I don't know if this has been posted yet or not.

There was a nice write up in the Chicago Trib. about Mr. Kutella and the trolley he's been working on at IRM.

Hope the link still works.

www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld ... 3008.story

Thanks for the nice comments. It was somewhat of a surprise to see the story Monday, and FRONT PAGE news at that. The link was entered by one of the IRM members Monday in Flimsies. At the bottom of the story is a link to five pics in color. Only one of those was in color on the front page, and two in black and white inside.

I wish there was more in the story on car history, and IRM, but the feature writer did HIS job in creating an interesting tale. So I have been told in comments from here and on several other sites where it was linked or cross posted.

Bob Kutella

Bravo, Bob!

You epitomize the sprit of railroad preservation, I applaud your efforts.

Great article, I look forward to your next 40 years.

Scott

Congratulations Bob. Judging the the photo in the Tribune, car is a beauty. I remember seeing the car at the '78 ARM convention. I imagine no one who undertakes a project such as this quite understands how much time it will take, especially as young men with our entire lives ahead of us. I guess the only question that remains is "what's next?" Certainly there is never a drought of projects looking for willing hands.

Best wishes,
Dave Wilson
Baltimore Streetcar Museum

While I have worked steadily on the car for those 4 decades, it is certainly not the only project done at IRM. It takes the whole volunteer team to have built the operating railroad and campus, so when I still had 'legs', track was a favorite, overhead line work, engineering, and other design and equipment projects.

After the untimely death of our former member, Mike Adams, almost by default I was appointed the Collection Curator of the Freight car collection. So in the last half dozen years the freight team has completed over a dozen cars, and every year we are able to inspect and maintain enough to run 20 car freights.

As to the Sand Springs car, it has a relatively primitive control system and as such, not much running time means a lot of maintenance. In its day, I am pretty sure commonly available fingers and control drum segments cost less than 50 cents. Now, generally not available, certainly not in quantities needed if the car were to operate in daily service.

So, it will likely be reserved for special events, carrying the public maybe half a dozen days per year. And work will continue to 'perfect' the remaining work. This week we are repainting the south side and going to reletter it, some of the windows done 25 years ago can use work, and maybe someday replace the eight or so floorboards down the middle of the aisle, as they are BADLY worn. These projects are never truly DONE, are they?

Bob Kutella

Hi Bob,

I got a glimpse of the trolley when up there a couple weeks ago and commented to Nick about how sharp it was. He sort of filled me in on the project.

I'll be back up there Labor Day weekend to do some work on the Camp Grant. Yeah, we're the suckers who've agreed to take her.

I'll look for ya and maybe we can have lunch of something.

Being a member of this board for a few years and observing many posters place topics here, it's nice to see an article like this, the main subject being someone who contributes regularly. I never met Bob, but had read his postings with interest. The article gave a nice insight to both Bob and his exceptional work at the IRM.

Regards:

Rich O