EJ&E 765 - The Last of its Kind

I would like to say that the #765 Mikado in Gary Indiana is the last surviving EJ&E steam engine, but at this point, it is probably more accurate to say that it is the last existing one. With that said, it is still great that it exists, which is a miracle in itself.

After seeing pictures of the 765 online for years, I finally made it out to see it for the first time in person. For me, I instantly got chills down my back as I turned westbound on to route 12 just east of Broadway in Gary, and caught my first glimpse of the tender.

Even though she has not had a heartbeat in decades, gazing upon the 765 in person is a wonderful experience. Since its not every day most of us see a steam engine, you quickly forget how massive these pieces of machinery are. Below I am going to post a few picture showing the engine. I am not too knowledgeable about the workings of a steam engine and its parts, so enjoy the pictures.

Here is a close up shot of the front. The headlght and number boards are long gone. The old electrical wiring inside still exists behind this fixture to a certain degree.

Only a fraction of the cow catcher is still in place.

My nephew Emmett looks upon the fireman side of the locomotive. He said "The wheels are huge!"

Alco Reverse Gear, patented in 1915. The engine was built in 1929 by Baldwin Locomotive works.

The metal is getting pretty thin in a lot of places. Years of erosion are much more visible up close.

Not much left in the cab. See picture below for reference.

Inside the cab looking up at the ceiling.

I found this carved into a piece of steel, it says "J 765." I wonder when this was actually added.

 

Here is me an my nephew in the cab. He was afraid to touch any of the levers. Maybe next time.

Well, that is how she looks today. Like I said earlier, at least she still exists. The sad part is just seeing what has happened to the engine over time. Several items of note are missing, such as the bell, whistle, builders plates, several controls and pipes. Some were removed over the years by the city, others I am sure were stolen and sold for scrap. I can only hope that somewhere the city of Gary has the whistle and bell, and that they were not melted down never to be seen again. The cab windows were encased in wood, which has since rotted away. Pieces of rotting wood are still present in the cab. At one point the cab had sliding windows as well. All long gone.

Well, if you want to see what the 765 looked like in her past glory days, here you go. Most of these images are from the Blackhawk Railway Historical Society. You can purchase photographs from them. Please visit their webpage at http://www.blackhawknrhs.org/

Now, the 765 was presented to Gary Indiana after the city requested a steam engine from the EJ&E to put on display. In 1948 the EJ&E sold the 765 to DM&IR where it saw service renumbered as 1330. In 1962 it was returned to pristine condition, numbered back to the EJ&E 765, and presented to Gary. If you observe the photographs below, you can see the care and pride that went into this engine. It is a shame when you compare these pictures to what remains today.

Believe it or not, this is the same engine. Immaculate condition.

Here is a shot inside the cab. They had each lever labeled. I would guess that hundreds of hours went into getting the engine into condition for the donation. I believe the man in the center of this picture is the Mayor of Gary, George Chacharis. You can see the sliding cab window in the background.

Here is 765 in service, unknown location.

Restored and ready for delivery.

 765 being delivered to its final resting place. Looks like a great crowd turned out for the show.

Of course my hope for the 765 would be that it somehow would return to Joliet and be placed on display in front of Union Station. The plans for upcoming construction around the station call for a display of an old engine or piece of railroad equipment. Having this as the center piece would be incredible. I am sure some people in Gary would have something to say about that though. With that said, someone could at least take the time to accurately refinish the paint on the engine. Right now the EJ&E and the number 765 is almost made with a pastel yellow. The numbers were painted on freehand. If you look at the care that went into the presentation of this engine, it is disrespectful. The Chicago Outer Belt Line logo should be repainted on the tender. This would at least be a start. Who knows, maybe one day I will win the lottery and can bring the engine home to Joliet.

Layout Update - February 2013

A lot of work has been completed on my Joliet layout since the last post. One of my goals this year is to post more regular updates, so hopefully I can closer document my progress. Life has been crazy since last July, so to bring you up to date I will share some of my most notable progress throughout the layout and on the Union Station project.

Since the last post I now have the two main loops running on the layout. I installed foam roadbed under the Atlas track that I am using which really cuts down on the noise. I sealed the plywood base by painting it with a brown flat paint. Both loops are powered by my ZW, and both are controlled via DCS and Legacy. In an upcoming post I will show some pictures of my electrical setup. The outside corners are a lot closer than I would like them to be, but I was forced to cut them close in order to make a more scale downtown Joliet city layout.

This first picture shows my new MTH premier EJ&E transfer diesels. I am very happy with these engines. The 903 is a powered unit and the 912 is a dummy. In the future I will post a review of these engines and try to compare them to the real units that they are modeled after.

My other big train purchase of the year was the Atlas double sheathed EJ&E boxcars. I will also review these cars in the future. The detail on these cars is incredible.

Since November I have been steadily moving forward on the Union Station project, and am nearing the completion of the exterior of the building. I spent dozens of hours hand scribing the brick platform. After looking at my options for purchasing plastic brick, I decided that the result was much more realistic when carved by hand. It took a long time but it also saved a lot of money.

I scribed the brick into the 1/8" hardboard. I believe that this is what the Union Station platform looked like for a majority of its life.

Here is a shot of my new 1:43 scale Joliet police car. The car lights up with blinking LEDs. Currently it is controlled with a 9 volt battery. Eventually I will connect this car to a switch on the layout so visitors will be able to turn it on and off. The car size, even though it is slightly larger than O scale, works perfectly, even with the O scale police figures standing right next to the car. I ordered the car from 01BlueBusa, you can search that name on youtube to see his work.

The trees in the picture are right now temporarily standing just for this shot. I will need to make them shorter. The sidewalk is the 1/4" MDF which is painted with a textured sandstone paint. Sidewalk lines are just scribed in, and eventually I will ad a dark colored wash to bring out the details. The street is Durhams water putty with a touch of black acrylic paint. This was my first attempt on the street and I will need to reconstruct it in the future, but for now it is acceptable.

Here is a platform shot on the train level.

I decided that I needed to finish portions of the inside of the station because of how large and up front the windows will be for the layout viewers. I decided that if I did not finish portions of the interior that the station would be lacking. Now that I have it started, I think that it will be a much more impressive finished product. The shot below shows the interior tile. The tile is scale plastic which I painted. I matched the interior of the station floor and the tile lines up perfectly with the windows, so I guess I did a good job measuring. Eventually I will add LED lighting to the interior.

Here is a closer shot looking through the window from the outside. Next I need to add some interior walls and ticked counter, and construct the interior staircase.

For the most part that brings you up to date. I am trying to finish the complete exterior of the station project as soon as possible. Also I have started construction on phase 2 of the layout, which I will share with you next.

The Union Station 100th Anniversary Banquet

Some exciting news as the Blackhawk chapter of the National Railway Historical Society have announced a banquet to celebrate the 100 years of the Joliet Union Station. On October 14th 1912 a grand opening celebration was held at the Union Station. The program of events for that day will be recreated to mark this special occasion, everything down to the menu will be influenced by the 1912 banquet.

This is pretty exciting and I think it is a great way to honor the past and celebrate what is one of the greatest historical structures still standing in Joliet. I guess I know what I am doing October 14th. For more information visit http://www.blackhawknrhs.org/

The Joliet Track Elevation Project - Rock Island Line

With the Union Station as the centerpiece of my layout, the track elevation project that began in 1908 and concluded in 1912 will be a major characteristic of my track plan. It is amazing to think that as recent as 100 years ago, the train traffic crusied directly through the downtown area, which at the time was the place to be in Joliet. In fact, the main Rock Island line sat directly next to the courthouse, and then passed directly through Jefferson St. just east of Chicago. I would like to know how loud and disturbing it would have been during that time to be trying to hold a trial with a steam engine crawling past, undoubtedly shaking the entire courthouse.

This first picture is taken from the clock tower of the old courthouse looking east. The street below is Jefferson St. and you can see the two main lines of the Rock Island crossing Jefferson St. Its hard to imagine the city center with this arrangement today.

Traveling further west, this is the old Joliet Rock Island station that was used prior to the construction of the Union Station. This picture is taken looking west.

Now moving even further west, here is a very early shot of the Rock Island line crossing the DesPlaines river prior to the construction of the lift bridge in 1930. The I&M Canal is on the right. This picture was possibly taken from an upper floor of the Joliet National Hotel which was on the corner of Jefferson (Exchange St. at the time) and Bluff St.

The construction of the track elevation brings the landscape of downtown Joliet to where it is today. The lift bridge was constructed in 1930 and at one time had two active lines. Today there is only one active line. This bridge has seen a lot of railroad history pass over it, everything from steam engines to the Rock Island Aero train.

Standing on top of the track elevation looking west, you can see where a second main line used to exist on the left.

Facing east from the same position you can see the gradual curve towards Union Station which is covered by the trees on the right. The new courthouse dominates this view. To imagine the track configuration 100 years ago, pretend these tracks instead of curving to the right, proceed straight towards the courthouse on ground level.

Trying to match the scenery of this picture will be a challenge on my layout just because of the dried weeds inbetween the rails. Matching the ballast color should be an easier task.

A peek into the past is offered with these next two photographs. I am not sure how long these tracks have been out of service, but it has been quite a long time. This is the Rock Island line over DesPlaines St. It appears these tracks curved down and ran south along the east side of the river.

I wonder what the last engine was to pass over these rails.

The opposite side of the main line facing east shows this downgrade which ran just past Joliet St. for a time. Some old pictures shows passenger cars parked on this line.

The tracks were elevated with a concrete wall which at some spots shows its age at 100 years, though overall it is holding up quite well.

The final shot for today is a view of the line crossing over DesPlaines St. where the Rock Island Lines logo continues to fade. The Rock Island is no more, however the main line above is still quite active. CSX freight crosses this path at least 6 times a day. 

Layout Construction - Track Planning

If you have ever put together a layout that is more extensive than just using a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, then it is probably easy to understand why everyone is so impressed when they see it. It is obviously because there is so few of us out there who want to put in the insane amount of hours to put something like this together. With that said, the light at the end of the tunnel is at least visible at this point. I have decided to take some advice of a friend on the OGR forums (Ray Marion) and get at least one loop wired up so I can run some trains, before I go insane.

Shown below is the beginnings of my power station setup. I have put this off for as long as I can, now it is time to get to work. You can see my new TIU and AIU for DCS mounted and ready to go. I still need to mount two surge protector circuit boards and two MTH terminal blocks. My ZW and Legacy base will most likely be mounted on a shelf underneath this board.

I finished almost all of the elevated line from the Union Station all the way to the west bank of the DesPlaines river. This was a nightmare trying to finish this by myself and trying to keep it as level as possible.

The most difficult section to complete was the area where the center access door is. I made this section using 2 X 4s and two door hinges. Its swings open with one wheel touching the floor on the latch side. The hinged side is cut at a 90 degree angle. You can see below the latch side is cut at an angle.

Behind the Union Station just past the diamonds is an O-72 and an O-80 curve. The UP switch tower will stand just behind the top left diamond.

Here is another view looking north. The downgrade begins half way through these curves. The old EJ&E passenger station will stand just inside the curves on the upper right hand section.

Here is a view from the corner chair facing south. Once more buildings are constructed, it should break up the drastic curves that are being used. I had to trim 1.5" off of the station platform to fit these curves in, otherwise the O-80 loop was too close to the wall. It is still cutting it very close, but I cannot trim the station platform any further.

Final shot for todays update, looking at the Union Station from the north. I constructed two parking lot configurations for the station, one of which can be seen here. I will elaborate on this when I post the next Union Station update.

I should have some action on the rails by the end of May, hopefully within a week.