Education Through Demonstration

The weather is changing and that means it is the busiest season of the year for the Museum's car restoration team. 

You see all of us in our winter wear. Jeff, Andre, Thee, and Joe can all be seen working on the south end of 316.

John diligently stripping paint, and Andre, well who knows what he’s doing, but he’s having fun!

Oh ya now I remember what Andre was doing, bringing over arm loads of clamps to align and install the east side main sill.

Cole and Fred B. worked to get all the seat frames out as well as heater boxes and heater box covers.

Here we have the FIND OF THE DAY.
It’s obvious the car had this checkered flooring at one point in its life. (It was filthy and we cleaned it for this picture)

Being that removal of the entire seat frame is quite a difficult task, we can assume that the CA&E never removed the seat frames to re-floor a car.

We are guessing that this car flooring possibly came from Jewett Car Builders originally in 1913. No one is sure about this and we are still seeking info on what the original floor looked like and what other floor variations may have been in the car.

With many of the seat frames and heaters out, Jeff pauses to snap a selfie.

Cole is organizing parts that will be sent out to Kyle, our off site guy that does sand blasting and other stuff for the Museum.

This shot has taken to show what a “hot seat” was.

Many of you may know, but I bet a lot don’t. My crew had no idea what it was and also had no idea why there where these burned areas behind the heater insulation. Well, the original designed heaters were wire wound ceramic tubes, that when 600 volts of trolley power was put through them, would turn red hot and heat the car. When one of them got something combustible in it or if the wire broke, a small fire would ignite under the seat of the problem. The bottom part of the seat would start on fire!

Fairly commonplace from what I understand. It would then be the conductors job to open the window, and throw the burning seat cushion out. I’m told that during the winter, along the line it was common to see fully burned seats. What a different time huh?

We all need a little help from a friend every now and then!

CA&E 20 was coupled to 316 to pull it out of east barn track 5 and move it over to the center track 4. With car 316 next to the east wall of the car barn, it made working on the east side of the car impossible!  

Here’s a nice shot of all the work that has been done on the west side.

Jeff Bennett motored the car out of the barn, and James Tarbet handled the poles.   Mike Giles worked as the ground crew to keep the area safe and the wheels chocked as needed.

And here’s the lovely pair!

We are also going to leave 20 on the middle track. It is in need of new wheels, and with the newly donated electric car jacks we got, we can now lift the whole car off its wheel trucks to pull them out for service.

John doesn’t miss a beat. Here he is on the east side of 316 with the IR paint stripper.   We have all been itching to get to the east side of the car.

Thee is very pleased as well. He has removed some of the rotted sill and siding.

We always do everything possible to save as much of the original fabric of the car as possible. Thee carefully removed only the wood that was too far gone for restoration. 

An important job for getting ready for Polar Express is to refresh the landscaping at the Museum's Blackhawk station in the Jon J Duer Forest Preserve.

2,560 people will be boarding trains her in November and December so we want it to look professional and top notch.   I think we got the results we were looking for from the following pictures.  

Of course, by Polar Express time, the Autumn decorations will be replace with holiday decorations.

Special Thanks to Chief Car Officer Jeff Bennett for arranging for the landscaping work at Blackhawk station

Doug Rundell reports on his and James Ham's work on Monday, 10/10/2022 to prepare one of the cars for Polar Express.

With James’ help, I was able to set up and finish the caulking of trolley board saddles on car 43 using SikaFlex-1A. What I encountered on Monday on the south end of the car was less deterioration than I saw last week further north. There were a few gaps where the caulk had embrittled and pulled away, opening a pathway for water infiltration. I’ve completed all the inspections and repairs.

Longer term, it would be great to pull off the trolley boards and really get easy access to the saddles, but that’s a major project for the very distant future.

Looking at Car 40 is that we don’t have a major water problem on the roof, and we don’t have gobs of peeling paint on the ceiling.  

Car 45 has more significant issues. I hope to get to that after getting 40/43 ready.

Doug grounds the trolley wire to the track so that he can get on top of the car with no danger of shock, even if the power is turned off.   Since the wire is continuous, grounding it on track 2 grounds it for the railroad.

Next, Doug tags out the power supply station so that no one will come by and turn on the power.

And here, Doug has tagged out the power supply building assuring additional protection.   Safety is NUMBER 1 at the Museum

Now comes the business of caulking around the areas of the roof where the trolley board brackets are mounted.

A CTA electric steeple cab, shoving AE&FRE diesel #5, a Wilson Refrigerated box car, and Illinois Central caboose 9648 northbound on the main while a North Shore car passes it southbound. And YES CTA L202 pushed that entire train up the hill all the way by itself, multiple trips! Talk about the little engine that could!

Our beloved NSL Silverliner finally into the barn for FRTM to do another award winning restoration!

CTA 4288 stripped to bare metal for epoxy primer to be applied this week!

The canvas roof got finished the weekend of 09/17 - 09/18/2022 on 4288

Some much needed trimming done along the line with a hy-rail bucket truck and hy-rail chipper, contracted by the museum with HRH Rail Services 

Thee is reinstalling the overhead access panel with new fasteners in the north end of CA&E 458.  This work is in anticipation of the first coat of epoxy primer being applied any moment.

Chief Car Officer Jeff Bennett and steadfast right hand man Mike Giles took 458 for a test run just a few days ago. Quickly found one retriever was malfunctioning. Below you can see that when Jeff took it apart, the main “retrieve” spring had failed. Jeff was able to make repairs with parts on hand

Sneak peak,,, look at that shine

Told ya any moment. Here’s Kyle applying the epoxy primer to the south motorman’s compartment

Mike is masking and painting the last step well on 458

The next car restoration is Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee 1930 Interurban Trolley 756.   These photos show the first steps of moving 756 into the Allan C Williams car barn to start the project.

Chief Car Officer Jeff Bennett, with the crew of Mike Giles and Connor Ladley, took NSL 756 southbound on our line to do a run-around at Coleman siding, and upon the return northbound trip were lucky to have encountered a CN freight train.

There is a lot going on at the Allan C. Williams car barn with activity on CA&E 316 and CTA 4288

Here, Chief Car Officer Jeff Bennett has a big smile of joy having Eric at his side to unexpectedly jump start the restoration of CTA 4288

Two happy guys! Jeff Bennett and Eric Zabelny spent a whole day clearing out 4288’s contents so the restoration could again start moving. Having just finished, smiles all around.

CA&E 458 has been at the cusp of its first test run for weeks now.

This will be the first time out and down the line with its new roof, poles, and brakes.

Our horns were in desperate need of service as they sounded a little sad. Well when it comes to air horns here at Fox River, there is one guy we all think of, Superintendent of Operations Mr. Patrick Storm. The guy never saw an air horn he didn’t like! So one quick message to him and down he came to the barn. Tools in hand he climbed up and gets right to work. Thanks Patrick!

Mike Giles smiles and is clearly happy at the weekends progress with CA&E 316’s south end air brake control installation.

Chief Car Officer Jeff Bennett, here with Mike Giles, spent the entire weekend cleaning and rebuilding these two brake valves for CA&E 316, then custom fitting all new piping to the valves.

Here you can see Jeff working into place all the newly cut, threaded, and bent galvanized piping on the freshly rebuilt and cleaned brake valve.

All this was done IN-HOUSE!

New Track 2 High Level Platform

The material for the new Castlemuir Track 2 platform was recently delivered to the Museum Campus.   Construction has started on the platform footings as well.    The new platform will start at the north end of the Track 2 brick platform and will have a ramp up to the level of the car boarding on track 2.

Photo by Doug Rundell