Trolleyville Update

Nick, Stan, Joe, and Charlie have returned from Cleveland after prepping the 36 and 319 for movement. Stan has posted a number of pictures on the member's photo gallery here.

And Stan says:

This trip was short notice and that's an understatement. Nick called me at one thirty in the afternoon Friday and said that the cars will be loaded on Monday, then I called Charlie and Joe. Within a few hours of finding out we were on the way to Cleveland. We arrived in Cleveland around 2 am Saturday morning, got a few hours sleep at the Red Roof Inn and unwillingly woke up at 7:30 am Saturday. Grabbed a quick breakfast and headed to Brookpark to meet with Tim and Ken, who already had the 303 pumped up and ready to do some switching. Thankfully Tim is a fan of IRM and allowed us to work in the shop which was heated, well lit and had a full length pit. The plan was made and we quickly got to work knowing that we only had till 2 pm to get this done, and if not finished we were going to work outside in the snow. Charlie and Nick went to the roof and removed bases and poles along with Tim. Joe and I went deep and removed brake rigging and motor leads along with labeling everything. Once this was done Nick, Charlie, Tim and Joe removed pilots and steps from one end of each car. We also took down the globes and secured anything that might break while in transit. We got done around 3 pm and cleaned up, put tools away and washed up, then went to lunch with Tim. After lunch we hit the road and headed west toward Chicago and when I got home I passed out and woke up Sunday afternoon..

This is one of two trips to Cleveland for preparing the cars to ship and the next time will involve much more work. Three cars which are all complete and one even has a pan to remove. This again will be extremely short notice and I hope to get one or two more guys to come and help.

Silk Road will load the carbodies onto dollies today, but they will not be shipped to IRM until Monday, Dec. 28, due to restrictions on getting permits. The trucks, however, should arrive in the next couple of days. Tim hopes to move the 415 and 460 to Central this week for replacing the 451's compressor, then move all of the remaining steel cars to Brookpark next week for prep.

Thanks for all this hard work on short notice!