Latest restoration from the IRM courtesy of Tim Peters and friends. Images from the Hicks Car Blog where you can page through and see the extensive work Tim preformed over the years.
https://hickscarworks.blogspot.com/

1754 the third wood L car Tim has done. I was going to post this in the Vinyl Lettering thread but it deserves its own post.
I ran all the artwork for this project. The exterior lettering vinyl masking and gold spray paint.
The interesting lettering here is the reporting numbers on the windows. Frosted inside glass has a mirror image vinyl number applied. Then the glass is painted black. Provides an illuminated number at night.

Wow!!! IRM has outdone themselves yet again. Incredible work. Hopefully I’ll be able to see it in person next year.

Do blueprints or scale drawings exist for these cars?

Thanks

Chris

Congrats to all on a job well done. This one brings back memories. I was at Skokie Shops with the late Dave Shore to install adapter knuckles and "take delivery", that being waiting for the C&NW way freight to come and pick it up, and we rode with it over to the nearby C&NW Weber Yard. At that time the 1754 was painted CTA work service yellow, the C&NW loco and caboose were also yellow, and our short passenger train with its 1890's coach got a lot of quizzical looks as we crossed the six lanes of rush hour traffic on Oakton St.

The car didn't stay yellow for long, though. It was the summer of 1971, IIRC, and Bob Opal, John Nickleson, and I were the summer crew at the museum. Bob wanted to paint the car, and we quickly applied the older Pullman green and orange scheme, in contrast to the later brown and orange that was on the rest of our wood "L" cars, over the course of a couple evenings.

Glad to see the car was restored to that paint scheme.

I keep looking for the details on this car, builder, year, built for, etc.

IRM, as usual, is a class act and has a wonderfully detailed and searchable roster on their website. I’ve linked to this Cars info below.

Built in 1906 by the Jewett Car company.

And I’ll remind everyone to put the Members Showcase weekend on your calendar for next year, I’ve been twice and it’s just incredible. I would have loved to attend this year as well but I haven’t traveled that much this year and just didn’t feel comfortable. yet.

https://www.irm.org/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi?rapid=Chicago+Rapid+Transit=1754

Were both the trolley poles and trolley boards added to allow operation at IRM?

I don't believe so. In earlier years some ground level portions of the CRT system used overhead wire power distribution. I seem to recall the trolley boards, cabling and trolley bases were in place, and Dave Shore scrounging around for suitable poles when we were prepping the car for movement

Beautiful work, IRM. Congratulations!

- Matt Nawn

In regards to trolley poles on the L, the line to Evanston, IL had trolley wire until 1973. Some 1-50 series cars (from the late 1950s) were delivered with trolley poles for this service and a small number retained them until their retirement in the early 1990s.

The website chicago-l.org is a good starting point for L history. Here are a few links:


Overview of the Evanston line:
https://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/evanston.html

Here is their page on rolling stock:
https://www.chicago-l.org/trains/roster/index.html

The west end of the Lake Street line was overhead wire until it was relocated onto the C&NW embankment in the early sixties.

The west end of the Douglas Park line was also at ground level with trolley wire.

Bumped into Tim at the shop today. He did not see any drawings for this series car.
I got the details on the remaining item for 1754. It needs to have the motor truck restored and replaced.
Seems that the CTA was using the same trucks on the 4000 series cars when the IRM acquired 1754. They gave us the car with older wood car trucks that it operates with now. We later acquired 4000 series cars. And when one was scrapped trucks were saved from it. However after being outside for so long motors need rebuilding, as well as the truck restored.
Once that's done 1754 will be complete.

The trolley poles were added in 1913 when the Northwestern Elevated was extended over an at-grade Milwaukee Railroad line to Evanston.

The five wooden Elevated cars at IRM are almost unique in preservation. The only other wood Elevated cars I know about are the Chicago #1 at the Chicago Historical Society and the Money Car G at Shore Line Trolley museum.

There are also a pair of NY elevated cars at the Western Railway Museum; but they are preserved in the WWII era when they ran in Richmond, California on the ground.

Good job 'Car Department at IRM!

Ted Miles, IRM Member