Dear Pioneer,

You should have heard how my train ooh’d and ahh’d when my letter writer pulled out your two-page missive. (Vesta assures me my voice was among the chorus, but I don’t remember anything like that). The first letter I get from you each year is always a highlight. Even moreso when it’s more than twice the length of the one I sent!

U-505’s story wasn’t as shocking as you might think. For all our differences, I think I understand his position at least a little. It’s not exactly the same but when they finally pulled us E5s off of drag freight, we were in no condition to be doing anything besides sit and gather rust. It wasn’t so much that we had finished our job so much as the job had finished with us, and we had made our peace with that. The idea that someone would want any one of us in the condition we were in… I won’t say scrap was preferable, just that none of us would have been able to imagine something so fanciful. If any one of us could have given our parts to save the other like 318, we would have, but we were all in about the same state. Like U-505 though, someone stepped in to change what I thought the end of the story would be.

It’s a funny thing to know you owe your preservation to someone in particular. In service, we see our regular passengers most days and develop relationships with our engineers, but owing your continued service to one person is something outside the regular friendships engines usually have with people. I hope U-505 is handling Admiral Gallery’s passing okay. It sounds complicated – but then, everything about U-505’s service sounds that way to me. When you can go anywhere in the water, an engine’s place in the world must seem very different. Smaller, maybe.

That said – and I mean no disrespect – I’m happier that he is at your museum to keep you company and share his stories with another museum’s train!

As far as news around here, there’s been only a little in the way of acquisitions so far, but the year is still young. Of note, we’ve acquired a new Budd car from the PRR! That’s 999’s old railway, right? Anyway, 4618 is a dining car built in 1949. They took her tables out so she can be used to host a museum display for “steam engine technical displays”, which I’m told means models with cut-away sides so you can see inside and look at how the parts work together on a real steam engine. My train was obviously interested when they heard there’d be a new Budd car on the property, but once they saw she was Tuscan red and not at all streamlined, they were less interested, haha.

We’ve raised our ride fares again this month as well, $1 for adults and ¢50 for children. Members still ride for free, so I think the idea is that if you like our rides enough, it might seem like a better investment to get a membership for the whole family. Part of the reason for the fare increase too is that we’re hoping to offer more services soon, including refreshments and proper restrooms. To that end, some of our guys put up two forty-foot poles to hook up more of our buildings to the electric grid. Those don’t cost nothing, so we’re hoping the fare increase is an even exchange!

Our steam workhorses have all mostly finished their maintenance stays in the shop, so Shay, Frisco, and Tuskegee should all be ready for when operating season resumes in April. Apparently the state comes out and inspects operational steam engines every few years, so they all got a little certificate that says they’re cleared for work in 1977. I wouldn’t mind a certificate! It could go next to all your letters in the file they have for me.

Aside from that, we’re all just waiting for April! We’ve had to put out a call for a new typewriter as well. Handling the new editions of the Rail & Wire and our letters has proved too much for the current one. If my next letter is all hand-written, you’ll know why!

Please give your yard my best!

Your friend,

Pilot

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 Pioneer,

U-505 makes a good point that it’s rarely just one person who helps preserve an engine. Our guys can certainly attest to that. It can take an entire team of people just to get even a small engine situated on the property. It makes sense then that it took an entire city to move a submarine!

Our guys have been quite busy on that front. If last month was a bit of a drought in terms of donations, May has been something of a flood. We acquired two new railcars and something a little unusual for us locomotives and rolling-stock; an International Harvester semi-tractor.

He wasn’t donated to be preserved but rather to help with transporting some used rails and switches we received from Commonwealth Edison last year. He’s not very talkative, but everyone who’s been working on the rail project has said he’s been invaluable so far, so we’re very happy to have him! Rail and road vehicles have a long and proud history of working together to get things done, so it’s nice to have it shown here at the museum too.

The railcars are from the Chicago North and South Shore lines, though the two of them being donated at roughly the same time was coincidental. The North Shore car is Milwaukee Car 253, a combination passenger and baggage car from 1917. You mentioned having your papers signed over to the museum, and that’s exactly what happened with 253! She’s been with the museum since before I arrived, but she was still owned by one of our members. There’s always a chance that a private car could be called upon to move somewhere else or be used again, so the museum has to focus most of their effort on those of us they own outright. Her being donated officially means that she can be moved into one of our barns and protected from the weather and maybe even restored.

The South Shore & South Bend car is 504. She was originally an RPO combine when she started out on the Indiana Railroad, but when South Shore bought them out, they blanked out her windows and put in baggage doors on both sides so she could do express package service. When South Shore stopped doing express package service, she and her twin, #503, worked on wreck train service instead, helping carry the supplies for the wrecker. Last year she was retired, bought, and donated to us.

Even though she is a donation, the work of getting her on the museum proeprty still falls to us. One of our guys, Randy, was sent off to Indiana to ride with her on the trip back up and make sure she made it to the museum safely. He thought it was going to be an easy enough thing. He had a sleeping bag and a cot to spend the night in 504 and he had packed some candy bars to eat on the way. Meaning no offense to 504, but a baggage car isn’t the most comfortable accommodation. I can’t say I know much about food either, but I get the impression from our volunteers that candy bars are about as nice a meal as sleeping in a baggage car is comfy. But it was only supposed to be for one day so “roughing it” should have been fun.

And it might have been, if they hadn’t missed the connection at the South Shore interchange. They were supposed to meet up with a train from the Elgin, Joliet, and Eastern Railway in Gary that would take them some of the way here, but that train had to leave before they could get added to it. They’d have to wait for another train going the same way, but that wouldn’t be until the next day so they had to stay overnight. To make matters worse, a very strong storm came in that evening so on top of the already rough riding, it was now also cold and wet and thundery outside.

All in all, it took them three days to get here, and it sounded like Randy was ready for a proper bed by the end of it. But he and 504 are both home safely now so I’m sure it was worth all the hassle.

If they do make a television that can be placed outside, please let us know! Your museum gets all the newest things first so you will surely know before we do. Apparently ours showed some safety films made by Union Pacific during the annual safety meeting last month to prepare our volunteers for their safety qualification exam, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them myself. They show them on a film reel with a projector though and it can be too windy and bright to set up outside.

Work has been progressing steadily on the concession stand and technical library as well. I can see the shape of the stand from the wye. It’s being built close to the streetcar line so that once it’s finished, it can be one of a few stops around the property. They say the back half will also have a shower next to the restrooms, which I can imagine will feel very nice for our staff and volunteers after a day like the one we just had!

Speaking of, I hope U-505’s rollers are handling these temperature fluctuations alright. I hope you are too.

Your friend,

Pilot

P.S. – Our call for a typewriter was answered. We actually received two typewriters and an adding machine. If your museum needs any help with accounting or sums, let us know!

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.

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 Pioneer,

I hope your computer finds a new home somewhere as nice as the one it’s leaving behind. I’m told we have one that we’re using to keep track of our museum members now. I’ve never seen it myself, since you can’t bring them outside, but last month we found ourselves having to account for almost 1,000 members now – and the list is still growing!

Of course, the adding machine is useful in calculating all those membership dues. The museum has all sorts of costs they say I don’t need to worry about, but I know it’s expensive to run any kind of organization, even a not-for-profit one like ours. You can imagine the amount of money needed to send out nearly 1,000 copies of our newsletter every few months. It’s why they don’t mind us being pen-pals. We’d have to spend $35 on stamps anyway.

Solar panels! That’s fantastic! My letter-writer explained how they work as best she could to me and I’ve been thinking about it all week. Of course, we don’t know as much about science as you all do, so she suggested I might direct more of my questions your way. Do you suppose they could power a whole train on solar energy one day? The guys in the shop don’t seem to think much of the idea. A diesel engine wouldn’t get much use out of them, but an electric engine might – don’t you think? Of course, you and I are diesel-electric, so maybe there is a solar future for the lights and air, haha. Venus is asking if I want to put her out of a job, but I think she’s just teasing me.

I’m happy to hear about your Mr. McMaster’s retirement. It’s nice that he’s able to do more outside his work. I understand humans value that sort of thing. Although, as you say, I can’t imagine feeling that way about it myself!

It must be stressful to be a museum president. Our former president, Mr. Hansen, suffered a heart attack like your Mr. Lohr earlier this year, but he’s recovering well now and we’re hoping to have him back at the museum soon! He’s not the president anymore – not because of the heart attack though. Our museum has elections for board membership and he decided not to run again after 9 years of being at the position. I think if he had chosen to, he’d easily have been able to make it a decade.

He was actually the one who advocated for us to come to the museum all those years ago, so me and my train owe him a  debt of gratitude. He’s a good man, definitely a “fixture”, and we’re missing him very much.

Shay’s restoration was finished in the spring, and she’s already up and handling operations for the summer season. We didn’t get a chance to see the extent of her cleaning and repainting until the weather got warmer since she’d been in the east barn, but the work they did on her was spectacular! It’s just as well, since Frisco was beginning to clank a bit and when they checked her rod bearings they found she needed a few replaced. She’s back in the shop until they finish making her some new ones.

We’re in the thick of it here as far as attendance goes, I imagine you all are as well. I think that last winter made everyone eager to come out now that the weather’s nice. Even inside we’re making progress on the technical library, though. They’re looking for blueprint cabinets for all the various plans they want to store as reference material for anyone who wants to view them. I’m unsure if a blueprint cabinet is different from a regular filing cabinet. Maybe once we move all our membership paperwork to the computer, we can use them for more technical documents.

Does your museum have a library? I would think it would have to be huge to store all the materials for so many exhibits!

Please keep me posted on the solar panels! I’m very interested in them. Do you suppose they work better in the summer, since it’s always so sunny?

Your friend,

Pilot

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’ve 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