CA&E Ticket Box

Found a new addition for the Interurbans of The Fox Valley display, an old CA&E ticket box.

Nice old wood box, with all the slots for individual tickets, and it came with a ticket punch.

One of the nicer features is that it has all the old composite "marbles"

which hold the tickets in place.

Came with a nice assortment of tickets, now I just need to understand how they would

have been laid out in the box for proper sequencing for sales.

Now we just need a ticket dater/stamper !

CSL Large Scale Pullman - Update

I'd been unsuccessful to date trying to determine the origins of the Chicago Surface Lines Big Pullman #250 car. It seems to me that this is an important piece of model history, sort of the "where we came from" type of thing.

Anyways, it occurred to me about a month back to hijack Ed Halstead's email list and see if the Chicagoland traction collective might have some ideas.

Nothing really came of it, and then literally out of the blue this afternoon, Ed shared the communication below from well-know, long time modeler George Kanary. (As a related aside, George wrote a wonderful 2-part article in the first two issues of The Street Railway Review back in 1973 about building the air-door Pullman cars in O scale. I built one of my first large scale models in 1:24 scale, based on scaling up his plans and tips)

George's reply to Ed is below :
In the early 1950s, possibly 1954, Carl Gustafson displayed a Big Pullman that he built while a student at Lane Tech High School in Chicago. I was told about the car by Tom Froehlich and went to see it. Unfortunately, my memory of the car is such that I don't remember if it was about 1/2" scale or larger. I do recall that it was nicely done and the car seen here, while in rough condition, is a very good representation. Looking at the windows, they are properly done, which is very important to the appearance of a Pullman model.

Carl was the author of the book, DAIRY ROUTE, the story of the Elgin & Belvidere Ry, and heads up a Florida traction group today. Rich Nielsen knows how to get in touch with him.

The alternative and a greater possibility is that it may have been built by Lou Mertel, a long ago CERA member who worked in 1/2" scale on large double truck cars and 3/4" scale on smaller single truckers. I have a CERA issue showing Mr. Mertel's cars, which were exhibited at the Fair Store department store in downtown Chicago and probably other places as well.

My filing system being what it is, it may take some time to find the pictures, but I will look. I have a CCRy single truck car built by Mr. Mertel and it is very well done, very accurate, and uses glass for the windows.
I am fortunate enough to have a 3/4" scale model of a CSL 2600 class Robertson car built by Gene Davidson, and a twin to it was built for Alan Simms. Gene owed Alan a favor and he surprisingly built the car for me just because I made the working drawings for it. This is true scratchbuilding, St. Louis 23 trucks and all.

It would be nice to see this Pullman car restored with the proper doors and whatever else is necessary.

The mystery is not quite solved, but certainly we now have a trail to follow !

My thanks to Ed and to George, and I'll be sure to let everyone know the

more I might be able to find out !

Indiana RR High-Speed in 1:24 scale

I was asked by Jan Giradot, the list owner/moderator of the Yahoo Large Scale Trolley list to build him a large scale model of an Indiana RR high-speed car.

This is car 65, preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum, it is also the first car in the museum's collection of over 400 pieces of railroad rolling stock. This photo is of the car operating just 5 days ago as part of the annual Trolley Pageant

I had started this project a couple months ago, made a decent start, but was increasingly unhappy with the way the car was progressing. As part of cleaning up the train room/workshop last week, in disgust I tossed out the body shell and determined to start fresh.

Same basic concept, styrene construction, laminated layers of varying thicknesses to make the cutting easier, add rigidity, and get that 3 dimensionality. Laid out the sides in .020 styrene as seen below. The sides will actually be the interior window frames, all of the car sheathing will be added on to this.

 Progressed pretty quickly, it's really a simple car, at least for the sides.

 Got the rear end mocked up, this is the easier of the two ends, it's pretty much three flat wall/window sections, with steel work wrapped around to get the rounded look.

Now the front end, more of the same, three wall/window panels with the wrap around to get the rounded finish. Main difference here is the front windows are angled, so basically the end needs to be done in three parts, the lower and upper pieces which are the simple rounded end, and then the angled windows need to be added.

What you're looking at is about 4 hours of effort, it's always amazing how things can flow so fast when you're in the mood/right frame of mind, and then there's other times when it seems like you can't even figure out
which end of the X-acto knife to use !

IRM Trolley Pageant - 7/4/11

Enjoyed a pleasant afternoon at the Illinois Railway Museum with my fellow

O Scale traction co-conspirators, Jim Allen, Art Paton and Ed Pavlovic. Mike

Hirvela somehow got dragged in as well, we'll convert him yet.

We were out to enjoy the afternoon and the annual IRM Trolley Pageant.

This year was the biggest and best yet, some 40+ cars operating, that's more than

many museums even have in total !

Took photos of the afternoon's festivities, posted here on Flickr simply

because it's far easier than putting them all here. Try the slideshow option.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/19332706@N00/sets/72157626992361495/with/5902164723/

Hopefully the guys had a good time, we got separated just as the Trolley Parade

was getting started as I moved down the "photo line". We'll meet up next Sunday

to have a planning session for the modules.

LST Meet - July 4th 2011

Once again, another July 4th has rolled around, and with it the annual two-part event

(at least for myself) at the Illinois Railway Museum.

First is the annual Trolley Pageant, the largest operating session of museum electric cars anywhere, and the Yahoo Large Scale Trolley Meet, which is hosted by Yahoo LST member, Bob Kutella.

For those that don't know, Bob is also a very long time member of the museum (I would not embarass him by saying how many years, but it's a hell of a lot). He is also the curator of the Freight Car Department, and a large scale trolley modeler.

The LST meet is a very informal affair, basically, if you're showing up for the Trolley

Pageant and feel like throwing (gently !) one of your large scale trolleys in the car

to operate, the more the merrier !

This year's event was a bit toned down from last year, and I myself am

as guilty as anyone for not participating. I'll blame the pressures of work,

and promise to get my ass back in gear for next year.

This year, the "fort" was admirably held down by Bryan Anderson (in from Iowa),

and John Nelligan & Henry Vincent, both IRM members/volunteers.

Also Cliff Burnstein made it in for the day as well.

The trolleys were a bit scarce this year, but John had his two single truck cars,

the open and closed cars, operating as usual on his loop with live overhead.

Bryan had his ISU steeplecab out and running on one of the other loops, while

Henry's diesel (shudder !) trains ran the other loop.

 Bryan's steeplecab

 John's open and closed cars

The biggest large scale car of all, Bob Kutella's pride and joy the Sand Springs Ry #68 operating in the Trolley Pageant (more of that on the next posting)

Next year, I'll be back on track (no pun intended), and hopefully the O scale guys

can be represented as well !