Dear Pilot,

U-505 wishes to thank you for your kind words and your understanding. I think he was impressed! He insists that this should not be taken as an insult though I don’t know how it could be. It’s just that he would not have expected an engine he’s never met to understand his position so well. Fair enough since none of us in his yard seem to get the finer points of it as much as he’d like. He wouldn’t go so far as to agree with you out loud, but I think he probably does imagine the world is a bit smaller for us locomotives, since we can only go where our rails let us. He is shifting a bit on his rollers, but I note he isn’t disagreeing with me out loud either. (He says it’s just the weather bouncing between hot and cold so much lately.)

He did wish to clarify though that he would not lay the entire responsibility for his preservation at Admiral Gallery’s feet. As the story goes, it was really more his brother’s idea who then spoke to Mr. Lohr and even that would not have been enough on its own. Lots of other people had to think moving him here was worth doing and then they had to figure out how to arrange it and collect enough money to have it done. If it were Gallery alone and not for our museum and the Navy and the people of Chicago’s donations, U-505 might not have found his way here.

Even now, he’s still amazed at how everything that had to happen for him to come here did.

“All of it, just to make two little diesel engines happy,” he says. He’s getting better at jokes, don’t you think?

It’s great news to hear another of us Budd builds have been preserved. 999 was less enthused to hear, although I don’t think it’s anything personal. Apparently the Pennsy is a difficult subject with New York Central engines. Displaying models of engines inside 4618 is an interesting idea though. She’ll be more of a museum exhibit than all of us that way, haha!

Models of the insides of we engines remind me of our museum’s exhibits about the inside of people and that debate about how that is science but the outside of people is art and doesn’t belong here. We have a new exhibit of “kinetic art” sculptures that are confusing people on that point again. My guide says kinetic means the sculptures move and Mr. McMaster says the mechanics of the movement – the physics, my guide elaborated – is what makes it science.

She showed me the enclosed picture of the sculptures, but the picture doesn’t move so I don’t think we can fully appreciate the art. They should invent a picture that does move. (My guide says that’s what television and film are, a bunch of pictures that move. They should make a television that can move out here to the yard then.)

I didn’t know that about steam engines needing certification to work. I bet they all feel spectacular to be certified. It’s not the same thing, of course, but it sounds a bit like having your papers properly signed over to the museum. This past Christmas, the famous actress Colleen Moore signed over the Fairy Castle dollhouse so it legally belongs to the museum now. Apparently she told the children a story about fairies living in the castle being worried about her taking their house back to California because they hate the weather there so she made it official that the dollhouse stays here. I think she made the part about the fairies’ complaint up because the weather in California is absolutely beautiful, but I remember being a bit relieved when the Q finally signed me over too.

By that point, I had been here ten years and unless they were going to put me back in service, I don’t think they’d have found a better place for me. Up to then, our train was just on loan though so if they wanted to, our railroad could have asked for us back. It was a relief to know for certain I wouldn’t have to move to a new display. I would miss U-505, 999, and 2903 if I’d been sent somewhere else. And all the moving U-505 had to do first would have been for nothing!

But you’re still in revenue service and raising fares at that! Maybe the money your museum saves not having to get you certified to work too is enough to buy a typewriter instead. If not, don’t worry. I remember how to read cursive.

Your friend,

Pioneer

Dear Pilot,

My guides found your offer to help without our accounting quite… ironic. It’s only that apparently we have a computer that does that, but we have just put it up for sale. How funny to have such an offer to share your adding machine right as they’re trying to offload ours. They say it’s a really complex machine and does more than figure sums, but maybe it’s too complicated if they are not getting enough use out of it to want to keep it?

There’s perhaps a reason we still use adding machines. But then, we are a museum of science and industry: it only makes sense for us to try new things as they come out. Part of science – I am being reminded – is trying things out to see if they work and that even if they do work, there may be room for improvement. I am certainly proof of that, haha!

Another new thing our museum is going to get to try is solar panels. We were told last month that we are to be given a grant from the federal government to try having them power the heat inside the building. They’re big black panels that they’re going to put on the roof and when the sun shines on them, it makes electricity that can power the air conditioning. If the solar panels work well for that, then maybe they can be used to power all kinds of other things. The impression I got was that they were hoping energy from solar panels could power some things that use oil now, since we had all that trouble with shortages a few years ago.

Remember how the CTA started running special trains with lower fares on Sundays to make it less expernsive for people to travel to the museum back then? Well, now they’ve started a bus route that brings people around to some of the city’s museums too, including us! They call it the Culture Bus. I’ve always found autos to be a bit stand-offish, but like your semi-tractor, I’ve also found them helpful when called upon. Unlike trains, buses can come right up to the front of the building so it’s easier for people who would have a hard time walking from the station.

The other big news around here is that Mr. McMaster has announced that he’s planning to retire. He’d like to do some traveling with his wife so he will be stepping down next February. He’s been with the museum since the day it opened, starting out as a guide demonstrating the printing machines and staying so long he eventually worked his way up to president. He’s been here at the museum for as long as I have been at all! It’s amazing in a way. Most people work a few different places over their lives, but he’s only ever worked here.

It’s always a little sad when we know someone will be leaving us, especially when they are such a fixture, but I think we’re all happy for him too. We engines don’t like the idea of retiring because it means we’ll probably be scrapped, but it’s different for people; they get to slow down and rest. Our last president, Mr. Lohr, died during a museum dinner. He always said he never wanted to retire so perhaps that’s as he wanted it, but it was very hard on all of us to lose him so suddenly. Mr. McMaster taking his retirement on his own terms, even if we will miss him, is easier on everyone. It also helps that he can leave knowing the museum is in good hands. Mr. Danliov is going to be president next, so no one is worried about the change in leadership.

It’s good to hear that both 253 and 504 will be safe in your barns and out of the rain from now on. My guides read the part of your letter about Randy and said it sounded like the start to a scary story, complete with “dark and stormy night”. I think they were happy that their jobs do not involve adventures like that. U-505 was particularly interested in Randy’s “rations” though; he says that chocolate is good for morale.

It’s been quite hot here lately, so the east lawn sends its very warmest regards to you and your yard!

Your friend,

Pioneer

Dear Pilot,

Your enthusiasm for solar panels is catching. Or rather, I think my guides find an engine taking an interest in anything that is not their own job so novel that they are eager to encourage it. I must admit, I had some concern that I had created a problem. As I’m sure you know, it doesn’t always pay to be curious as an engine. My guides suppose that being curious about things could be part of our job now though. Or at least that it would be Useful to be.

You’d asked at an opportune time too. I’m not sure they’d have been able to learn so much and figure everything out for us if they’d been fitting it in between their schoolwork.

The technology is still very new and it seems like the main trouble, if one wanted to make a train solar-powered, is size. Solar panels come in different sizes, but the more power you need, the bigger the panels have to be. The ones they will put on the museum roof are quite big, but we’re told we won’t be able to see them from the ground. There are solar panels small enough to power calculators, but calculators are very small themselves, even smaller than adding machines. There are houses that are run on solar power too, but they still have electricity as a backup if the panels don’t collect enough sun (our museum will still have electricity as well).

So, at present, a train would be too heavy to run on solar power because the panels would have to be too big for it to be efficient. Trains also need to run on time so until solar power can store enough electricity to cover when it is not sunny, trains cannot be run reliably off it.

If they keep working on it – and it sounds quite promising – they might be able to figure out how to make solar panels smaller. Or one could make the train lighter instead, I suppose, but any lighter than me and mine and we’re talking doodlebugs, haha!

They are putting in a whole exhibit about energy to go with the solar panels so people can learn more about it though. The U.S. Energy Research and Development administration is sponsoring it since they’re the same part of the government who gave our museum the grant for the panels. The exhibit won’t only be about solar power, but also other kinds of power we’ve used in the past and other new sources. Once we get the solar panels installed, they’ll be connected to a display in the exhibit that shows how they work and how much energy they’re generating so it will all work nicely together.

As you guessed, it is as busy here as it is at your museum. Our June and July attendance were our highest ever for those months. It feels like every month there’s so many more people that some record or other gets broken again.

The CTA’s culture bus program gets more popular every week as well. They’ve even named the routes for the museums they go to now. They call it the “Van Gogh Van” when it’s going to the Art Institute, the “Orient Express” for the Oriental Institute, “Tut Tut” when it goes to the Field Museum, the “Roots Route” for the DuSable Museum of African American History, and “Go Fish” for the Shedd Aquarium. For ours, the route is called “Your Bus to the U-Boat” which caused some dismay in the yard. We have so many things here, I do wish it were a little less specific. I get the impression U-505 would prefer not to be the focus either, but he is the most popular exhibit here so it’s hard to argue with putting your best seller forward. Certainly that is what the Q would have done and it does mean people come to see all the rest of us too.

We don’t have a library per se; I’m told it’s called an archive here because it’s not just books and papers but all the objects the museum keeps but doesn’t currently display. They have cabinets and shelves to keep everything organized. The main thing is keeping it all clean and dry. If there’s too much moisture in the air, it can cause damage over time, so the temperature and humidity are controlled to protect all the museum’s stored exhibits.

I asked if moisture in the air was bad for us out on the lawn. They said it was complicated, and then that we shouldn’t worry. As far as museum exhibits go, we’re built to weather the elements and are very sturdy.

I think about that sometimes though. I’ve always been considered delicate for an engine; 999 likes to tease me about it sometimes. She likes to say she doesn’t know how an engine could break a speed record being as careful as I was. If she’s ever crashed though, you’d never know it because whatever she hit surely got the worse of it. When you’re built light, you have to be more mindful because as fragile as we are, people are even more so.

Mr. Lohr had several heart attacks before he passed away, but he loved the museum so much he kept coming back after each one, perhaps before he really should have. I am relieved then – for you and for him – that your Mr. Hansen has decided to pull back a bit, even if he doesn’t exactly need to. We all have our limits. We all need to be overhauled every so often. He seems like a sensible sort and I’m sure he’ll be back at the museum as soon as he’s recuperated.

In the meantime, it sounds like the rest of you are looking after each other and have the place well in hand.

Your friend,

Pioneer

Dear Pilot,

My guides assure me that it is no trouble at all to find out about solar panels for us, or anything else we might want to know about. I could practically hear them shaking hands with your letter writers through the page at the part about how asking questions helps them be Useful too. More importantly, I’ve also been assured that if our curiosity is not Useful, they will let me know.

As it is, they like that I’ve taken an interest in the rest of the museum. Apparently I have been talking to guests about the exhibits they’ve seen or suggesting ones they haven’t, even though I haven’t seen them either. I hadn’t noticed! That’s a bit embarrassing: I’m meant to be explaining my own exhibit. The guests like it though. I suppose the museum is more exciting if the exhibits themselves are eager to refer you to each other.

I’m told the Rocket does this too, playing up the other exhibits in his hall. I’ve only ever heard accolades about his approach to the job so that’s some relief. I wish I could meet him. He sounds quite personable.

If I am being even more Useful at my job now then, it is because of you. I wouldn’t be asking about inside at all if not for your letters. Mine would be quite boring compared to yours if all I could report was no changes in the yard, especially now that we’re heading into the winter season and closing up for the cold. So please do keep asking questions if you take a particular interest in something. We are – all of us – grateful to be kept busy.

Speaking of winter, the Culture Bus will be halting services for the holidays, but they plan to bring them back next spring. The ice cream parlor will be closing for the cold as well. There will still be plenty going on indoors though. I hear we’re getting two new trees for Christmas Around the World this year: Latvia and Korea. I hope they take pictures of the decorations so we can see like when they added Lithuania.

It’s great news about your charters! Your street cars sound like real assets to your museum. I hope they are telling their passengers about all of the rest of you, haha.

The new concession stand sounds wonderful too. 505 particularly approves. She says it’s important to anticipate your passengers’ – or visitors’ – needs and have everything ready should they ask. It’s the mark of a good host. She would know: she used to have our buffet grill. Her cook could have a hot sandwich and a cup of coffee or even a plate of spaghetti ready in mere minutes. She also kept cigars and cigarettes in stock, playing cards if a passenger got bored, or aspirin if one had a headache.

Granted, our passengers were a bit more of a captive audience, but 505 insists that people appreciate being able to buy practically everything they might need or want, even if they don’t. It makes them feel secure to know it’s available. I’d never really thought about it, but I suppose it’s a little like knowing when we arrive at a terminus that there will be somewhere our train can stay for the night.

For us articulates, it’s always a question of having enough track for all of us to sit on. A roof over that track was always appreciated, but not guaranteed. Luckily, stainless steel looks just as beautiful in moonlight as it does everywhere else.

I do like hearing that you and your train consider yourselves to be a unit that should not be separated even if you are technically able. It sounded a little rough going when we first started writing to each other. You were bought to match with them so you always understood your disposition and I am glad that the feeling has become more mutual now.

You would all look rather silly if you weren’t weathered equally, you know.

Your friend,

Pioneer