Not quite sure that this is the right way to do this, but here goes. On page 8 of THL Vol 45:3, it mentions a September 29, 1962, fan trip with a photo of C&WI RS1 number 260 and a single coach. In those days, we younger (yes, I was younger at one time!) fans, decided to start our own railfan club. We couldn't compete with the established Railroad Club of Chicago, or the Illini Railroad Club, or CERA, so the "Midwest Railroad Society" (Tom Kopriva, Roy Wake, Artter Harris, Bob Burkholz and I) thought what kind of trip COULD we do? In those days the C&WI ran an early morning Saturday one car train from Dolton into Chicago with an early afternoon departure back south. Would the C&WI let us run in the time between arrival at Dearborn and subsequent departure? Yes, they said. But then, instead of using the regular Saturday equipment, they gave us our own train. The RS1 and that single coach, which turned out to be number 39, the backup car to when one of the railroads regular Stillwell's was out of service. The car looks like a normal heavyweight but on the inside, there were arch stained-glass partitions over the windows. We were told the car was ex-Chicago & Alton and the C&A had steel sheathed the wood car, covering the "arches". Anyway, we toured both "branches" of the C&WI, had a photo run over the Calumet River. and toured State Line Tower. At the photo stop at 47th Street, pictured in THL, they spotted combine 40 (see photo page 12) on the short turntable for photographs. Most of the passengers even got to ride in the cab of # 260 for short segments of the run. A good time. Glad one of Jim Neubauer's photos made THL. Enjoyed Gary Dolzall's informative article.
Les
