Marty, you're in the wrong hobby. Substitute a wool uniform and you'd fit right in as a Civil War reenactor.....:)

Jim, I've volunteered at your museum. You know I wash my jeans whenever they can stand in a corner by themselves.

LOL.

I wish you'd come back someday too!

:-)

Here's a photo of a typical crew at the Minnesota Streetcar Museum. Some of us wear a bow tie rather than the four-in-hand ties shown here. On hot days, ties are optional. The fellow on the right is not a volunteer.

The car in the background is Twin City Rapid Transit Company No. 1239, built by TCRT in its 31st Street Shops in 1907. Over the course of roughly 20 years, TCRT built close to 1,200 passenger streetcars following this basic design. Our Museum completed restoration of No. 1239 in 2004.

Note the white name badge worn by the volunteer on the left. Our name badges are color-coded to recognize years of service at our Museum. New volunteers are issued a yellow name badge for the first five years of volunteer service. A white name badge indicates a volunteer with between ten and twenty years of volunteer service with our Museum.

Thanks!

RMNE passenger train crew at Thomaston station:



L to R: Brent Bette, Conductor; Dana Hunt, Conductor (in back); Dave Manning, Conductor; Lee Van Iderstine, Car Host; Randy Patterson, Student Conductor (now promoted).

RMNE summer weekday train crew:



Carl Weber, Engineer; Sue Sample, Conductor; Ed McAneney, Brakeman


We all try to look the part. Our visitors expect it, and for those who don't know what to expect, we show them the right way. No polo shirts, no shorts, etc.

Howard P.

what other suppliers of Conductor hats and Jackets are there? I can only find one company Transquip that lists these items. do any of the museum stores sell these?

Pete

That might be the case.

Until recently there was a uniform cap manufacturer here in the greater Los Angeles area that would produce railroad caps. They had a line of police and military caps as will as transit caps and all the old record/design cards. They said they were the only remaining uniform cap manufacturer west of Chicago (over the years they had acquired firms that were closing). Now Lancaster Uniform Cap has closed; the owner still has a place holding webpage up explaining, etc.

As of last year American Railway Supply in Massachusetts http://www.americanrailwaysupplies.com was still selling conductor caps. Midway Caps in Chicago http://www.midwaycapcompany.com/UMSS.cfm?page=page-index.cfm&category=43&template_code=Category&Submit=Search, Keystone Cap in Philadelphia http://www.keystoneuniformcap.com/transit, and Sentry Cap in New York state http://www.sentryuniformcap.com/main/products.html also still offer traditional pillbox style conductor caps.

As for jackets and pants, I'd recommend going another direction.

Check out your local police and transit uniform store. My conductor's coat is made from a Flying Cross brand fireman's dress jacket. I changed the buttons, had a seamstress take off the fake flap pockets, and put in pockets like on a conductor's jacket. It cost me far less than the Transquip version, and it's polyester, so it'll outlive me. I did the same for the pants.

Other transit uniform vendors also sell vests, so you can mix and match.

William Scully Ltd., Montreal Canada.
They've made uniforms of various types since the 1870's including traditional passenger conductor / trainman's hats.

Our regular operating crews generally wear the uniform hat as noted above, white or light blue shirt, black pants. Tie oprtional in hot weather. The other acceptable uniform is clean, pinstriped "engineer" coveralls with clean Kromer style, pinstriped engineer's cap.

There is the odd occasion that we have a crew shortage where qualified shop workers are pressed into service, dirt, grease and all but this is pretty rare.

Gord M.
OERHA / Halton County