"I was asked many decades ago, 'If we assign this project to you, will you try to finish it?' and I gave my word," he said. "I'm very old-fashioned that way. I don't give it lightly, but if I do give it, I try to do what I said I'd do."Thus does a suburban trolley the Sand Springs Railway of Tulsa bought secondhand from the Cincinnati, Lawrenceburg & Aurora Electric Railway join the museum's active fleet.
The control handles of Car 68. The operator's right hand is on the brake lever.
Chicago Tribune photo by Terry Harris. Additional photographs here.
Chicago Tribune photo by Terry Harris. Additional photographs here.
The project ought dispel any illusions railway preservationists might have about easily restoring a trolley.
With a leaky roof, no motor and 96 panes of glass, all of them broken or missing, the car was a handyman's disaster. Kutella began the painstaking rebuilding process without benefit of a manual, or significant funding. He was learning as he went, locating parts from around the world.The story does not explain that sometimes parts cannot be scrounged and might have to be manufactured from scratch. There's probably no tooling extant for the reverse key of a General Electric controller, although the museum does not have to have as many reverse keys as it has cars equipped with that controller type. Resistance grids and switch groups can be particularly hard to come by, and as far as I know nobody uses a big chunk of iron as a resistor these days.
"You fix the roof," he said, "you fix some of the wiring, you fix the windows, you start working on the seats. You find that there are spare motors from Milwaukee that are the same type and will work in that car. You find trolley pulls in Melbourne, Australia, which were the exact same kind."
Over the years, he learned how to cut glass, handle wiring, woodworking, staining and threading pipe. He picked up machinist skills. He also raised $20,000 to keep the project going. "One of the things you learn to be is a good panhandler and beggar," he said.
