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.