Lots of severe weather in northeast Illinois this morning, so I pulled up the web cams at http://irm.org. I don't see any major flooding like a couple weeks ago, but the CTC board has every light on from East Switch to the Grove.

I posted about it on Facebook and Signal Guy said "time to hi-rail." There's no sign so far of today's operator bringing out 415.

No change so far. I did see what looked like a group of visitors leaving earlier. Somebody replaced the bucket they used as a stack cap on CE 15, which had blown off.

With a tree on the tracks at Libertyville and water over the tracks between there and Fox Lake, Metra can only run a limited shuttle service from Lake Forest to Chicago on the Milwaukee District North Line. Amtrak has suspended Hiawatha Service to Milwaukee due to (I heard) a washout at Wadsworth.

Looks like the next round of approaching rain is weakening (but as I typed that, there was thunder outside). More severe storms are predicted overnight.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

I may post this in multiple threads for maximum exposure.

If anyone here uses Microsoft Train Simulator, Illinois Railway Museum is available as a route, currently for sale at http://www.digitalrails.com/. Proceeds will go to the TP&W 800 fund. We only have until October to raise $65,000 (purchase, transportation, and track space) or it will be sold for scrap.

David, is it ok if I share this on FB?

Sure, please do.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Thomas weekend, part 1.

Saturday: I'm Dispatcher, the guinea pig trying out the revised procedure. A complaint in recent years has been that there's too much radio chatter involved in the Dispatcher saying "Thomas has authority from the Thomas Boarding Area to the West Wye, Jefferson Street, return to the West Wye and call," the Thomas Conductor repeating it, Dispatcher saying "that is correct," then Thomas Helper (engineer of the diesel at the other end of the train) repeating it and Conductor saying "that is correct" every 30 minutes all day. With Switch 711 being powered now, it seemed like a good time to streamline the orders a bit. So, after sending 1630 out to the Percy train, I gave this order: Thomas has continuing authority to operate between the West Wye and Jefferson St. until 5:30 pm." With that in place, I could give much briefer orders each half hour: "Thomas has authority for a [time] departure to the West Wye." It was still necessary to repeat, "correct," repeat, "correct," but it was much less radio chatter. Returning, the conversation was about the same as before: "Thomas has authority to the Thomas Track," repeat, "correct," repeat, "correct." This whole thing worked almost as well as expected. 1630 got out a bit late, so I was a bit rushed in giving Thomas the all-day order, and Percy was about ten minutes late for his first trip, but they made it up quicker than I expected. Percy also gets a blanket order: authority to make all scheduled trips between Station Track 2 and the west end of Johnson Siding. Other than that, I just had to get the four streetcars out on the Car Line in the right order: one guy doesn't like having a certain other guy behind him. Mid-afternoon, Track Dept. issued a speed restriction (later written up as a Bulletin): 10 mph for the entire length of the train over Karstens on account of track conditions. Apparently, this was just because Percy rides so rough and there's a bad joint there, but Percy is restricted to 10 anyway. As usual, Superintendent ordered Thomas to delay his last trip by ten minutes, just in case anyone was late. Also just in case, I extended Thomas' standing authority to 6:00. The crowd thinned out and two streetcars went to bed around 4:00. The biggest problem was after Thomas left for his last trip. I flipped 711 back to the Car Line, waited for its 20 second timer, watched the points throw, and signaled the streetcar to proceed. He called me to point out that the switch routing indicator was still flatline. I wasted a minute throwing it back and forth once to no avail. A-Sup was with me and put the switch on Hand while I called Signal Dept. When Thomas returned, I had to tell Helper the switch was lined and inspected for his route. Once he got to the Thomas Track, I annulled his all-day order... at exactly 5:30. The young guy from Signal Dept. came and took the cover off the switch motor and poked at it and got it working, but after all the trains were done he came back and poked some more. After both trains finished and the other cars went to bed, the last order of business was to bring 1630 home, but they wanted to go to their service track first to take water. Thomas hangs out of his track and blocks the steam service track, but they pull up as close as they can and run a long hose. A-Sup had been pre-revenue Dispatcher and I came on at 9:30; even so, I had to give 1630 a final order from there to the Steam Shop Lead for the night before I died at 6:30, even though they weren't ready for the move until much later. I had the bright idea to write this authority on a sticky note and put it on the Dispatcher board in the office, in case another Dispatcher came on.

By the way, the Thomas train is Thomas, Rock Island coach, Lackawanna coach, four more Rocks, C&NW combine, and C&NW 411. The Percy train is Percy, B&LE combine, two Lackawanna, Missabe coach, Santa Fe combine, water car, and 1630.

Sunday: I'm Conductor on Percy. I arrived about 8:30 and drove right down to the station to put all my stuff on Percy, then drove back to the employee parking lot. After signing in, I walked down again and had to inspect the journals myself. All 60 of them. Every car except Percy has friction bearings. I was already worn out before my engine even came out. They were earlier than yesterday and we got tied on and the brakes tested just in time to make the first trip on time. A few times, we left a minute or two late because of dawdling passengers, but mostly we were on time or even a few seconds early. The departure schedule for both trains is simple: every 30 minutes, Thomas on the :00s and :30s, Percy on the :15s and :45s. Train crews have a lunch break built into the schedule: Thomas has no 2:00 trip and Percy no 2:15. A guy from the Coach Dept. blue flagged the train while we were at lunch so he could work on opening the painted-shut windows in the B&LE car. Percy Conductors do as much highballing as we can with flags, to further reduce radio chatter. The stuff I drove down to put on board is more than just my grip. There was also my cooler full of bottled water (and a couple other things) and ice. To these usual items, I added a folding chair and an electric fan. The fan doesn't really do much, mostly blowing hot air, but I ran it all day anyway. I would not survive without the chair, which I used while sitting in the station and on the outbound trips. Inbound, I had to stand to see. I mentioned that Percy rides rough. It's basically a four-wheel bobber with almost no suspension. You feel every bump in the track, bumps you hardly notice on a coach. At the slow order at Karstens, I leaned forward in my chair so it wouldn't hit me in the back. There's a section where Percy starts bucking like a bronco. Interestingly, he rides better being pushed forward than being pulled backward. Or maybe it's a matter of feeling different standing. But he doesn't buck forward. His brakes are incredibly noisy. And speaking of noise, then there's the generator. Right behind you in the back of the cab, there's a little Honda portable generator sputtering all day. It runs the face movement and speech system, and the fog machine (and my fan). When the fog machine's heating element comes on, the generator's governor kicks it to high speed. On the last trip, I killed it as soon as we pulled out. So what if there was no smoke or face movement coming back? I needed some quiet. I don't know what I was thinking when I signed up to do it twice this year... As soon as we finished, I informed Dispatcher we had completed all scheduled trips. It took a few more minutes to coordinate the volunteer car cleaners to make sure 1630 could cut off safely. I dismissed everyone and trudged to the office, where the Trainmaster commandeered a golf cart and brought me back to get my stuff while he locked up the train (except someone beat him to it), then took me to my car. Then I drove back to the office to sign out.

This Saturday, I'm not signed up for anything so far (and I have something I'd like to do over in Indiana), but there are a few open positions. I will NOT take the Thomas Conductor spot. Sunday, I'm Percy again, unless I can get someone else to do it (which I doubt).

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Lots of severe weather in northeast Illinois this morning, so I pulled up the web cams at http://irm.org. I don't see any major flooding like a couple weeks ago, but the CTC board has every light on from East Switch to the Grove.

I posted about it on Facebook and Signal Guy said "time to hi-rail." There's no sign so far of today's operator bringing out 415.

No change so far. I did see what looked like a group of visitors leaving earlier. Somebody replaced the bucket they used as a stack cap on CE 15, which had blown off.

With a tree on the tracks at Libertyville and water over the tracks between there and Fox Lake, Metra can only run a limited shuttle service from Lake Forest to Chicago on the Milwaukee District North Line. Amtrak has suspended Hiawatha Service to Milwaukee due to (I heard) a washout at Wadsworth.

Looks like the next round of approaching rain is weakening (but as I typed that, there was thunder outside). More severe storms are predicted overnight.

IRM's signals were back to normal by late afternoon. I don't think 415 operated today.

CP freights and Hiawathas were running by mid-afternoon. Amtrak had arranged for 7 and 8 to detour on BNSF between Chicago and La Crosse; the track was opened in time for 7 to revert to its normal route, but 8 will come through Naperville in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, the weather geeks like to talk about thunderstorms "training," a series of them following the same path for possibly hundreds of miles. The term is apt this evening -- it looks like they're marching right up the Santa Fe all the way from Ft. Madison.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Meanwhile, the weather geeks like to talk about thunderstorms "training," a series of them following the same path for possibly hundreds of miles. The term is apt this evening -- it looks like they're marching right up the Santa Fe all the way from Ft. Madison.

Maybe they have a unit spewing smoke and seeding the clouds? ;-)

By the way, I hit my head three times in different places on the conduits running across the ceiling above Percy's doors.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

So as David suggested the two AEM7's did indeed head west on the 3 today.

First were the three locos, 200, 822 and 144.



The the two AEM 7's



Then surprisingly 6 old "heritage" baggage cars.



Then the actual Southwest Chief which was one VL Baggage and 9 superliners

Making the total train of 21 vehicles, I think only the Amatrak auto train is longer!!

So as David suggested the two AEM7's did indeed head west on the 3 today.

First were the three locos, 200, 822 and 144.

Then surprisingly 6 old "heritage" baggage cars.

That's a surprise. Not sure where they'd be going or why.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

That's a surprise. Not sure where they'd be going or why.

Well as Virtual Railfan the" other" railcam site now has cameras at La Plat MO, the more active "chat" there noted the AEM's and baggage cars and supplied these two nuggets of info

As to the heritage baggage cars

"No the heritage baggage cars are headed for an area in the desert align with the Amtrak's MHC boxcars and Amtrak's roadrailers"

And more info on the AEM 7's

The AEM 7s are headed for TTC in Pueblo Colorado for permanent use for 125 MPH testing,

Obviously this is just railfan chat, but sounds reasonable.


I used the 24 hour "DVR" facility to get shots of it arriving at La Plata MO at 8:22 pm CT yesterday but the combination of the fading light and the fact the cameras are too close to the track caused lots of pixalating.

However here they are, I have pics from, Shenandoah Junction, Chesterton, Chicago and La Plata.

East facing cam



And the west facing cam.



The woman in the east facing shot, is I believe the station agent as she helps people on and off the trains, she seemed a bit perplexed when the train just kept on going with no sign of the superliner passenger cars :-)

Now some of you may well have heard of Jack London Square in Oakland CA.

Notable for the fact that the main rail line runs down the middle of the main street, no barriers or segregation. Amtrak has several trains a day .

However there is one other town in the US where the trains travel down the main street with no barriers or segregation.

La Grange Kentucky, where Virtual Railfan have just installed 2 cameras.

The is the North facing camera.



and this is south



Very much small town America, however you cant help but notice the rail tracks.

There is no station or Amtrak trains here, just the CSX mainline. Here is a northbound freight.



Interesting cargo, behind the first hopper.



Four tanks and what looked like a mine sweeper.

Here a southbound freight.



Not sure it improves the town, unless you are a railfan, because this train was interesting as well.



The strange looking thing between the two locos is called a "slug". It is usually made from a older engine, where the prime mover is removed but the traction motors are left, it gets its power from the loco it is connected to.

A slug is used to increase adhesive weight, allowing full power to be applied at a lower speed, thus allowing a higher maximum tractive effort.

You can see another one behind the following loco. I don't recall every seeing one before on any camera.

There are several such places in the US. The nearest to me that I can think of is the South Shore at Michigan City, IN. Electric MU commuter trains and diesel freights run for a number of blocks down two different streets. These are cars from the early '80s and/or the second order from (I think) the '90s. More recently, they have also acquired bilevels similar to the Metra Electric cars.



Historically, their freight was also hauled by electric locomotives such as these:



Although they are commonly known as "Little Joes" after Joseph Stalin (they were built for the Soviet State Railway, not not exported due to the start of the Cold War), current wisdom is that this name was used only on the Milwaukee Road, and the South Shore mainly called them 800s. (I want to do a bit more research to verify that this isn't revisionist history.)

Another place is Bellevue, Iowa, originally Milwaukee Road and now Canadian Pacific.



There's also a place in western New York or Pennsylvania, I forget which. And I believe there are a few others. Come to think of it, there's also Davenport, IA, although in that case the track is in an unpaved median with a single lane on each side.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

And you have this on 3rd Street just east of Downtown Los Angeles

---

Thomas weekend, Part 2.

Saturday: This is a very short report. I wasn't there. I went to a non-rail event in Indiana instead (although I did hear a train go by near the end of the day). I took lots of pictures, but they are not suitable for posting on this site. I will mention that I was on my feet too much and that I fell flat on my back, almost causing me to call Crew Caller and try to get out of doing Sunday. My back felt (and still feels) more bruised than anything backs usually feel, but the greatest pain is my right ear -- it feels like my glasses tried to rip it off and is still very sensitive on the back of the upper lobe.

Sunday: conductor on Percy again. Unexpectedly, I felt better than last week. Even better, the eager young guy checked all the journals before I got to the train. Plus, after a muggy and mosquito-y start, it turned out to be a slightly nicer day. 1630 came out with just enough time to get on the train and tested without rushing. Apparently, they were having trouble with the signals on Saturday, so Sunday morning Signal Dept. sent 415 out to test them, with no malfunction. Nevertheless, they issued a bulletin taking the signals out of service and putting Manual Block Rules in effect. Dispatcher then gave me an order to operate in both directions in the Bend and Karstens Blocks and Station Track 2 from 10:15 until the end of the operating day. We made our first departure on time. Immediately, the signals malfunctioned again. What is supposed to happen in the Percy operation is that as soon as we get east of Signal 201, it goes to Clear and we can head back west. Then, 151 would be Approach and 121 Restricting. In this case, all three displayed Stop. With the system out of service and Manual Block in effect, we just went right by, but as we were coming in I reported it to Signal Dept. On the second trip, I watched 121 go to Restricting after we went by eastward, but again 201 and 151 were Stop when we came back. When I came around the bend and saw 121, it was Stop too, but I glanced away for a second and when I looked up again it was Restricting. Two Signal guys were in the control shed at 121. After that, the signals worked normally for the rest of the day, but we stayed on Manual Block anyway -- no reason to change the order. At the end of the day, I talked to the head Signal guy; he said there was a malfunctioning timer that wasn't letting 121 do what it should. I also asked him about Wednesday, when all the track lights were on. It turned out there was a blown 4KV fuse outside the substation, on the line feeding everything to the east. He thought that was worrisome because there are several other safeties that should have blown before this fuse and they didn't.

A couple of times, we were oversold and had to put some passengers off before we could depart, delaying us a minute or two. In the afternoon, my friend the Metra conductor showed and took a lot of pictures of me and the train. I let him in the cab for a look, pointing out the extra things that aren't on a regular train car. Later, an old friend showed up with his two small boys. I let the boys see the cab too, while he was pleased to show them a real live steam engine, 1630. With dwindling crowds, Thomas had his last two trips canceled and ran his last at 4:10. We had our last one canceled, but the 4:45 was pushed back to 4:55, then 5:00. I think we finally left about 5:05. The other Trainmaster (not the new one, the one who's been for years) rode with me on the last trip and we discussed how terrible Percy rides. He pointed to something and said "What's this?" I told him it was the retainer valve, then pointed out the paragraph about it in the instructions on the back wall. Which reminds me, I took pictures of the cab interior. Perhaps I shouldn't post them in public, but if you're interested send me a PM. I also demonstrated for him how I do the running brake test on the emergency valve. When we got back, I informed Dispatcher (who had come over in his golf cart) that we were done with the operating day and I was releasing the Bend and Karstens Blocks. Once the passengers were off, I held off the official photographers while 1630 cut off, this time taking the water car with them and not going to the service track to take water. The flatbed truck was already present to take Percy away to his next appearance, somewhere in Iowa. There are at least three Thomases, but only one Percy, so he's a busy little bone rattler. Before that, though, I got all my stuff off, plus the air valve exhaust redirection pipes; the guy who devised them couldn't be present, so the Thomas conductor and I promised to remove them. I caught a golf cart ride to my car and slooooowly (there were still people) drove back down to the platform to get my stuff. Finally I got back to the office to sign out.

Coming up: I didn't know how my life was going to be, so I haven't signed up for anything beyond this point except dispatching for a few special events. There will be training on the CA&E steel cars this Sunday; I'm less anxious to learn and qualify on those than some other cars, but I might as well -- the knowledge will be useful. Saturday, there are openings, but so far I'm not feeling much enthusiasm, especially with a forecast of 90F and humid.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

And you have this on 3rd Street just east of Downtown Los Angeles

I think Bernie and I were only thinking about mainline railroads, not streetcar or light rail systems.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

And you have this on 3rd Street just east of Downtown Los Angeles

I think Bernie and I were only thinking about mainline railroads, not streetcar or light rail systems.

Thought you might like to see some nice tight overhead cable anyway. Line was put in in 2009.

---

And you have this on 3rd Street just east of Downtown Los Angeles

I think Bernie and I were only thinking about mainline railroads, not streetcar or light rail systems.

Thought you might like to see some nice tight overhead cable anyway. Line was put in in 2009.

It does look nice and tight, and I'm sure it's properly centered over the track too, which is more than I can say for quite a bit of our wire at the museum, which in turn is why equipment with pantographs runs so seldom and on such a limited stretch. It was centered when installed, but poles start leaning with time. There is now an effort in the works to straighten (or in many cases replace) the poles, then tweak the wire hangers. Nevertheless, we have very little catenary like in L.A., mostly just simple trolley wire.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

On sliding contact system (typical catenary & pantograph current collection) you do not want the contact wire centered on the running track, you need a stagger in the line. essentially you arrange for alternate contact wire supports to move the wire a distance either side of the centre line by some distance (several inches). This prevents a grove being worn in the contact strip, thus massively improving its life. With a trolley contact (rolling contact) you can have the contact wire centred over the rails as there is much less potential for wearing things out.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

On sliding contact system (typical catenary & pantograph current collection) you do not want the contact wire centered on the running track, you need a stagger in the line. essentially you arrange for alternate contact wire supports to move the wire a distance either side of the centre line by some distance (several inches). This prevents a grove being worn in the contact strip, thus massively improving its life. With a trolley contact (rolling contact) you can have the contact wire centred over the rails as there is much less potential for wearing things out.

There is some debate among our experts over the truth of this axiom.

Our greater and more immediate concern is that the wire can't be so far off center that the pan goes out from under it, pops up, and then either rips itself off the car, rips the wire down, or both. Rumor has it that this happened at another museum last month.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

For sliding contact it is a well established fact that if there is no stagger the life of the contract strip on the pantograph will be decimated (or even worse). I've seen the damage caused from on a few miles of wire installed with no stagger - there was a grove about an inch wide and right down to the air-bleed tube which broke and caused the pantograph to drop "instantly".

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

For sliding contact it is a well established fact that if there is no stagger the life of the contract strip on the pantograph will be decimated (or even worse). I've seen the damage caused from on a few miles of wire installed with no stagger - there was a grove about an inch wide and right down to the air-bleed tube which broke and caused the pantograph to drop "instantly".

But what speed was that running? TGV or Bullet I'd expect, but a streetcar???