My winter project - Oakley Street Chicago

[bparrish]

So I have run out of everything else to do.  The trolley projects are all done and aside from a gauging deal in the Nampa yard.......... most stuff is running pretty well.

I finished my MMR about seven years ago and have added motive power to the original seven certificates about three years ago.

So I'm on to another.  The category is prototype modeling and it is an interesting one as you are recreating a scene that has some distinct criteria.  I have a few "friends" here in downtown Idaho who think that one MMR is enough but they obviously have not heard of oak leaf clusters and like that in the military when you do something stupid more than once and get decorated for it a second or third time.  For example, I have four Viet Nam campaign stars for the one year I was there for my all expense paid vacation on the PBR boats.

So here is what I am building.  Not every photo out there is suitable but this one is and it is fun as I lived within about two miles of where this photo was taken in 1893. No I was not there when they took the photo however! !

It is at Oakley Street on the Lake Street Elevated Railroad looking north about the time of the opening of service to California Street.  Additional service was opened within a few weeks.



The loco is one of about a dozen that they originally ordered from the Rhode Island loco works the year before.  The steamers were only in service for about four years before the entire line was put to third rail 600 volts.

I am starting with a Forney loco that was imported in the mid 1960's to Chicago to resemble these pots.  It's close but needs a bunch of detail stuff.



The passenger car is a Labelle narrow gauge car that I have started by cutting it down from fourteen windows to twelve as shown.  Also there are no steps as they used platforms at all stops.  I am in the process of redoing the end sills and railings now and will put up photos of that in a short while.



So here is the starting point.  My goal is to have it ready in the spring for the local division meet and then take it to the PNR meet in Portland in June.

Wish me luck ! ! ! !

se ya
Bob

[S&S RR]

Good luck Bob! Very cool project. I will be following along.

[donatode]

Another MMR in the making. Good luck Bob....I know you can.

[deemery]

Is this standard gauge?  Are you going to "broaden" the coach?


dave

[bparrish]

Dave ....

It is standard gauge but the coaches were rather small. It's amazing how much information is out there about this line.  There is one in the main hall at the Chicago history museum on Clark street in Chicago.

Also,  even though the locos were all ordered at the same time there are huge differences within a short time of delivery. Arc lights seem to be a glaring difference on some.  I've never found a schedule that indicated a difference between day and night service locos.

The first batch had Stevenson slide valve gear and a second batch that went first to the south side line and later mixed around has piston valves.

Thanx for looking in.
Bob

[bparrish]

So I went after the hardest part of the passenger car....... two days later.

They had some very elaborate decorative iron work for end rails on the vestibules.  I could get some of it in in HO so the rest had to get passed over.  The car is not to be judged by itself so it only needs super detailing.

There will be chains between the posts when assembled onto the car.

The posts are .024" brass wire and the horizontals rails are .016" phosphor bronze.  The diagonals are .008 wire strands from a chunk of 22 gauge stranded wire.

They still need a lot of cleaning and finishing work but they are good enough until put on the car.

[bparrish]

So the passenger car is roughed in and waiting for paint as is the locomotive.

I started on the scaffolding.  All of this structure was (and still is) riveted iron and plate steel. Again there is a lot of photos out there about the assembly and the CERA books of Chicago show a lot of this stuff.

I'm using a mix of Micro Engineering and Central Valley plastic castings to make this up.  I only have so many fully riveted beams so they are on the outside and I made up styrene interior beams where only Robert's deer spot guy will find that there are no rivets.

Everything has to be built up side down so that the deck surfaces are flat and level. 

First are the piles of gathered materials.



Now is the first of the setups for the bents and beams.



Next shows the structure coming together and blocked against a machinist's straight edge.  Closer to the front is the first of three tie segments that will be on top of the scaffolding.  This elevated line was double track at Oakley Street and there were several places where there were three and four track location for equipment storage.

They used a bolted beam at the outer edge of the ties and there were also 6x8" guard rail beams that are visible on most bridge structures between the rails.  Curiously, they didn't use tie plates until some time after 1900.  I'm doing this as originally built in 1893 so the rail will be spiked directly to the ties.  As most equipment was light I suppose it didn't matter about pounding the rail into the ties.



More tomorrow

see ya
Bob

[tct855]

Excellent
               Bob!
                       Thanx
                                  Thom...

[donatode]

[bparrish]

I have started on the ties and guard rails for the scaffolding.  They used an outer beam for holding the ties in line and an inner beam for holding the trucks if they did anything stupid.

So there about 500 NBW castings that need to be stabbed in.  They bolted everything.

So I decided to make up a drilling jig.  It centers on the ties and beams in both directions.  There is a small tab hanging down the locates off of the lower tie.

I'm going to go stir crazy before this part is done.

see ya
Bob




The locating tab can be seen in this photo.

[donatode]

Jigs .... just love them!!

[deemery]

Jigs .... just love them!!

Me too!!! 


dave

[bparrish]

I started the laying of the rail this afternoon.  It is really interesting as the earliest photos from 1893 through about 1905 do not show the use of tie plates.  They spiked the rails directly to the ties.  Later after some maintenance they start showing up.

There will be an additional guard rail added down the center but I can't get my spiking pliers in there so that will come later. 

I'm using million year old Kemtron wire spikes and they are really little and tend not to split the ties.  The rail is code 70.

This is all being built on foam core board as the spikes are about 3/8" long.  They are gripping the foam really well so I will need to cut the foam off of the tie strip when I'm done.  I'll then cut off the spikes color the ties with aniline dye and then super glue the spikes from the under side so nothing moves.

[PRR Modeler]

Very nice.

[rpdylan]

i love this project! thank you for posting, I'm wanting to build an elevated section and this thread is great for me to learn!