General Blog Entries

Again, here is a sampling of some of the other work I passed by during the day.

Clear Board

Volunteer Frank Carraro has been working to restore and upgrade communications equipment in our depot office.  Here, you will see a green card behind one of the bay window sash.  This represents an early form of communicating a train order to the crew of a train arriving at the station.  A yellow board and a red board are also built and can be displayed for instructing the crews.

Fuse Box

Our Cleveland PCC needs to have this fuse box restored.  It contains a ribbon fuse and is mounted on the roof just after the voltage and current are delivered from the trolley pole.  Eric Lorenz and Lorne Tweed are fitting together pieces and will be repairing and remaking some of the parts that were too water damaged to be reused.

Trolley Boards

When the rains came, we moved inside the shop and milled four new pieces of Douglas fir to be used for new trolley boards on the CTS 4223.  Lorne and Eric inspect the results.

Wagon Top

Victor Humphreys just quietly goes about the business of restoring our B&O wagon top boxcar.  Here the top panel of the door on the right side has had rust and old paint removed and has been reprimed.  Good choice of primer, huh?  Almost the same color as the rusty metal!

Here is just two short reports today to play catch up for me.

Upholstery Shop

John McKelvey is back in the area for the summer season and has resumed work to reupholster all the seats in North Shore 757.  For me it would be a big job to do one seat!

Where the Elite Meet

Here are some of the crew that were obviously in a high level conference.  Why else would they stop talking as I walked by?  The usual suspects and their projects were Lorne Tweed (Cleveland Transit System 4223), John Nelligan (Charles City Western 300), and Rich Witt (Chicago Great Western  X 38).

It was another hot cloudless day at IRM, 92 F, and a very busy day with perhaps 2500 visitors with IRM hosting UP FAMILY DAY for UP Chicago Service Unit employees and families.  Some very unusual operations were featured at IRM with the Union Pacific Passenger EXTRAS, the LEVIATHAN steam train, a special RPO train with mail grabs, CA&E wood interurban main line runs, the CNW Bilevel train, CSL 3142 and CTA 4391 Green Hornet streetcar service, and our Vera Cruz 19 open car trolley.

Heritage Cabooses

The Freight Department had four restored cabooses on display and open as we had personnel to act as docents.  In the background you will see two of the modern UP specially painted locomotives that UP brought to the party.

Passenger EXTRA

The Union Pacific also brought a passenger train to IRM and it left throughout the day from our station platforms and ran passenger EXTRA trips on their Belvidere Sub.  It operated push pull with locomotives on both ends, the one on the west [EDIT] was the CNW 8701, one of only two remaining locomotives delivered new to the CNW, now on the UP roster.

GN 70104

Our completed restoration project for this hopper was also spotted east of Barn 6 for all to see.

Telegraph/Telephone

Volunteer Frank Carraro continued his fine work on the vintage telegraph and telephone system in our depot office and bay window area.

CTS 4223

Lorne Tweed was up on the roof of our Cleveland PCC working on the installation of the many parts needed to restore a working trolley pole to the car.

CRT 1797

Tim Peters was doing some of the next stage restoration work - the electrical systems for Chicago Rapid Transit 1797.

CGW X 38

Work continued on the CGW Russel Snow Plow in spite of very warm temperatures.  Perhaps half of the north side has been needlechipped and more of the many layers of old paint removed.  Victor Humphreys closed out a very long day by applying primer to more of the areas cleaned down to bare metal.