General
Chicago had the largest street railway system in North America if not the world and as a result obtained streetcars and material via railroad freight cars and needed electric locomotives to move the standard railroad cars around their large shop facilities. The Chicago City Railway built two such locomotives, C-50 and C-51 in their own shops in 1908 for this purpose with both serving in this capacity for fifth years.
History
During their lifetime the locomotives were reassigned the numbers L-201 and L-202 by the Chicago Surface Lines, the company which grew out of the consolidation of the various individual streetcar operators in the city. In 1947 the CSL and the Chicago Rapid Transit were taken over by the newly created Chicago Transit Authority. While modern PCC streetcars upgraded the streetcar lines, it became clear that trackless trolleys and propane powered buses were the most economical way to operate surface transportation and line by line the carlines were converted. The then relatively new PCC streetcars were taken out of service and shipped back to the St. Louis Car Company to be salvaged for parts to be applied to the new rapid transit cars they were constructing for CTA. L-202 shuttled the flat cars with these streetcars on them to the railroad for their journey to St. Louis for deconstruction. The last streetcar line was converted in April 1958 ending an era in Windy City urban transportation. At this point it was decided to send L-202 to the CTA’s Skokie Shops for conversion to rapid transit standards for use at the rapid division’s material yard at 63rd Street where it obtained supplies like rails, ties and structural steel for the L by the railroad carload. About the only things that remained original after the rebuilding was the frame and most likely the large old-fashioned K-14 controller. Power trucks were salvaged from recently scrapped wooden L cars 2863 and 2884. A totally new superstructure was fabricated upon which a single trolley pole was mounted to serve the interchange with the New York Central Railroad. It also had third rail shoes to access the yard trackage so equipped. There is a roster which states L-202 only weights 32 and half tons but this may be an error as the L car trucks are much heavier than the original the locomotive had in 1908 when it was reported to be 40 tons. Within a year L-202 was renumbered S-343 which fit into the L’s service car numbering system. Our locomotive served a hard life at the 63rd Street yard, eventually having a ballast weight under one of it hoods knocked loose and sliding through the end of the hood. With final indignity of suffering some fire damage from a stack of burning bridge ties, it was declared out of service and the RELIC Trolley Museum was able to acquire it in 1979. Since it had standard MCB railroad couplers, it was shipped to the museum on its own wheels on the then still connected track the AE&FR had with the Illinois Central Railroad. Museum volunteers jacked the ballast weight back into position, straightened out the sheet metal hood, replaced the broken and heat damaged windows and repainted the little locomotive, deciding to return its fleet number to L-202. With the arrival of Illinois Central caboose 9648 in 1996 it was decided to pair it up with L-202 to provide “caboose trips” every Fall for museum visitors.
Narrative
The little 40 ton locomotive served well in the caboose train role but suffered a traction motor armature failure in 2008. While it could run on two motors it was decided that all four Westinghouse 302 traction motors should be refurbished. L & S Electric, which has a shop in Sturtevant, Wisconsin agreed to do the job on a fill-in basis so in 2009 the locomotive was jacked up on cribbing and both trucks were moved out from underneath it after which a rented crane removed the motors for transport to L & S. For the next two seasons volunteers worked on the frame, underbody and two trucks, taking the painted surfaces down to bare metal and then priming them and painting them black. By 2012 all four motors had been rebuilt and bench tested at L & S and then were returned to the museum to be reinstalled by crane, into the trucks into the same position they had been removed from. With everything being put back together L-202 was able to resume its task of pulling the caboose on its Fall runs in 2013. L-202 is as close the museum can get to the old home-built electric flat motors #49 and #23 that operated the freight service on the Aurora Elgin and Fox River Electric Company until 1946 when diesel #5 took over.
Author: Joseph Hazinski, Curator