A new identity for an old interurban car

The Rockhill Trolley Museum's major restoration project at the moment is Chicago Aurora & Elgin 315, its 1909 Kuhlman-built heavy interurban car. This car has been the subject of an on-again, off-again backdating and rebuilding for the past decade or so but lately the project has been very much on-again.

Work on car 315 hasn't just been limited to repairs; the car is being partially backdated to its as-built appearance in 1909. This includes removal of some modernization features like clerestory ventilators as well as reinstalling the arched stained-glass upper sash windows that the CA&E referred to as "streamer sash." Those were removed during the 1940s in a rebuilding but they're being put back in by RTM.

This past week the car received a first coat of Pullman green on much of its exterior. And with that, it ceases to be Chicago Aurora & Elgin 315 and instead becomes Aurora Elgin & Chicago 315. The AE&C was what that line was known as until a corporate reorganization in 1922. Car 315 is one of only two surviving CA&E cars to be painted in the colors of the original company and the only one of those two to have seen this level of authentic backdating. (One other CA&E car has been backdated and regained its upper-sash windows, car 320 in Iowa, but its target date is the mid-1920s after the corporate reorganization.)

As an aside, of the 11 ex-AE&C wood passenger cars preserved, there is an astonishing variety of liveries represented: two cars in the original Pullman green, one in 1920s dark red, two in 1930s maroon, four in 1940s blue, and two in 1950s crimson. Quite the circus fleet!