Group-
Sorry for the cross-post; I didn't notice that Denny had included the STMFC
in one email.
Sorry for the unintentional non-freight car content!
Charlie Vlk

The CB&Q open-platform cars Denny mentions have an interesting history.
Some of the cars seen are actually stretched wood cars (the cars with the
longer wheelbase trucks) that had been steel sheathed in 1926.
As the conversion program got underway an official asked to look at the
costs associated with the project and determined that applying new steel
underframe/platforms and rebuilding worn-out wood bodies to fit was not
economical and ordered the program shut down. The Bettendorf steel
underframes on hand were instead applied to brand new steel bodies and new
trucks.
The open platforms were retained until the all steel cars in the commuter
fleet were upgraded with closed vestibules, remodeled interiors and air
conditioning. This was in conjunction with the arrival of the Budd
stainless steel gallery bilevel cars in 1949-50 which also included building
power cars for train lighting and air conditioning on the heavyweight cars.
The gallery cars had Waukesha propane A/C. The steel sheathed cars went
into work train service and lasted through the 1960s.
Charlie Vlk

This is a great video, camera facing steadily west, apparently taken c. 1946-48 from either a PRR or (pre-GM&O) Alton passenger train about to arrive at Chicago Union Station. The string of FOM-liveried PRR cars is on the south leg of the wye formed by the Burlington main line arriving from the west teeing against the north/south PRR/Alton lines that will entering the station together. This handy-dandy wye (using the Burlington main line) was AFIK used by all railroads at CUS (save the Milwaukee) to turn their trains and still is by Amtrak.

In a relatively recent year, I was on board and actually at the helm of a Lake Michigan-bound yacht, the height of which required the very bridge across the Chicago River depicted in the video to be raised for clearance to pass under. I cringed when I noted that we had stabbed the outbound Amtrak Lake Shore Limited in the process! (the train crew on the ground was on the ground watching us pass by).

The steel open platform Burlington cars (replete with hard turnover rattan seats) were THE standard commute cars on the Aurora commute lines. I spent a childhood lifetime on these cars, freezing in the winter, and roasting in the summer, ashes and the occasional spark from the antique CB&Q 4-6-2s ahead wafting in through the open windows leaving one commonly filthy when stepping off in CUS. The old tea kettles could really get up and move on this superb trackwork when allowed to do so.

These cars were then rebuilt soon after the war by the Burlington with closed vestibules and some sort of crude cooling, as a recall, (to be then be themselves then replaced the beautiful and iconic Budd double deckers about 1952 onwards.

One of the most odd, and most sad memories I have was an eastbound mid-day Chicago-bound commute local (with an RPO and baggage being worked) trailed by several open platform coaches stopping patiently at the Riverside, IL depot c. 1949, the motive power a recently demoted still handsome and shiny shovel-nosed EMD/Budd Zephyr locomotive nosed right up to the Riverside Road village grade crossing. How the mighty had fallen, and how fortuitous it was that the weather required no train heat (these locomotives had NO steam generators for train heat). In the background out of sight somewhere was a recently sadly-retired 4-6-2 itself now indirectly replaced by a brand new E-7.

This has brought up a lot of good memories.

Denny

Denny S. Anspach MD
Okoboji, IA

Ha, ha.

Gents,

I'm finishing up a model of a late-40s Wabash single-sheathed auto box car. What color should the trucks be? Black, or the carbody color?

Thanks,

John Golden
Albersbach, Germany

RPM Blog: https://railroadprototypemodeler.wordpress.com/

--
Hey Boss,


Somehow I got deleted from this group in late May. I guess someone didn't like me. Jail is a lonely place.

Greg Martin 

I apologise, Tony - I forgot to include a smiley face in my previous post so that it would be obvious that I was speaking tongue-in-cheek.

Regards
Paul

Thank you for the offer. I already have that kit
Larry King

  Though I DID groan at the mention of Facebook,  however I like Chicago history and so looked at the link to the video which did open.


  Some Googling of the names on the warehouses and buildings gave the following data: 
The train appears to be on the Pennsylvania Railroad 

Opening - Building in background at 00:7 seconds is Cuneo Press, https://www.rpwrhs.org/w/index.php?title=Cuneo_Press   lists this at 22nd and Clinton near the Chicago river, so that is about where the video starts     https://www.flickr.com/photos/86125374@N00/2828020279    read comments on the link. 

At 31 seconds it looks like the photographer is between Cermak Road and the South Branch of the Chicago River. (21st Street?)  Google Maps lists this as PRR Bridge 463. 
Did you see the AT&SF Grand Canyon Line paint on the bridge?  As we cross the river that could be Canal street bridge opened. 

At 1:14 it appears that this is the CB&Q line from the west coming on. Note the two nicely ballasted tracks under the signal bridge.  How different it is today. 

At 1:28 into the video Crooks Warehouse, more here https://www.flickr.com/photos/52209513@N03/33910105995     and here   http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2017/03/bnsfcb-chicago-commuter-train-yard.html    Read the comment on second photo down by Bryan Howell , however the overriding gist is that we are looking at the Zephyr pit area by this time into video. 
Crooks Warehouse Terminal was listed as 14th Place which would put it, just north of the Q & PRR lines merging. 
Wish more of the Q engine facilities were visible at about 1:32 to 1:40, looking above the cars finds some notable markers. 

The presence of Pennsy cars is found by this link when Googling Crooks Warehouse Chicago  https://explore.chicagocollections.org/image/uic/59/0p0ww5w/

Where the video ends?  Not sure if that is the fabled Roosevelt Road overpass at the end. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                             Jim Dick            St Paul, MN 

issues with a number of solvents in California are about air pollution

    This rumor of course but I was told all the big box stores (and then everyone else) quit carrying these was the fear of law suits.  MEK I understand can still be purchased in CA, it's just a matter of finding the place.  I don't  want a 55 gallon drum of it.

    Years ago I had to go to the bay (Newark), where all the warehouses are, to get a gallon of glycerin to pickle lichen.

-- 
Jon Miller
For me time stopped in 1941
Digitrax  Chief/Zephyr systems, 
SPROG, JMRI User
NMRA Life member #2623
Member SFRH&MS

--
Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts

--
Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts

Friends,

This is obviously shot along the CB&Q, as most of the equipment is theirs (I did note a PRR round-roof boxcar). The buildings seem vaguely familiar from my trips on Amtrak into or out of Union Station--some I think some of the structures still standing, though nearly all are empty.

Yours Aye,


Garth Groff

 

On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 08:38 AM, Daniel A. Mitchell wrote:

The bronze bearings have to be seated in the journal boxes … it is unlikely that the raw castings would be suitable without some clean-up. Possibly the spring pads and bolster slots would also need some work. Was such done at the foundry, or at the RR shop?

 

The bearings seat against a loose piece in the box called the journal bearing wedge. These may well be machined, but only fit against locating bosses in the box.

Dennis Storzek

On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 08:08 AM, Richard Wilkens wrote:

The only area I think that would be "machined" would be the holes for the journal box covers, but this would be more drilling.

Those are rather large diameter and require little precision. I suspect they are cored in the casting.

Dennis Storzek