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Chicago Tribune
June 21, 1992 Trolley ride into the past Buffs get charged up about museum Author: Paula Lauer. Edition: FINAL EDITION Section: TEMPO NORTHWEST Page: 1 Index Terms: SUBURB RAILROAD INTERVIEW PROFILE GUIDELINE Estimated printed pages: 8 Article Text: ``Coleman is next!'' the conductor bellowed, ``Coleman! All a-BOARD!'' Passengers not already settled and peering out the windows of the old interurban car scrambled aboard. The fact that Coleman is a mere mile-and-a- half down the tracks and the only stop that this train makes on its 20-minute round trip schedule didn't seem to be an issue. This was purely a pleasure ride. The destination: Somewhere around 1910, according to conductor Rich Anderson of Oswego. No, this wasn't a time machine, a new ride at Great America or the magic of Disney. It was car No. 20, the oldest operating interurban electric rail car in the United States, about to make one of many 10 m.p.h. trips down the tracks of South Elgin's Fox River Trolley Museum to Coleman, Ill., population 0. Founded in 1959, the Fox River Trolley Museum is home to relic electric railroad, interurban and street cars dating back as far as 1887. According to Andy Roth, an Elgin resident and museum member, ``Everything about the Fox River Trolley Museum is historic, from the tracks that date back to 1896 to the antique cars to the 300-plus-year-old oak trees at Castlemuir station.'' Castlemuir station is the starting point for rail fans, deadheads (defined as anyone who rides free-railroad employees, pass holders or, in this case, museum members) and the curious who want to experience a mode of transportation that, around the turn of the century, provided a vital link between rural areas and the big cities. These humming iron roads brought not only an affordable means of transportation, but also electricity, same-day news and entertainment in the form of trolley parks and picnic groves to those living in the Fox River Valley. A not-for-profit organization, the museum boasts a collection of 22 cars in various stages of restoration, including a Soo Line caboose built in 1887, two locomotives, a coach built in 1891 that was converted into a Chicago post office street car in 1896, and street cars from San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro. They are housed in a 7,000-square-foot barn or sit idly by on tracks. Visitors will also find rolling stock from the Chicago Aurora and Elgin (a k a the Roarin' Elgin), the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee and the Chicago South Shore and South Bend. Those members willing to volunteer their time to run the place as ``active members'' do everything from manning the station/bookstore and cutting the grass to replacing railroad ties and rebuilding a traction motor. ``There's such a wide variety of skills required to run a railroad,'' noted Don MacCorquodale of Winnetka, one of five museum directors and the curator. ``There's a place for everybody, and we're always looking for people to help out.'' A self-taught authority on the mechanical workings of these relic cars and a marketing consultant by trade, MacCorquodale can often be found tinkering in the car barn, bent over dismantled wheel sets, fiddling with a stubborn air compressor (used to pump up the brakes) or coaxing a little more life out of a 60-year-old motor. ``We're pretty clever at either manufacturing the parts we need or rebuilding what we've got,'' MacCorquodale said with a chuckle. ``We're all good at something.'' Joe Franta, a museum member since 1987, said he doesn't get involved in the mechanical end of things too often, but enjoys researching the history of the roads, working on the tracks, and, the biggest benefit of being a member, being able to actually act out the fantasy of conducting his own train. ``We like to say we're working on our railroad,'' the Glen Ellyn resident said with a smile. ``Instead of having an HO-scale railroad or an O-scale railroad, our railroad is real gauge, and our scale is 12 inches to the foot.'' On a recent spring day, the soft thumping of the air compressor made kids squirm with anticipation, and the double whistle blast caused more than a few grins and nostalgic nods of recollection as the train pulled slowly out of Castlemuir station, past the depot, which doubles as a bookstore, and picnic grounds. Up ahead and to the right, a couple of Chicago Rapid Transit cars share a length of storage track with an orange refrigerator car and bright yellow electric locomotive. Straddling the aisle, Anderson braced himself as Roarin' Elgin No. 20, swaying gently, nosed its way down the tracks. ``As you all know, a lot of things have changed since 1896, but some things never change,'' said Anderson. ``I'm the conductor and I have to collect the tickets. Tickets please!'' Making his way down the aisle, Anderson explained that this mile and a half stretch of track is all that's left of the Aurora Elgin and Fox River Electric railroad, which used to be about 47 miles long and stretched from Carpentersville to Yorkville. Originally a part of the Chicago Aurora and Elgin (known as the Aurora Elgin and Chicago from 1900 through 1922), the AE&FR was part of an electric trolley and third-rail network that connected communities north and south along the Fox River to destinations west and east to Chicago. ``This was back before automobiles, when Route 31, or River Road as it was called then, was two muddy ruts and there were only two other means of transportation,'' Anderson said, ``your feet or your horse. A trip from Elgin to Geneva took all day, but when the trolleys came along, you could make it in a little under an hour.'' Indeed, a news story from a July 1, 1896, issue of the Elgin Daily Courier, titled ``The Initial Trip,'' recounts the first trip over the electric line from Elgin to the county seat of Geneva. The article reported that ``Colman (sic) was reached without incident, except that a stop was made to take Mike Ilummel aboard. Mr. Ilummel was down to milk his cows, but let them go unmilked rather than miss the first through ride on the Carpentersville, Elgin and Aurora railroad. . . . The running time, deducting the Colman stop and one or two others necessary to remove obstructions from the track, was less than an hour.'' The story also notes that ``The view approaching the river below Colman, from the south on the down grade, is magnificent. The trip is truly a delightful one.'' The trip is still delightful, and the view undoubtedly just as pretty. The overgrown foliage forms a green tunnel, and passengers catch glimpses of waving cyclists whizzing by on a bike path that runs parallel to the tracks. They see patient fishermen, ducks, beavers, deer and an occasional great blue heron wading along the river bank. ``It wasn't travel for rich people,'' Franta noted, ``it was travel for everyday people. You could ride the electric line for 5 or 10 cents, and you could actually go other places and come back in the same day. It was the same thing with news,'' he continued. ``Before the trolleys came along, if the Chicago Tribune was printed on a Wednesday, it would get out here probably around Friday or Saturday. The electric railroads brought the paper out the same day it was printed-that was a big deal back then.'' Another piece of progress the electric rail lines brought to rural communities was electricity. Many of the big electric utility companies, including Commonwealth Edison, started out as electric railroad companies, according to Richard Kunz, publications director and board member of the Chicago-based Shoreline Interurban Historical Society and editor of First and Fastest, a quarterly historic rail publication. ``The electric railroads made about a quarter of their revenue in the beginning by selling the leftover power to towns along the line,'' Franta explained. ``A small town like South Elgin probably got its lights five or six years before DeKalb did because the electric road was the power supplier to the area.'' James Yunker, a train buff from Des Plaines, was enjoying a ride on Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee car No. 715 as he recalled riding the rails when he was younger and living in Chicago. ``I enjoy this stuff,'' he said grinning. ``We used to get on Friday after work and ride 'til three or four a.m. just for something to do. I used to ride these cars all the time.'' MacCorquodale, conductor for the day on No. 715, pointed to a patch of weeds alongside the tracks and welcomed passengers to downtown Coleman. ``Coleman used to be a busy place,'' he noted. ``Today the population is 27, which just happens to be the number of people on this car.'' Although designated on some Illinois road maps, Coleman, named for the adjacent Coleman family farm, was actually just a transfer point until the Aurora Elgin and Fox River ceased passenger service in 1935. Travelers could disembark at Coleman, climb the steep limestone steps up the abutment supporting the overhead Illinois Central track (now the Chicago Central and Pacific) and board a steam train that could transport them as far west as Iowa. ``If you like Coleman, you'll like Coleman Grove,'' MacCorquodale promised, signaling the motorman. Another whistle blast and a few minutes later, No. 715 squealed to a stop. ``As you can see, there's a compelling reason to stop,'' said MacCorquodale glancing toward the front of the car. ``The tracks end here.'' After a quick lesson in seat flipping for the return trip to Castlemuir (the back of the car conveniently becomes the front), MacCorquodale explained that in the old days, people worked six-day, 60-hour weeks, so Sunday was an ``off day'' for the trolley companies. To generate Sunday ridership, electric lines built trolley parks adjacent to their tracks. Trout Park in Elgin, Coleman Grove, Pinelands a little farther south, Pottawatomie Park in St. Charles, Glenwood Park in Batavia and the old Century park system in Aurora were all part of the trolley park network. Some parks had Ferris wheels and roller coasters, and most had a baseball diamond, dance hall and picnic grounds. ``There really isn't much to do in Coleman anymore,'' said MacCorquodale, ``but back in 1910 it was a popular spot for freshwater clamming.'' According to historic accounts, the 7 a.m. streetcar was always filled with passengers headed for the clamming areas. Besides the reward of freshly steamed clam meat, the pearls went for anywhere between $2 and $400. One account tells of a gentleman who found five imperfect pearls his first time out, which he sold for $75 each, more than a year's salary. And companies that manufactured buttons and jackknife handles paid as much as $80 a ton for clam shells. ``They were the ultimate recyclers,'' said MacCorquodale. On the ride back to Castlemuir station, Roth, a deadhead and private tour guide for the day, explained that the Aurora Elgin and Fox River Electric railroad is owned by the museum and still legally exists, even if it is only a mile and a half long. He pointed out a Chicago Central and Pacific rail connection to the outside world, just south of the Coleman interchange, which was used to bring the museum's first cars out in the 1960s and is still used to transport new cars to the museum. Ralph Taylor of Naperville, one of the founders of the organization, was 19 when he and some fellow rail fans from Glenbard West High School decided to buy and preserve four Chicago Aurora and Elgin cars. It was 1959; the CA&E (affectionately referred to as The Kidney Shaker in its day) had terminated passenger service in 1957 when the Eisenhower expressway and a car in every garage made the line no longer viable. Taylor and his buddies bought four cars for $500 each, one of which was interurban car No. 20, built in 1902 for the opening of the line. ``We had no idea what we were going to do with them or where to put them,'' Taylor, now 52, recalled, ``none of us hardly had a cent to our name. We had a vague idea that we wanted to start an electric railroad museum . . . how to go about doing it, where we were going to do it, we had no idea at the time, but we started buying the pieces.'' Taylor said the group leased a building from the Chicago and North Western Railway for a year and then from the Illinois Central for a couple of years before they found the South Elgin site. Although passenger service on the Aurora Elgin and Fox River Electric line had ceased in 1935, a three-mile stretch from South Elgin to the Elgin State Hospital was owned and operated as a freight line by Robert DeYoung. ``He made his living off it by delivering coal to the state hospital,'' Taylor explained. ``We approached him about letting us bring our museum out to his railroad and essentially rent part of his track to operate the cars on. We worked out an arrangement with him to do that and bought some property out there in 1962 and started bringing equipment out a year later.'' Working weekends, Taylor's group, then going by the moniker RELIC (Railway Equipment Leasing and Investment Company), laid tracks, installed overhead trolley lines and moved an entire electrical substation, which converts the 34,000 volts of alternating current into 600 volts of direct current used to run the cars, from Batavia to South Elgin. The substation is still in use today and, Roth said, is one of the last rotary converters in the country that operates on a regular basis. ``We opened for business July 4, 1966,'' Taylor said. After the state hospital converted from coal to gas boilers in 1971, DeYoung sold his railroad to Taylor's group, which eventually changed its name to Fox River Trolley Museum, a non-profit museum corporation. Half of the three-mile track was torn up and the money from the scrap was used to pay off the loan for the remaining mile and a half. The collection of cars expanded, and the membership grew from a dozen or so to almost 100. But as conductor Anderson noted on car No. 20, some things never change. The museum is still run totally on volunteer labor, and all proceeds from ticket sales ($2 for adults, $1 for kids 3-11 and $1.50 for senior citizens) as well as membership dues and donations get plowed back into the museum. Members readily attest that running a railroad, albeit a small one, is a big job. During the course of 26 years, members have invested more than $500,000 and countless hours in the name of preservation and nostalgia. Unlike the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, also a volunteer-run organization, the Fox River Trolley Museum specializes in electric trains. Still, both museums occasionally exchange restoration tips and parts. ``This museum fulfills a very important mission in showing us an important part of our heritage,'' said Kunz from his Chicago office. ``And the best part about it is it's a hands-on experience-you get a chance to ride and see what it was like-see how it bumps along the track and that sort of thing. It's a living museum.'' Serving as conductor on Chicago Rapid Transit car No. 4451, Bruce Moffet of Chicago and author of 40 Feet Below, a book on the history of the still- damp Chicago tunnel system, solicited the assistance of passengers willing to help test the whistle before heading back to Castlemuir. This was the cue 4- year-old Aaron Fritz from Metropolis was waiting for. Scrambling to the front of the car, he gave a mighty blast of the whistle, signaling to anyone within earshot that they were comin' in. Caption: PHOTO (color): Volunteer Conductor Bruce Moffat of Chicago boards 90-year- old No. 20 at Fox River Trolley Museum. PHOTO (color): Ryan Prather, 3, enjoys the ride. Photos by Carolyn Kaster. PHOTO: Joan Johnson helps 3-year-old Sarah off the car at the end of the line. PHOTO: Rita Weber and her daughter Maggie give their tickets to conductor Bruce Moffat. Photos by Carolyn Kaster. PHOTOS 4 Memo: This story is a composite of versions published in the Tempo Northwest and Tempo Du Page sections.COPYRIGHT 1992, CHICAGO TRIBUNE Record Number: 06*21*4\92060004.401 |
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