to wood shop activity, but some exciting news, and views.  To start off, Henry Vincent grabbed my camera and made the trek to Barn 2 to check on progress with painting CTS 4223, our PCC car from Cleveland.

Front

Since last reported here in any detail, the car was moved to Barn 2, where conditions are more amenable to painting.  We owe the Internal Combustion Department BIG TIME for sharing this space.  Here is the front of the car with the unique paint scheme and color separations from Cleveland.

Left Rear

The left rear in all its glory.

Right Rear

And here the right rear.  Not bad, and perhaps the dark red or maroon striping will be laid out to apply this coming week!

Let There Be Light

Henry quickly returned to our shop space and worked all day with Max Tyms to complete wiring and lighting for the shop addition.  Here, the new light fixtures are being assembled and wired, ready to be hung on the ceiling.

Windows

Tim Peters has done a lot of window work in the last few weeks.  A total of 18 new frames in three sizes have been made for Tim's project, wood CRT 1797 L car.  Here he is doing some of the trim and finish work, rabbeting and plowing out some tricky recesses to mount the hardware.  Note the stack of finished frames.

Post It

Not a POST IT note, but a new post repair for the car side. Randy Hicks has taken on the task of making substantial repairs to our Illinois Terminal 277 combine. It is planned to be in operation at the end of April for the visiting Illinois Traction Society members.

Kansas City

Mike Stauber and Frank Sirinek continue with work on our Kansas City PCC car.  Last week's post saw them working on some interior paneling, and here they have two of the rear side windows in the shop, being cleaned and repaired.  Note the two panels of glass in this one frame.  Kansas City cars were unique, I believe, in using cobalt blue tinted glass in some locations in the car.  Too bad, but the passengers were not treated to looking at the world through rose colored glass.

Frank and Mike supplied a lot of info for engineering work to continue to get new brake shoes cast for Chicago Surface Lines 3142.

Regular work continued in the shop on other projects, including seat restoration for the Vera Cruz open car, Rich Witt doing finish work to rout pockets for window lift hardware on two new windows for the Villa Falls, and more work on 11 new windows for the IC Diner 3996.  All the tenons were cut and the first new frame was custom fitted, ready for gluing.

First, you will look at the title and say "What is that?"  Well, TMS is shorthand for TWO MILWAUKEE STREETCARS.  Those of you that are IRM members should by now have received the latest Rail & Wire and seen the centerfold in COLOR.  Nice job from the Editors!

For those that read here and are not members, we still need your help.  We have two trolley cars that once ran in Milwaukee and which have had a LOT of work done over the years to cosmetically put them in top shape.  They are the TMER&T 972 and the CNS&M 354.  Both of those cars originally ran on St Louis EIB trucks, although the ones under 354 were incomplete.

Decades ago the decision was made to borrow those same design trucks from our second Milwaukee streetcar, the 966, and use them for the 354.

Photo: Railroad Avenue Enterprises

In this image we see the 966 in service in Milwaukee.

Tom Sharratt Photo

And in this image the 354 sitting at Union with those same trucks underneath it.  This particular shot did not make the cut in the newsletter article.

In the early days both of these cars ran in service on our railroad but as the physical plant grew we standardized track geometry to match the larger portion of our collection with AAR full profile treads and flanges.  This gives us the freedom to run most of our large interurbans, diesel trains, steam trains, passenger cars, and freight cars almost interchangably.

But these trucks from Milwaukee have some subtleties which cause problems running through switches and over specialwork, so the two cars have largely been sidelined.  We are well into a lot of the engineering work and are talking to vendors with a solution in mind.

If successful, it will be less costly and simpler than full wheel replacement - which we have done on a lot of the Chicago Surface Lines equipment.  This is where you all can help.

We need donations (restricted of course) to the fund RTMS and we believe we have a realistic estimate (plus or minus) and the goal is achievable.  So, with your help the next steps should be undertaken this year - as soon as final quotes are in from the vendors, and your money is on hand.  This is the real deal, and your donations will MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

BUT WAIT!!!  Every one of your dollars will go TWICE as far.  Sponsors of the project have committed funds in the form of a matching pledge, to add one dollar to EVERY one of your dollars.  That is better than the late night TV commercials since you pay no shipping and handling and the fund will grow more quickly.

I will try to keep you updated with posts on this, progress made, both good news and those pesky surprises, and have created a new BLOG category titled Two Milwaukee Streetcars. 

For those of you not familiar with our Blogs, go to the Categories on the right hand side.  If there is a plus in the small square box to the left of the root category name, click on that to expand the main category.  The root category for these entries is Electric Car Department.  Scroll down to the specific topic and click on that.  It will act as a filter to only show those posts in THAT category.  So if you miss checking in for a few days, you can streamline your display and not miss anything.