Recent photos of heavy reconstruction work on Chicago Lake Shore & South Bend 73, a 1908 Niles interurban combine:

transit.nerail.org

For decades this car was a house in northwestern Indiana but is now under private ownership and is being steadily restored to essentially as-built condition.

What an absolutely gorgeous job they are doing on this car! From the glimpses of remaining sound framing, it's obvious what a major job this has been.

I'll definitely be passing this link on to our volunteers working on a similar rebuild of the former CP 1896 business car #23 at RMEO in Smiths Falls, Ontario. With warm weather just around the corner, the carshop will be warm enough to resume work, and the interurban photos will be a great inspiration to our team.

Steve Hunter
RMEO

http://public.fotki.com/elliottd/sfrmeo/sfrmeo6/

I'd like to know what people think are the pros and cons of assembling a car with unpainted wood. This, to be sure, is what car builders did in the old days; the car was completely assembled, then they started painting it. But circumstances are somewhat different for a museum piece. Do we know what the plans are for storing and operating this car when it's done?

great photos and stories, its good to know that all these projects like ours are going on. Anyone have a good resource for milled siding and window sills ??

Mike Pannell
Cheyenne

See our project !!!

http://mikepannell254.fotopic.net/c1599811.html

Any idea what the final intentions are for this car ?
Display somewhere (public or private), dare we hope for operation ?

John -

If I recall correctly from photos and drawings I have seen, these cars when in service for the CLS&SB had trolley poles on each end for city operation and a pantagraph located mid-car for operation out on the main line. Certainly would make for an interesting operational car.

Les

Looks pretty amazing. What about trucks?

Wow! That woodwork just takes your breath away. It's like a shrine to woodwork.

Although... forgive me if I'm like speaking a forbidden truth or something... but sometimes I think we restore these things TOO well. I mean, certainly the original builders had a sense of apprenticeship and craft that's all but lost in the world today... but it's hard to imagine they built the original car *that* well. For instance SN 1005 has had truly excellent work -- but the builder, the Holman car company, did not have a reputation for doing good work.

So when you go into a restoration, and you find construction that, clearly, was never all that great in the first place... what do you do?

Several restorations at various museums that I have seen have convinced me that there is a strong streak of perfectionism in the restoration community. Thus, we end up with "better than new" restorations. My feeling is that we just have to live with it, as it appears to be inherent in the mindset of the people who have the desire and talent to do such work.

Do "perfectionism" and "better than new" result in a longer lasting vehicle? I'm sounding a bit like an ad for the Lacleede Car Company of St. Louis.

For a static display, it wouldn't make much difference. For an operating vehicle, it would be impossible to answer that question. Service as a museum artifact is not the same experiment as is revenue service.

Based on my experience as part of the team restoring SN 1005 at WRM, I'd say that several other factors could contribute to an increase in vehicle life:

1. Indoor storage -- for example, SN 1005 spent its 35-year service career outdoors. WRM will store the car indoors.

2. Operating practices - for example, WRM never operates cars in the rain, so rust and rot caused by leaks will be greatly reduced.

3. Amount of use - a few short trips on a weekend should be less stressful for a car than use in regular service.

As a statistician would say, any contribution of a "better than new" restoration to increased vehicle life would be confounded with the contributions of these other factors.

Having taken wooden railroad cars apart for restoration, I have seen original examples of excellent work, but also cases of sloppy work in car frames. Most of the original interior wood work in passengers cars was excellent.

I suspect that the car frames don't require perfect milled joint type work, but there is a pride today (and then) in work and it was found in some cases in the past.

I suspect that for 19th century passenger cars if anything they took more time to prepare and paint cars than we do today.

I would like to add one though on conditions that affect wooden car life in a museum setting... Good, smooth track work. I have seen wooden streetcar bodies twist as much as 15 degrees when traversing bad track. Logically this can't be good for the jointwork.

I would like to know if this is one of the museums doing the work?

Is this another of Glen Guerea's wel l researched and thought out projects?

His work on the SN 1005 was wonderful and he has followed it with wonderful craftsmanship at the mid Continent Railway Museum among other places?

Will the car ever run again or is it to be a static display?

Ted Miles