Updates from Union

There are a few changes to cars at the Illinois Railway Museum, where I volunteer, that I noticed needed to be made. Some of these are recent while some are more longstanding ones that happened to slip under the radar. First off, Shaker Heights Rapid Transit 18 (above), which was acquired in 2013 and was the last of the Trolleyville equipment to leave Cleveland, is now undergoing restoration. The car was acquired in complete-but-tired condition and IRM is hoping to make it operational, as it was when in North Olmsted.

CTA 4410, shown above, is one of the museum's 4000-series 'L' cars but has been on inoperable display for a few years since its switch group was disassembled. Everything has now been put back together so that the car can enter the regular operating fleet, so it's been changed to "operated often."

Then there's Detroit 3865, one of five surviving streetcars from the Motor City, which has been taken off of public display and put into storage in one of IRM's off-limits barns. Its condition has been changed in the PNAERC list to "stored inoperable" as has North Shore 763, which was actually taken off of public display a year or two ago and put into one of the off-limits storage barns.

Wisconsin Electric Power L4 has suffered a motor armature bearing failure so, until that is repaired, it is no longer running. Its condition has been changed to "displayed inoperable."

And finally, three of the museum's ex-Illinois Central/ex-Metra "Highliner" commuter cars, numbers 1534, 1630, and 1637, have been changed from "operated occasionally" to "stored operable." These three cars (the fourth owned by the museum has not run at IRM, at least not yet) are in running condition and have been briefly run at Union, as shown below, but for the last year and a half they've been stored out from under wire.