there is a chicago, south shore & south bend rr work car being readied for a move to an Illinois museum from michigan city,in. It is sitting at 10th street and sheridan av in michigan city. That is 1 block south of us 12 on michigan city’s west side, near the state prison. i don’t know when they are moving it or the route.
Its been a busy time moving trolley cars to Illinois Railway Museum from Cleveland, the same trucking company that brought the CA&E cars to IRM from there are picking up the Line Car Friday for delivery to IRM, and also picking up the last CA&E car to IRM the same day from Cleveland.
I’ll copy the IRM notes from the recent work. Cheers, enjoy the read.
The trucks, pilots, and steps for the cars arrived at the museum Tuesday afternoon around 1, we met the trucks coming back from lunch. The trucks were lifted off the trailer using a heavy duty tow truck and our forklift, and set down on the yard 6 leads near Central Av. one at a time. The Edison 4 and Joy switcher were used to put them wherever we could. The trucks for the 409 were moved to the pit area so that we could swap a bad traction motor with a replacement from the 309.
After dinner, work started again. All of the trucks had to be wyed. Warren took the Edison 15 diesel and began taking the 451 trucks around the wye and then back to yard 6. The rest of us worked to unbolt the traction motor from the 409. The #2 traction motor had a grounded field. As the night got colder, we continued to work outside on the pit lead under a number of work lights. The forklift lifted the bad motor out, and with much trouble we set the new one in. By about 12:30 the traction motor was done. We then set to work staging the trucks on either side of Central Av for the cars arrival. The Edison 15 left with the 409 trucks to go around the wye. I went to yard 6 to pump up the edison 4 which was still sitting in yard 6. I came to find the entire engine encrusted in frost and ice from the fog which had frozen. Once the engine was pumped up the Edison 4 put the 451 trucks in place in front of the joy and the Edison 15 put the 409 trucks in place.
With all the frost on the trolley wire we sure lit the place up at 1am! With all the engines put away we went to bed for the night.
At 9:30 am, we pumped up the Edison 4, turned the he
The Line Car is now at the museum, the work deck still in Michigan City to be moved next week, more details on the move 8-D
With all the incredable moving of cars in the last few days, the usual correspondents are very busy getting ready to unload 1100 and 460 this morning. And with a late finish yesterday, no one’s had a chance to post loading 1100 news. Yesterday went well, with everybody collected by about 10:00, with me arriving last, by train. We had to borrow a pair of air jacks from CSS Freight to do the lifting safely. With that done, the front dolly (but rear of the car) was attacked first and went pretty easily. Manuvering inside the shed was interesting for the rear dolly, which needed to go in at an angle, and then get rototed under the car. That part took the most time, trying to bump, bounce, yank and plead with the dolly. That’s the one with a steerrable feature, that was extremely important to get out of the property. Finally, about 4:00 we were able to pull the car outside. While the lot had been plowed that morning, it was still somewhat slippery, and Donny, the driver, used his expertise to manuver the 94 ft. rig on a postage stamp, backing out to Sheridan Ave without a hitch. He stayed there over night and was planning to leave at daybreak this morning, for an estimated 9:30 – 10:00 arrival at the zoo.
The rotating deck, which is about 23 ft. long, was loaded onto a Cloverleaf Garage flat, along with the 2 roof boxes, to wait in Mich. City until Nick gets them next week. The reason the deck is about 50% longer than 604’s is so you can work on an adjacent track’s wire, allowing trains to pass without needing to duck into a siding. The front (actually rear) coupler was removed for shipment, and went back in the pickup with Stan and Pete.
The car ran in the yard the morning it left 4 years ago, and with very little body rot, the one potential issue is the usual – a new canvas. And like 604,