Orange Rattlers to move from East Chicago to East Troy

Ok, I just received word from another mailing list the orange cars will begin their move tomorrow, September 25th.

Can anyone confirm or deny this, and maybe what route they will be taking?

Here is a nice story on the cars being prepared for the move ...
http://hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2010/ ... icago.html

No info on the actual move in that story.

The move is happening today. Was supposed to start at 7:00 am, the train may be up near or in Wisconsin already.

Historic South Shore cars preserved in Wisconsin
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/port ... 30712.html

PORTER | The National Park Service has transferred five historic South Shore Railroad Cars to the East Troy Electric Railroad in East Troy, Wis., where visitors will be allowed ride in the historic cars.

The cars were built in the 1920s and operated through 1982. When the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District was formed in 1977, federal funds were granted to purchase new cars.

East Troy Electric Railroad, a not-for-profit organization, was chosen as the recipient of the last five cars because they have the ability to preserve, maintain and operate the cars consistent with NPS guidelines.

I'm glad they're in the process of restoring at least one car to its original 1926 configuration.

I'm just miffed at the probability that the other cars will be converted to trolley pole operation. As IRM was able to prove at last year's trolley pageant, if they are able to operate pantographs under trolley wire, why can't East Troy to the same?

IRM's overhead isn't that great for pantographs. Trains using pans can only go from Jefferson Street in Union to just short of the west switch at Johnson Siding, and cannot go further. In between there are a couple spots where the pan must be dropped to avoid snagging a trolley frog. IRM can run single-car trains with pans for a trolley parade, but our overhead needs more work before multi-car trains can traverse the whole mainline with pans.

With this in mind, it's not really surprising that Easy Troy wants to put poles on theirs. Converting the overhead to accomodate pantographs is a big deal and if they expect to ever run them (safely), poles are the easiest way to do that.

Much as I think of pans as one of the critical differentiators between interurban and heavy electric, it's a small price to pay to see these cars run again.

I'm looking at the CERA book of the South SHore and car 1 has a trolley pole and pantagraph. The early street running had pole operations in towns swapping to pans outside of city limits. In time the overhead was reworked for full pan running. So putting poles on not historically incorrect.

I thought some frogs like the HO model versions had buffers for the pans to operate thru the frogs.

dinwitty wrote:I'm looking at the CERA book of the South SHore and car 1 has a trolley pole and pantagraph. The early street running had pole operations in towns swapping to pans outside of city limits. In time the overhead was reworked for full pan running. So putting poles on not historically incorrect.

Perhaps if they also shorten the cars to the original 60ft?

Poles are a small price to pay to actually have the cars running down the track on a regular basis.