NNG: Saving Equipment in Museums

Just need some advice more then anything.

I would like to start doing some Research into saving a few of the Chicago CTA 2200 and 2400 series cars. There are 150 2200's built, and 200 2400's built, the 2200's entered service in the 1960's, and are the last Chicago L cars with the rather famous "blinker" doors, while the 2400's became famous for wearing Red, White, and Blue up until a few years ago when they entered service in the mid 1970's.

Now, I know this is not exactly the place for Rapid Transit Cars, but there are a lot of preservationists around here. In my opinion the 2200's are very unique, being the Oldest L cars still in service, and being the last to carry blinker doors.

So, both sets of cars are slated to be retired in the next 2-3 years, after CTA takes delivery of at least 200-400 of the new 5000 series cars being built. They want to increase service, and retire these cars at the same time, so they need at least a few dozen extra before any of the old cars can be retired. So that will take a few years. But I feel that the time to move to save a few examples of these cars is BEFORE they even get close to retirement. There is a slim chance CTA may keep a few sets of these cars for charter trains, as they do have some historic equipment. But this is not likely. I would love to buy a set or two and built a short transit line in Denver, but we all know how likely that is

So, what would be my best course of action? Around the Chicago area, there are a bunch of Museums that usually take retired L cars. The Illinois Railroad Museum has lots of old L cars, from Wood cars from the 1800's to steel cars built in the 50's. They even operate the cars that they can via trolley poles. Cars without them are also static. The Fox River Trolley museum also operates old L cars, and has Static L cars. I would bet there is no chance Donald wants a pair for the CRRM

Thanks for any Input


So people know what I am talking about, here is a model of the 2200's that I made





And the newer 2400 series





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2009 06:55PM by Will Gant.