Another Season on the Trans-Siberian

At least that's what it sometimes may seem like. It was extremely cold today with strong winds. At least there's no wind chill inside the barn. Here we see the 321 and 4001 now stored behind Barn 8 under their tarps. The only reason I went out back at all was because I realized I had left my lettering enamel in the 321 and had to retrieve it.

And I'll add some nice winter scenes to the scenery page.

Here's the result of all the switching that was done last weekend. We now have three open slots in Barn 8. One of them is currently occupied by three pairs of trucks, for the 319, 1100, and 141. And in the center aisle, we see the pilots and steps from the 321, and the Hicks Chair of Mathematics.

I decided one feasible project for a cold day was to finish lettering the 309, actually. The #2 vestibule had never gotten the warning on the train door for some reason. A space heater can easily bring the little vestibule up to a nice warm temperature, so it's a good place to work. As seen to the right, I applied a matrix of masking tape as a guide for lettering the door. Getting the heater and extension cord installed, making the measurements, getting the paint from the 321 and warming everything up took more time than the actual lettering.

So here I am part way through. I'm a little out of practice and decided to start over after the first two words. The second time went better after warming the paint some more. If you flub up, it's easy to just wipe it off with mineral spirits and redo.

And the final result.

The next winter project should be to letter the interior of the 308; in several places it's supposed to say "Please keep your feet off seats." But heating up an entire compartment is harder, so it can't be quite so cold outside.

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Oil and Water

My highest priority is to get the 309 into revenue service, so today I started by removing the excess oil from the #4 armature bearing with a siphon; I then cleaned the commutator with special solvent to remove the oil and gunk which had been deposited on it. I then tested the car by running it out to the road and back a couple of times. I didn't want to go any farther because I was by myself and didn't want to be stuck if something went wrong. The commutator was still clean after these brief runs, but that's not much of a test. We'll need to do a main line run before deciding the problem has been fixed. Thanks again to Stan for his help on this.

After that, I started installing the new piece of canvas for the 277 I purchased yesterday. First, I rolled it out on the grass and soaked it on both sides with the hose.

After a thorough soaking, I managed to get it up onto the roof of the car and started to stretch it in place as well as I could. It's not easy to do, since this is just a patch piece. My primary objective was not to fall off the car and die. Actually getting the canvas tight is relatively minor. I'm hoping it will shrink somewhat as it dries. To the right is a picture before I really started stretching it.

After that I turned to the inside of the 277. I removed a piece from the ceiling so I can get the ceiling paint matched. That will be the next step. Joel is helping by repainting the baggage racks, and I will need to roll the ceiling before they can be reinstalled. I then put another coat of white primer on all the parts already installed, as seen here. It's looking good, I think.

Tim Peters continues to make good progress on the 1268. Here he is painting the sides.

Finally, for this week's scenery on the IRM campus, we have a nice view of Schneider's Grove.

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Motor Issues

I went out to the museum on Sunday to try and finish up the 309's inspection in preparation for operations on Monday. Charlie Strong and Stan Wdowikowski had completed most of the inspection work on the car, leaving me with only the contactor boxes and controller to examine. I did this (more information on contactor operation can be found in the next post down), finding no real issues, and sequenced the car successfully with help from Tim Peters. (Sequencing involves visual inspection of all contactors in operation - obviously with the motors cut out - to ensure proper operation.) The work wasn't quite done, though; Stan had found that the #4 motor had some oil on the commutator, which if left alone can lead to a flashover. He had cleaned up all of the oil during the week, though, and we were planning on taking the 309 out on a test trip on the main line to see if the problem was solved when something else caught our attention.

CTA streetcar 3142, which is our standard service streetcar and sees use virtually seven days a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day, suffered a motor failure in service. The failure occurred at Car Line Junction, tying up operations out of Station Track 1 until IT 415 was able to push 3142 onto the tail track. This deals a tough blow to the museum's streetcar operations; stay tuned for information on plans to get the motor sent out for repair.

Anyway, following this incident we did actually take the 309 out on the line for a trip, even carrying a full load of passengers. Upon our return the #4 motor was inspected again and more oil was found on the commutator, meaning that the car shouldn't be put into service until the cause of the oil leakage is found and repaired. The timeline for this is unknown since we don't know exactly where the source of the oil is, but the motor has not had any electrical issues so the fix ought to be something we can do in-house. Outside of the Car Shop, there was a lot of interesting stuff happening. The Nebraska Zephyr made its celebrated return today; the Electroliner was on display on the west track of 50th Avenue Station; the Track Crew was hard at work tamping and leveling the east track (pictured, L-R: Frank DeVries, Adam Robillard, unknown (back to camera), Tom Hunter, Steve L., John Neglich); and the last two C&NW-painted diesels owned by the UP even made a cameo appearance in Steamland.

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Up in the Air

I took the day off of work and went out to the museum with the intention of finishing up the inspection on the 309. When I arrived I moved the car over to the inspection pit in Barn 4, but as it turned out a crew was gathering to replace the overhead wire on the west station leads and I joined them instead. Spending the day working with Adam Robillard, Charlie Strong, Stan Wdowikowski, and Henry Vincent to help Line Department Head Max Tyms was a change of pace and quite an education. It was also quite enjoyable since it was sunny, in the 80's, and breezy!

We started out by detaching the 1/0 round wire between the west end of Station Track 2 and the West Switch, about 1,000 feet to the west, and hanging it off to the side with rope. The hangers were replaced with "dollies," or pulleys, and a guide rope was threaded through these, taking the place of the old wire. (In the photo at left, taken by Adam Robillard, Max is replacing the round-wire hanger with a pulley and I'm about to hand him the guide rope.) When finished with this, we went and got a reel of new 3/0 grooved wire, which was connected to the end of the guide rope and pulled through the 1,000 foot's worth of pulleys.

I had to leave early, but later on the line crew connected the new grooved wire to the frog at the West Switch and started hooking it up to the hangers heading eastbound. The intention is to replace all of the 1/0 round wire on the west station leads, including installation of brand new frogs on the Station 1/2 switch and Station 1/West Wye switch. This will make it unnecessary to "hop" the pole over the wire gap at the Station 1/West Wye switch and will be a big improvement! More photos taken by Adam of this work can be seen here.

While I was out with the line crew, Gerry Dettloff (right) was back in the shop doing inspection work on the 309. He was able to get all of the motor and truck inspection work done on the car, which is some of the toughest and dirtiest work of the inspection process. Thanks, Gerry!!

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More of the Same

I forgot to bring my camera with me to the Museum today. Sorry, but at least you're not missing anything that hasn't already been pictured here. Apart from the thermometer bottoming out. Brrrrr!

I installed the newly-rebuilt trolley pole on the #1 end of the 308, and then removed the #2 pole. It looks to be in much better condition and won't need patching. It's still in Barn 8; next time I'm out on a Saturday we can start on replacing the hardware again. (It won't be this Saturday; I have a concert to go to.)

Most of the rest of the time was occupied by completing the assembly of a seat frame for the 309 and installing it. This is harder than it looks. For one thing, all of the holes in the wooden side wall where the frame is attached were worn, so I had to drill them out and install hardwood dowels, then re-drill them for the screws. And the frame itself needs some work to get it to operate properly after the end castings have been replaced. And then the arm rest didn't fit quite right, and so on.

One of the spring clips that holds the side doors open on the 309 had broken, so I removed a replacement from the 321 and took it to the shop. I wire-wheeled it and painted it with primer. Little things like that can be a real nuisance while operating. Tim was working in the shop on the 1268 project, and is making good progress. He hopes to have the car operational by Member's Day this year. Let's hope!

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309 Report

It appears both my camera batteries are going bad, so there's only one picture today. Sorry.

I reassembled both seat frames I had removed -- shown is a complete one on the workbench in the 321. This is not easy to do with only two hands. I then reinstalled one of them. This required some more adjustments, and plugging up some of the holes in the wood. It's time consuming, but the end result is worth it.

I also installed the trolley pole with the new harp on the 309, tightened it down, reattached the rope, etc. It works for having lights in the car, that's all I was able to test today. Looks good!

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Riveting News!

All you woodworkers out there may be scratching your heads: "What's a rivet?" Today was a lesson in metal working -- much of it what not to do, I guess. That's a big part of education!

First, I disassembled the 309 seat frame pictured last time and took the rod to the car shop for repair. Wayne Baksic ran the torch to heat up the bent casting and straighten it out. I removed the loose casting on the other end, and after a while managed to drive out the fragments of the broken rivet holding it to the rod, replace it, and peen it cold. That was the easy part.

Then I wanted to attach one of the new trolley harp assemblies to the pole so it can be installed on the 309. This turned out to be harder than we expected. The new castings are slightly smaller than the old, so they don't fit onto the pole quite right. The poles are tapered at the ends and needed to be ground down ever so slightly so the harps would fit. We tried three or four different methods to do this, but it was completed successfully by the time I needed to go home. Peening over the red-hot rivet as Rich ran the torch was an exciting climax. I was helped at various times by Bob Heinlein, Bob Kutella, Rich Schauer, Rod Turner, Buzz Morrisette, Tim Peters, and others too. Having learned a lot, I'm sure the next one will go much faster. Thanks, everybody!

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From Top To Bottom

It was sunny again today, so I took the opportunity to put a first coat of primer on all the exposed roof boards on the 277. The solar panels on the roof of the barn work pretty well. Here we see it when done. I'll want to put on a second coat of primer and probably some sort of finish coat. It then gets covered with roofing paper before the canvas goes on.

Now that I have all of the new seat frame castings drilled, let's see if they will really work. Here is one of the broken castings on a seat in the 309, after removal of the cushion and back. The arrow points to the missing piece of the track. The bracket for the seat back derails whenever it reaches this spot.

I removed the entire seat frame at this location. Here it is standing on end, with the broken casting removed (at the top). A test fit verified that the new casting will work just fine. But this particular seat has more than one problem. There are two arms (yellow arrows) connected to the center rod (red arrow). These arms mesh into the brackets on the seat back and should keep it straight. But one of them is bent, and the other is loose on the rod - notice that they don't line up the way they should. I will disassemble this frame and take the center rod assembly to the shop to be fixed by our metal-working experts.

These seat frames are more complicated than one might expect. The center rod has six castings attached, which rotate when the back is moved: two to keep the back straight, two to move the seat cushion, and two to move the foot rest. And the whole assembly seems to weigh slightly less than a ton!

The seat across from this one also had a broken casting, so I removed it too. I took the frame into the 321 for disassembly and replacement of some broken parts, for which I had spares. I evidently need to order some new hardware, too: 3/8 x 1 1/4 machine bolts with square heads and nuts. But I'm encouraged. It appears that these seat frame repairs should go pretty fast.

Between a seat frame and the wall I found this little relic of Tag Day 1939. It's a piece of cardboard about 3" square. On the back it just says "Thank You". I think the missing word is probably "Charities" and that this was some sort of annual fund raiser. Does anybody remember Tag Day?

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Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill!

On the third day of Christmas
My true love gave to me...
Permission to go out to the Museum. Woo hoo!

It was raining all day, so it seemed like a good time to work in the car shop. It's a lot less lonely! I drilled out all of the new seat frame castings I had received from Glenn Guerra previously, as mentioned here. I made a simple jig out of scrap lumber and used it to drill all the holes in the eight new seat frame castings. Each one has 15 holes, 12 of which are countersunk for FH wood screws. It took several hours, but at least I could do most of this job sitting down.

Here (R) is the final product, with all of its holes drilled.

I then worked on the new harp assemblies, and got two of them completed. Here's a picture of one. Two of them, however, will require thicker inserts than the ones we have. In any case, I'm sure these will be an improvement.

There were a lot of people out today: Bob Kutella, who took the picture of me above; Shelley was working on her seat frames, and her father on one of the Rube Goldberg machines. John Baletto was doing needle chipping on the 757. Mike Stauber and a friend of his who wishes to remain anonymous were working on a streetcar which wishes to remain anonymous. Stan and Christine worked on parts for the L4. Joel was doing drainage work and switching. And there were several others, I can't remember what each of them was doing.

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More Roof Work

Today I did a lot more work clearing off the section of the 277's roof that needs to be rebuilt. To the right we see nearly all of the tongue and groove roof boards removed. Several of the carlines are in bad shape and need to be sistered. About half of them have wood bolted to steel, and the others are just wood. You may be able to see how bad a couple of them are, due to a combination of fire and rot. I now have all the dimensions I need to purchase new wood for the carlines and roof boards. In the distance, there is a sheet of plywood which I lifted onto the roof to serve as a platform from which to work. It was cold and damp outside, but up on the roof it's not too bad. Max's new lights give off heat as well as light.

After that was done, I received three sets of brand new harps for use on the 308 and 309 (so we still need one more) thanks to Bob Bruneau. The current trolley shoes are worn out, and welding them up did not help much, so we would like to change them to the style used on the North Shore cars with inserts that can easily be changed. These shoes are relatively maintenance-free. The new harp castings need some machining to fit together properly, but this should not be too hard.

I decided to start by removing one trolley pole and rebuilding it. I was unable to loosen the bolts on the 308; this has me worried. In any case, after a while I gave up and removed a pole from the 309, helped by Stan W. and Joe Stupar. I ground off the rivet that holds the harp to the pole. It still would not come loose, so Rich Block fired up the torch and heated it; it then could be removed easily. Here we have a couple of pictures of what a harp looks like when not attached to a pole. These parts were donated to Bob Heinlein for use on the 4000's. Thanks to Rich and Bob for their help. I also wire-wheeled the ends of the pole for better electrical conductivity when it is reassembled. All in all, a productive day.

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The Job Is Not Finished

Just because the 309 is back in revenue service doesn't mean we'll forget about it. There are several minor tasks we want to take care of on both the 308 and 309, and at least one major one. And you can help!

Several of the walkover seats have broken parts. The end castings on this model of Hale & Kilburn seats is particularly prone to breakage. Right now, I've fastened several pairs of seat backs in the 309 to each other with cable ties, so they can't be moved. This keeps them from getting out of adjustment, but it's not a good solution. We need replacement parts for a 100-year old mechanism.

Fortunately, parts can still be made, and Glenn Guerra has them available. The picture shows some recent samples of the correct parts. But they're not inexpensive. We'll need eight end castings at $120 apiece, and at least two actuating arms at $65 each. Please consider a generous donation to the 309 restricted fund for this purpose. Of course, all donations are tax-deductible.

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Better Red Than Dead

... but not by much. That was my opinion after spending all day painting both ends of the 309 red. My experience has always been that red is the hardest color for covering, even when it's only a different shade of red. Since the 309 was last painted about 1992, we realized that the red we had used was not quite the right shade. We later had it matched to a sample from the edge of a door on the 321. It's certainly not the same as the red used in the final paint scheme, as on the 431. But since there's relatively little of it in the blue paint scheme, finding usable samples was not easy. The picture to the left shows the #1 end in progress: new red on the left, the old on the right. This took all day, but we'll probably need a second coat at some point. Now, at least, the 309 matches the 308.

To the right, here's a close-up of the top of the train door frame. Do you see the vertical grooves in the wood? It certainly wasn't made this way. These can only be due to the conductors standing inside the car to pull the trolley rope when raising or lowering the poles. Since CA&E cars never had chains across the doors like the North Shore cars do, this was the safest way to do it.

At the end of the day, a strong thunderstorm blew through, and we lost all power from ComEd. That made cleaning up more challenging. Also, the automatic gate didn't work, of course. Dave had to open the box to disconnect the motor, and I helped him push the gate open so we could go home. All in a day's work for B&G!

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Tick, Tick, Tick

The seconds are ticking away on the contest clock as we try to get the 309 ready for its dedication. So today I pulled it outside again for more painting.

I thought it only appropriate that the blue cars should have the biggest blue flag (left) in the Museum.

Actually, as I was putting it in place and taking a picture, I was thinking "This is pretty silly. There won't be anything coming in on track 84 today." But I was wrong! Soon a large hi-railer truck backed in - it's a weed sprayer, and Nick was directing the weed spraying all over the property. I had to pull the 309 back in the barn briefly so he could spray up to the barn. Here he is (right) with the truck on the connector track. Without that blue flag, who knows what disaster might have occurred?

I painted blue on the side sills, also one remaining side door and the metal plate over the end door at the #2 end. The side sill I beam has the word "ILLINOIS" cast in it about every eight feet, presumably for Illinois Steel. This only appears on one side, however; on the other side, the word is on the inside of the beam. On the 308, the word "PHOENIX" similarly appears on one side of the car, but it's upside down! That just goes to show you how careless the employees of other car builders could be, compared to the quality you expect from Hicks Locomotive and Car Works!

I also pulled the car farther out to spray-paint the trolley poles. It isn't easy in a strong wind, but I don't know what else to do. Anyhow, as I was up there, it struck me that most of you don't get a chance to see the world from this perspective. Here's a couple of views of the overhead from on top of the car. To the left, there's a trolley frog directly in front of us, circled in red. The trolley wire extends out in three directions, marked by red lines. The main wire comes in from about 4 o'clock, passes over the frog casting, and goes out at about 11 o'clock. The other wire comes in from 2 o'clock, is clamped off, and the excess points straight up. To the right, we see the pole on the wire. It's off to one side because we're on a curve. This is grooved trolley wire - sort of like the number 8, with grooves on each side. This makes it easier to clamp to. Round trolley wire can also be used, but the clamps have to be a different type.

I also painted grey all remaining parts of the south side clerestory, finished installing car cards in the smoker, and painted the hand rails on the south side of the car with Fleet Grey. Later in the afternoon, Tim came by with a truckload of hardwood for the 1268. I helped him load it into the 1808 for temporary storage, as shown here.

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309 Lettering Done... Almost!

Well, once again I forgot to bring my camera out with me today. Oops! I finished the letterboard on the "L" side (non-toilet compartment side) of the 309 today, applying the letters "CAGO" in yellow, aka imitation gold. I also painted the yellow portions of the car numbers at the southwest corner and on the east (#1) end of the car, the small "B" and "D" letters next to the headlight plugs at the #2 end, and the black background of the car number at the west end of the car. Once this number has its yellow center painted on, the car will be completely lettered. Finally, I touched up the doorknobs on the side doors with blue.

While I was painting on one of the car numbers, a couple of visitors came by who were very interested in IRM's stenciling and lettering techniques. It turns out one of them had bought a vintage truck and was trying to figure out how to letter the side doors for the business that originally owned it. He really appreciated learning about how we do our tracing, stenciling and lettering. I was glad to offer what knowledge I had; just another part of our education mission!

One final unrelated subject: the southeast corner of Central Avenue & Railroad Avenue (just across Central from 50th Avenue... enough Avenues for you?) is now home to two newly-placed steel poles. Rumor has it that this will be the new home for the big "NORTH SHORE" neon sign, which was formerly between Barns 3 & 4 and is now being restored. Stay tuned!

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Closer to Completion

The dedication ceremony for the 309 is just a week away, and the car is getting close to completion. Today I cleaned out all of my tools and other supplies that were still inside, vacuumed the floor, and installed all of the seat cushions. This included installing the last arm rest and inserting a few more shims so the seat brackets clear the cushions. Here are a couple of views of the completed interior. (The table fan was later removed.) I then disassembled the frame I'd made to hold all the seats in the 321.

Lenny Halter built up another trolley shoe for me today, so I ground it smooth and installed it on the 308, so the poles we'll be using for the two car train both have nice new shoes. I finished lubricating the armature bearings, the dirtiest and most unpleasant task there is, but it's done. I finished painting grey on the north side clerestory parts. I would have liked to do the south side, but several thunderstorms passed through during the afternoon, so it wasn't possible. I also did some touch-up painting on the #2 end.

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Painting and more painting

Yesterday I drove out to the museum, meeting up with the senior partner in Hicks Car Works for breakfast at Allen's Corner beforehand. I spent pretty much the entire day lettering the south side letterboard of the 309 (the photo from yesterday's post actually shows me on Thursday). This time the car was getting One-Shot "imitation gold," which is actually more of a pale yellow. For comparison, while 308 and 309 are lettered in this color, the 321 is lettered in metallic gold which more closely resembles gold leaf. I got through the entire south side letterboard except for the letters "CAGO" and also painted on the number at #1-L corner as shown at the top of the post.


Whilst I was doing this my father was doing final lubrication under the 309 and doing a lot of touch-up painting at various places. He put a new coat of blue on the west (#2) end of the car and on all four side doors, plus a second coat of red on the belt rail stripe on the car's north side. He also installed a small wooden block at the #1 end to which the latch is attached that holds the "EXPRESS/LIMITED/LOCAL" folding signs up. Here he is seen painting a side door at the west end of the car.

During the day Barn 8 was seemingly the center of activity at the museum, as the 309 was moving in and out of the barn to line up various spots on the letterboard with the scaffold, the two of us were working on the car, and one track over Tim Peters was doing woodwork on CRT 1268. Below is a photo I would call "beauty and the beasts" - the 309 noses out into Yard 8 in the company of some homely stablemates, CTA work motor S373 and the New York subway cars.

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Successful Inspection

Yesterday I did most of the inspection tasks on the 309 while it was over the pit in Barn 4. Lots of work, but the bottom line is that no problems were found and the car should be ready for revenue service this year. Here I am inspecting one of the controllers. The contact surfaces need to be lubricated with a light application of petroleum jelly.

I also helped Bob Kutella and the other Wednesday guys with moving a couple of pieces of wood-working machinery. And I ground down the newly-rebuilt trolley shoe (shown earlier) and installed it; now the next one is ready for Lenny's attention. And I did some more painting.

To the right we see Frank lettering the south side of the 309.


And after supper I wandered over to look at the wetlands. It's so nice and peaceful after a long hard day in the inspection pit!

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309 Painting Continues

The 309 was moved onto the pit on Sunday for inspection, which we will probably start on Wednesday. On the left, we see the work that Frank did on Sunday - the north side of the car is nearly complete. On the right, I spent all day doing the grey sections, and then the red stripes on the south side of the car.

Some people may be interested in the process of building up a worn trolley shoe. To the left, here is the one that Lenny did last Saturday - this is after welding up, but before grinding it smooth. It's hard to show in a photograph; you really need to examine it in person. I'll have to get a picture of a worn shoe to show the before and after. That might help.

And finally, a view from the bridge.






Update: Phil Stepek gave me a CD loaded with pictures he took on Memorial Day. Here's a couple of samples.

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