After slumbering for 49 and one half years, Sand Springs 68 moved under its own power for the first time at 12:17 PM October 23. It moved using two motors only. After some additional troubleshooting it ran as a four motor car, as designed, for the first time at 4:15 PM. This milestone caps 37 years of restoration efforts at the Illinois Railway Museum and as you might guess IRM has owned the car longer than any of the predecessor companies. On Sunday, October 24 the car operated out of Barn 4 and made several trips on museum trackage. Special thanks to the many on hand to act as observers, troubleshooters, and the safety crew should something unexpected occur.

The car was built by Cincinnati Car Co. in 1918 as part of a group of seven lightweight interurban cars for the Cincinnati, Lawrenceburg, and Aurora Electric Street Railroad Company as No. 918. It is widely heralded as a technological milestone being the predecessor design to the famous Cincinnati curved sider lightweights. The later lightweights shared many of the same design features, hardware, and car appointments.

Bob Kutella

www.davesrailpix.com/irm_1/htm/irm023.htm

Bob really wanted IRM photo to be inbedded in the post. But for reasons I don't really understand, the IRM URL wouldn't let that happen. So I've set-up a work around for Bob and here is the photo:

Bob, what all had to be done to restore the car to operation?

As you might guess it is a long story, but here are some of the hurdles we overcame.

The car has 96 panes of glass in it; of course they were all broken and most of the window frames, sash, and door frames had to be made using traditional materials and mortise and tenon jointery. New roof, car lines, headlining, canvas roof, saddles; trolley bases from Australia. Many new seat backs and 'cushions' (some work remaining). Create electrical schematics and piping schematics from scratch, construct new drawings for many, many parts in the car including general arrangement drawings. Replace four corner posts which we made ourself and all coachwork from the frame up for the No 1 end back to the bulkhead. Kitbash controllers from frames, main drums and new and salvaged parts - to be in effect the correct K-12 controllers. Research and design new control resistance grids, including the correct metallurgy, in house patterns for casting, and all machining and finish work in house. Salvage four correct motors from stock in IRM and totally clean and restore them including our own work to pull them apart right down to the armatures, reinsulate and reassemble. New pinion gears, new axle cap motor bearings, new motor mount and nose suspension, new air piping, maybe 80% so far, new cabling and wiring for perhaps 70% of existing. Rebuilt air compressor including string banding on the armature and lapping the inlet and outlet valves; brake stands, door engines, door control valves cleaned lapped and rebuilt; lighting circuits and fixtures repaired or replaced, and LOTS AND LOTS of scraping, sanding and refinishing of surfaces inside and out. New pilots on each end designed and built in house, a new side bearing on one truck, new step wells, rebuilt MS switch, rebuilt retrievers, roof flashing, ....

That is the short list so I better stop there. Even a fairly simple thing like a motorman's window involved fairly complex jointery, making new hardware and brackets, new hinges, fitting to an irregular opening and eight steps for finishing, not counting sanding. Lots of things required jigs to be conjured up and a willingness to puzzle out how to make them one or a dozen at a time.

Basically, every little job was a little bigger than expected, and the big jobs were bigger yet. But it was accomplished by focusing on one step or goal at a time. To be sure, it is a 'learning' experience.

It points to one who has experienced this kind of job, that preservation is not acquiring a piece of equipment just ahead of the scrapper. It needs to be housed or you wind up doing some things twice before you finish everything once. Then you need one person willing to make a committment; no, even have a stubborness not to give up; and to have the advice and cooperation of a large number of skilled friends and accomplices. Even if there were unlimited funds on hand (which there were not), the sheer magnitude of hours cannot be imagined at the start of any such project.

This was certainly a "Museum" project in many senses and not a one man band; but probably every such job needs one person to carry the flag and not let the flame become extinguished.

Getting the car operational was a MAJOR milestone, and to be sure a lot of cosmetic work and refinshing remains to be done. But somehow that burden seems a lot lighter when you can take an hour off and take the car out for some 'exercise'.

Bob Kutella

Bob,

Was this only a carbody, or were there still trucks, with some appliances and fixtures?

Wesley

I would say it was a little more than a chicken coop carbody since it did come with Cincinnati arch bar trucks, but no controllers, motors, grids, pilots, etc, etc. Most but not all of the stuff underneath the floor was gone or in such poor condition it was not usable. Lots of smaller stuff missing like a lightning arrestor. The inside had suffered a lot of vandalism and water damage, most of the seat backs falling apart, floor heaved, most of the window sash loose, unglued, or rotted. Yet some surprises such as the door engines and air compressor surviving.

After no longer running on the Sand Springs, it went to the area fairgrounds for display in a stillborn attempt to put together a rail exhibit/museum. Later, apparently sold to a group in NW Arkansas who intended to use it as a coach on a tourist train operation. They started stripping it back to the body but were thwarted in attempts to hang MCB knuckle couplers. Both from the low floor design and the fact that the car has no underframe or centersill as such. OOPS!!!

When and if you are in the midwest, stop by and we could spend a few days on the subject, not to bore all the others on the board.

Bob

I applaud IRM for their efforts. You all did a great job in restoring that car! Thanks for sharing the extensive (although not complete) list of things that needed to be done. It puts into perspective how huge an undertaking like that can be!

Keep up the good work!

Dave Jandron