Entries by Robert Kutella

I continue to lag behind on these posts since I have been involved in other projects, including the location shooting for the upcoming Chicago Fire episode on NBC.  So this will serve to get you a peek at another major milestone in our restoration efforts.  Great Northern X-1390 was a company service tank car in relatively good condition, that was in great need of restoration.  At 20,000 gallons capacity it is our largest tank car.  Starting on September 23, a contractor provided services to clean and repaint the car.  None of these efforts are without DRAMA, but the job is now complete.  What follows is a sort of photo essay with captions providing most of the information.  Of course donations to cover the work and provide seed money for future indoor storage, you are all encouraged and welcome to send your support to fund RX1390.  Thanks.  (Did I say this would be a LONG report??)

I am having a difficult time getting pics formatted for easy viewing so bear with me.  OK I give up and will just post the pics centered in a long line.  Next - - -

And then  -  as the work proceeds in an unprecedented string of perfect weather days.  - - -

Paint is next - - -

The color makes a big difference.  This is our first look at the orange  - - -

We relocated the worksite to the south of south junction so the trolley power could be restored.  Always safety conscious, we turned that off when the painters were working under our overhead wires.

At last the car is painted, but hard to see the full impact with all the wrapping and masking still in place.  Ask and you will receive.  We will close with two shots of the train pulling the car along with DODX 12661.  Still wet, the car is to be placed temporarily inside a Barn.

I am still intending to catch up with BLOG posts on the various restoration activities, now so late in posting.  Maybe one more week and things will improve.  For now I will just post groups of pics without a specific date for the work, and of course many of these are not strictly making sawdust in the wood shop.

Long time member, supporter and volunteer, Jim Heinlein, has been helping out most Tuesdays on the Chicago Rapid Transit 1024 restoration work.  Here he is suited up ready for work with much appropriate protective gear.  Or is that an alien invader from the most recent UFO?

No, I am sure it is Jim working with a needle gun to remove a half century of grease, dirt, and rust from one of the trucks under this vintage elevated car from Chicago.

Meanwhile Tim Peters continues his excellent progress on the platform on the west end of the car.  Much of this area has been completed, presenting a great look at what this entire project will result in.  Here, Tim is working on the metalwork, and you will immediately see why this series had the nickname of a GATE CAR.  It was a very labor intensive operation in train service as a trainman had to be stationed for each set of cars, and then at each stop, he had to straddle the car ends above the couplings to manually swing open the gates for passengers to alight or board.

We would like to welcome new volunteers Eddy Pszczolkowski and Andy Oliveri who pitched in on the Cleveland Transit System 4223 project.  Here they are removing many of the old layers of paint from the panels which are installed above the standee windows on the car interior, and hold the ubiquitous ad cards seen on most city transit systems.

Other work continues on the car interior as shown by Eric Lorenz.  Below the regular windows at floor level there are a series of metal panels and vents which serve functionally as heater air ducts.  While these original pieces are in very poor condition and will be replaced with new ones, they are positioned in place to allow measurements to be made and to confirm the arrangement of each panel and its location.

Here is a short review and tour of one of our tank cars, restored perhaps over 20 years ago.

Tank car?  I don't see any tank car.  Yet this often the first step in any work at IRM.  US Army 8537 is lugging a string of cars out of Yard 14 so that the subject car can be pulled to a better location.  A great example of how IRM works and how it preserves so many aspects of railroad history.  This could have been a period photo from decades ago, in countless locations.

The left side of the tank shows the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE lettering on the silver tank car body with black trim.  The car was used to haul heating oil and possibly other petroleum based cargoes to air bases and defense silos during the height of the cold war era.  I will guess this would have carried heavy oil products, since the car is equipped with interior piping and heating coils to thin and liquify a heavy product.

There is lettering on the right side of the tank defining an AAR warning.

Here is the dome with it long string of lettering.  You can see that decades of outdoor storage has resulted in the upper areas of the dome and tank suffering mightily from sun and weather.

The right side of the tank has much lettering and info, most of it mandated by RULE for cars in interchange service.

The end had the standard array of lettering containing the reporting marks, capacity, and other data.

For this era, of the restoration, a set of consolidated lube stencils were used.

As shown above the car has suffered from being stored outdoors, setting us up to doing another restoration of what was once COMPLETE.  The car is on our short list to repaint and I expect it may yet see some significant 'wear and tear' in the coming weeks.  If we are to repaint and letter it yet again, should not we work to store it indoors so the work will last?  Yes this is the commercial asking for donations to fund R12661.  Thanks in advance.