Illinois Terminal Class C number 1595

On Saturday, April 24, 2010, the Illinois Traction Society convention visited the Museum of Transportation. Conventioneers started the day with a bus tour of the high line in the city of St. Louis, a drive over the McKinley Bridge, and a visit of former IT sites in Granite City. That afternoon, they arrived at MOT, and we had a surprise:

The previous Thursday, MOT traction volunteers pulled the Class C out from it's normal position, under cover, and spotted it for photographs. We even erected a set of stairs, so conventioneers could tour the inside of the Class C. I didn't get a chance to take a peek inside, as I was running the regular service streetcar.

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Macassar of the Innocents

That was pretty bad, wasn't it? That's why we're making all new antimacassars for IT 277. Here's one of the first production ones turned out by my daughter Esther, and they look great. Once they are finished, I'll get the words "Illinois Terminal" silk-screened along the bottom, as on the originals.

I also brought out a repaired armrest. Restoration of the IT cars has had to take a back seat for a while due to the Trolleyville acquisitions, but they're not being forgotten.

Update: Our old friend Dick Lukin wants me to point out that they're not white, it just looks that way due to the flash picture in the darkness, I guess. The color is actually more of a buff. And he says:

I was the last passenger trainman collecting tickets on the last IT train [yes...train....two cars] from Danville. I just happened to have my uniform in my car and at the last minute, there were so many people wanting to ride the last train that the conductor dug out a half motor and coupled it up to the motor. I went to my car and dressed in my IC uniform and lifted tix on the last train. Lots of fun in those days.

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Thank You For Waiting....

....your call is important to us. Sorry, we're still on hold at Cleveland, so all we can do is have patience. I can, however, give you a more detailed explanation of why we're waiting. The CA&E cars have to be moved to the Brook Park shops, as mentioned earlier. The GCRTA system, however, runs entirely on cab signals. The CA&E cars don't have cab signals (duh!) and there is nothing available to pull them with, so they will have to run under their own power. Evidently, then, the only way they can move is if the rest of the railroad is shut down, and that only happens between 1:00 and 3:30 AM, and any other project such as track or signals has priority over Tim O'Donnell and his antiques. He was hoping to move the cars this week but was shoved aside; he's now hoping for next week. So we wait. At least we won't make you listen to Muzak.


As I arrived today, Gerry Detloff was moving trucks in the material yard to make room for the installation of the big EMD sign, which will be another noticeable improvement to the property. I offered to help, but as soon as I had walked away to change into work clothes, he found that the big fork lift was stuck in the mud. The only solution was to call Diamond Towing Service, so nothing more got done today.

A lot of switching has already been done, and there's plenty more. Here we see that the portable sub has been moved outside. Some of this is due to the imminent arrival of the Trolleyville collection, and more to the completion of Barn 11. The hope is to get everything that doesn't either look presentable or is being worked on out of Barns 6, 7, and 8.


My daughter Esther has made a prototype Illinois Terminal antimacassar, and here it is in the 277. It hasn't been lettered yet, but silk-screening can be done easily by a commercial establishment. We will need about 40 of these to equip the 277. Anyone in this area who could help with the sewing and would be willing to make some of these should contact me via email. Thanks!

Next, here are some pictures of our new Q Havelock baggage car #993. Ted's crew are working on cleaning it up for use as a library storage facility.

Finally, I can't tell you about it yet, but there's an exciting new (electric car) acquisition in the works. So stay tuned!

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The Illinois-Missouri Terminal Railroad

While looking through some papers in the Robert E. Bruneau collection, I noticed a couple of unusual memos from the IT. The first says that on June 15, 1956, the name of the company would be changed to "Illinois-Missouri Terminal Railroad Company." Ten days later, on June 25, the name was changed back to IT. I'd never heard about this; had anyone else? What could they have been thinking?

And I suppose I could scan them in if you don't believe me.

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Dave's Depots - Transfer House, Decatur, Illinois

Yesterday, I found myself in Macon Count to appear in court before Judge Weber and argue a motion for summary judgment. It seems that every time I go to Decatur, it is cloudy and dreary. I took a photo of the Transfer House, but it did not come out, so I'm using a public domain photo from the Wikimedia Commons by Douglas Grhone.

Sitting in a park in downtown Decatur is the Decatur Transfer House. This structure used to sit literally in the middle of the intersection of East Main Street and North Main Street. All streetcar lines, and for a time, cars of the Illinois Traction System, passed by the house on their way through town.

The house was encircled by a loop which all car lines fed into.

Later, the IT moved its tracks, and stopped using this portion of the city system. Decatur went to the bus in 1936, but the Transfer House remained in service. Later, the building was moved to a downtown city park, where it sits today in good condition.
This is the last Dave's Depots for a little while. I'm off to Rolla, MO for the weekend, and then off to Kauai, Hawaii for 8 days. For the event in Rolla, Hicks Car Company member Frank needs to brush up on his reading of Genesis, Chapter 2.

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Beehive of Activity

There was a lot happening today, much of it in preparation for Members Day - ahem, Museum Showcase Weekend. One thing that had nothing to do with Members Day was the revenue operation of the 308 and 309. The cars seemed to run fine all weekend with nary a problem, today operated by our illustrious crew caller, Jim West.


I spent most of my day working on the 205. The first order of business was to sand down the rough spots in the paint and re-spray them. As seen at right, these were pretty numerous due to my lack of skill in spray-painting, but by the end of the day the situation had been rectified and the car not only had a nice smooth coat of primer, but had lost that unsightly newspaper masking.

I did some work on other areas of the 205 as well. I cleaned off and spray-primed the switch group covers under the car, as seen at left. At some point coming up I can spray-paint these black, which will help the appearance of the car considerably. On this side of the 205 the switch group boxes are the only really obvious under-floor equipment besides the trucks, on which I haven't decided exactly what to do. They'll need to get painted black one way or another though.

I also did some Bondo work - at left is seen the impressive amount of Bondo applied today to the bottom of the second window post from the west end left-side door - and some wire-wheeling. The corner post at the northeast corner of the car was wire-wheeled, as was some more of the anticlimber at the west end.

Late in the day, an exciting development occurred - the Return of the Tangerine Flyer! The 277 made its return to the high iron today after some inspection work by crew of Car Department workers, but with an improvement over its previous appearance last October: this time observation car 234 was in tow! The three-car train made quite a striking appearance on the railroad; two car line trips and one main line trip were made. The latter was the first time the 234 has ever been on the museum's main line east of Seeman Road, as the railroad was extended to its current terminus since the last time the 234 had operated on the main! Weather permitting, this train will be operating this coming Saturday, the 19th - so don't miss it!

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