Unless I missed it, I haven't seen any recent update on the Cleveland trolley auction. Did it happen? If so, who would up with the O&W caboose?

Thanks!

Rob

Results are here

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff. What a boon to the Chicago area museums! Great to see the pieces go to good homes across the east.

Rob

Yes, i was most plesently surprised that the auction turned out the way it did with the equipment going to the museums.

I was sure that the equipment would go to the scrap man; what
with the poor economy.

with all the 400+ pieces of equipment it is the first open car to go to the Illinois Railway Museum. I think some folks will really have fun riding those new arrivals!

Ted Miles

Nope. IRM once was home to a shed that claimed to be Fitchburg & Loeminster 14, IIRC. After wasting the money to move it, then having the eyesore sit untouched for years, it was dismantaled sometime in the late seventies.

Likewise CNS&M 202, a turn-of-the-centurey wood car (Jewett, I believe) that the North Shore had converted into a Merchandise Despatch car. That one was moved from the old museum site in North Chicago years after everything else, then not even closed in. It was scrapped about 1974.

One of the problesms with wood car bodies is once they turn into driftwood, they aren't really even good for patterns. You end up with a situation where every single structural member has deterioration somewhere, often in the mortise & tendon joints that are supposed to hold the car together. At that point, it would be cheaper and easier to just build a replica, which would end up being more true to the original than a rotten body that is 40% epoxy filler.

We are quickly overlapping into the East Troy thread here... scrappings at IRM or any other museum are not uncommon. Sometimes they eagerly needed, regrettably necessary, or debated and contentious. I know there are many who would rather scrap a wood car than keep the dryrotted frame in storage in a barn for eons hoping a savior will come along. This is the case of the TM interurbans at IRM - there is much deterioration of the wood framing underneath the steel sides.

I had heard from senior car department crew at IRM, that the scrapping of North Shore 202 was part of a museum clean-up project, was not fully thought out, and since that time the museum has spent much money moving worse bodies to the site from distant locations. These guys were not happy about the loss, but it is in the past. Moving on....

It takes a large effort, but a fairly complete car, or one with a full set of plans, can be reconstructed. I venture this is a valid form of restoration- just as replacing the boiler on a steam locomotive. No it is not a "Smithsonian historic and original fabric mounted on a pedestal" museum piece, but it is historic (more so if includes as many original parts as possible) and accurate. Several wood car restorations have been done this way. I think most wood car restoration projects will be like this, in future years, as nature does what she does. It would be good to encourage more and more woodworkers at your museum, if you have a small fleet of wood cars that are kept in anything other than climate-controlled storage.
O. Anderson

You have to ask yourself -- what would the railroad have done?

A lot of people think "Oh heavens, we can't CHANGE anything, that's historic journal oil!" No. If we're preserving them as operating pieces, they need to have maintenance. What maintenance would they have gotten?

Dennis,

Good memory on the Fitchburg and Leominster car. It was car #9. It was a bulkhead-less, two truck open car. It came from near where I live in Central Massachusetts. Was a pretty car. Thank you for remembering it.

Good wishes to IRM's acquisition of the little open car, I bet it will soon be a crowd favorite!

Ted.

Uh, we already know what the railroad did. They scrapped that old junk and bought new stuff.

However, if you're in the railway preservation business, rather than the "operating a railroad for a profit" business, your priorities may be different.

Uncomfirmed rumors suggest that IRM is doing everything in it's power to get it's new open trolley back to Illinois, fully checked out, and ready for operation. The same rumor suggests the open car will be the centerpiece for a newly upgraded "Snowflake Special", sometime in Dec-Jan. Not sure why the rumor is unconfirmed :-)

For those that may have somehow missed it.... IT'S A JOKE !

Back to more serious musings, besides the CA&E cars, this is a great addition to the IRM collection and will help to tell the story of open cars. FRTM had a couple of open cars for a short while, but those went east many years ago. It also completes the North America category with IRM now having representatives from the US, Canada and Mexico.

As a participant in CTM's Winterfest, riding in open cars in the winter is an adventure that begs repeating, abet with plenty of blankets and warm drinks...



http://www.ct-trolley.org

Ted.

Actually the idea of a "Snowflake Special" with car 19 is not new. It already happened in Cleveland at Trolleyville. Every Christmas Trolleyville would hold its "Festival of Lights". The trolley poles and bracket arms would be decorated with lights as would be the Berea depot, the gazebo and all the tree's in the loop. Before Christmas, Santa would also be in the depot. The C.A.&E interurbans and Cleveland car 1225 would hold down most of the passenger hauling duties. Little open car 19 would be in service also, but only as a display car. It sat at the end of the front station siding decorated in Christmas lights outlining its shape and design. Car 19 looked great. This car was not towed into this position, it was a running car so a motorman ran it into its position, ran an extension cord and plugged in the Christmas lights. At the end of the night it would be unplugged, pole put up and run back to the barn for safe keeping.

Normally this was just a cold job and one motorman actually coveted that run. Why I will never know. The normal put away operating plan had all cars travel as group to the rear loop so they would be facing the correct direction to enter the barn. This was done to avoid a long pack pole move from the station to the barn. One night it was downright miserable with a raging blizzard with non wind chill tempatures at zero. The motorman who liked running 19 was not present that night and I drew the short straw. I had to put 19 away. That trip from the front station to the barn was the longest run I had ever made in my operating tenure at Trolleyville and one I will never forget. I froze my B---S off!

So IRM I think you should run a "Snowflake Special", and take it to the next level and bring along passengers, why should the motorman have all the fun!

A piece of advise with running 19 in the snow. make sure a heavier car has allready cleared flangeways and rail of snow. Early in the Christmas lights operations, lightweight 19 was the last car in the barn and therefore the first to back out of the barn. She backed out and onto the first grade crossing and rode right up onto packed snow and ice and lost electrical ground. She had to be towed off of her stranded location. After that a C.A.&E interurban was always the last car in the barn on either track.

Steve Heister
Former Trolleyville and present NORM volunteer
http://www.northernohio.railway.museum

Fantastic! That is the best thing that I have read all week!

Ted.

Back to the original question. The auction happened. A bid was accepted. But, it required payment by a date certain. Did that happen?