January 1974
Dear Pioneer,
Please thank your guides for the postcard! It’s found a nice home pinned up in my cab alongside the others you’ve sent me. I’m a bit envious of your Rocket, getting to see all those beautiful trees up close.
It’s not quite as festive around here. Instead of holly and lights for decoration we have overhead line equipment and trolley parts! The volunteers’ goal is to get all the equipment we got from the CTA last year sorted, cataloged, and stored in the trolley bus garage before operations begin in March. This is on top of trying to build a wye out in front of the building so the cars can turn around. You can imagine the noise coming from the other side of the property.
Normally we would spend January taking it easy, but it’s been harder to rest with all the hustle and bustle going on. (Do you get the holiday season off? My letter writer says your museum is open almost every day, but I have to imagine you must get a small break.)
I’m not complaining about us being busy, mind! There’s always someone here on the weekends to keep us company, sometimes even during the week. Juno can see the garage better than the rest of us so she keeps the whole train updated on the goings-on. It’s entertainment for the Goddesses at least and keeps them from being too restless after spending better than a year sitting idle. I do wish Vesta wouldn’t speculate about when we’re going to get a diesel garage though. I told her it wouldn’t make much sense to have a whole building for just one engine. “Maybe if we get some more diesels!” I said. She just sniffed and told me our train is worth one building all on its own. Venus scolded her, but I think Vesta meant it as a compliment in her way.
I was told, in so many words, that my last few correspondences were getting a bit long. Between my letters and the Rail & Wire, they were starting to run out of typewriter ribbon! To keep things short (and not take any more time away from the Line Department), I’ll sign off here. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year!
Your friend,
Pilot
February 1974
Dear Pilot,
My guides were more subtle about it but suggested the same thing; that if these letters got any longer, they’d have to put more stamps on them. They were nice about it though. Letter writing is something that people are taught in school as children. You and I are behind the curve, but they’re amused by how well we’ve taken to it. Too well, apparently!
It does remain busy inside during the holiday season, but it’s too cold for guests in the winter so they close our yard to them for the season. One cannot see everything at the museum in one day so if the visitors are going to forgo an exhibit in winter, it would probably be ours anyway. Even if we were still open then, we’d probably still not be working as much.
Since we’re not, 2903 likes to spend his days off sleeping. He spent about a decade in storage before coming here so he’s in the habit of sleeping in. The rest of us try to be quieter to let him, but it makes for a dull day.
Inside, I’m told, they only get Thanksgiving and Christmas off because there’s so much to be done over the holidays. Then once they’re over, the Christmas trees have to be taken down and all the decorations packed up. My guide says that the trees are perfectly enchanting up to about a week into January, when they then become a very large task to be done. When they started Christmas Around the World though, they just had one big tree that they redecorated every night for a different country. Having fifty separate trees that stay up all month seems more efficient even if you have to take them all down at once.
Once the trees were out of the way, they set up a Mexican-American Art Fiesta exhibit. Did you know singing and dancing are also art? I’d never thought about it before, but they had different performers come and there were a lot of school field trips to see them. That exhibit finished up on the 2nd, and now we’re hosting science fair projects from the local schools. And that’s all just since New Year! I’d never thought much about what happens indoors, but since you’ve been telling me about your shops, I’ve found out that the inside of my museum changes all the time, much more often than the outside does.
Are you the only diesel at the IRM? I suppose that’s not surprising, but I guess I just thought there’d be more of us there. Then again, when I was preserved, there was certainly… debate about the merits of it. I had the benefit of a notable local history to bolster the argument (and being a former Century of Progress exhibit makes you particularly appealing to the MSI), but diesels are still very new. But we get older every day! And if your museum started out as only for interurban cars and now they have steam engines and trolley buses and you, I’m sure more diesels will find their way there too.
They’ll be lucky to have such a singular engine to welcome them.
Your friend,
Pioneer
March 1974
Dear Pioneer,
It never occurred to me that people would need to learn how to write letters just the same as you or me. They take to lots of things so well, I just thought it was one of those things they were built knowing. It’s not that the volunteers here weren’t nice about it, they’re just busy with other important work that helps everyone at the museum, not just me. The days we write the letter together are always a highlight, but I also know that the days the volunteers inspect the interurban cars or work in the trolley garage are highlights for the other stock here too. It’s important that everyone gets the time and attention they deserve. And when it’s not my turn, I can always sleep.
It’s easy to take mine and the Goddesses’ abundance of free time for granted now. Remembering being in service with only as much downtime as the schedule allowed, I can’t think how we used to get by without sleeping for days at a time. If 2903’s trains were as frequent and tightly scheduled as the Zephyrs’ were towards the end, I can understand why he’d use your slow season to catch up. It’s nice of you to let him do that too. Can you at least whisper to U-505? What do you talk about?
You must have a lot of volunteers and guides to get fifty trees taken down so quickly! We can get wires hung and track laid as fast as you like, but it requires a lot of effort and everyone working together so we can’t do it all the time. The Art Fiesta sounds quite lively, especially if there’s singing and dancing! I expect your visitors will be surprised and delighted to find art at their science and industry museum. I would never have guessed that your exhibits change so frequently, but I suppose industry is also always changing, so it makes sense that the MSI has to keep pace.
As for being the only diesel here, I don’t mind it so much. That I’m here despite not being or doing anything particularly special means that there almost certainly will be more diesels preserved in the future, whether they end up here or at places like the MSI. Because it’s just me, the IRM can’t really show off how we’re different from steam or electric power right now. That might change if we were to get some new arrivals, especially if they just retired. It’s a little exciting to think about, if I’m being honest!
More immediately exciting is that March means we’re officially open for the season! Illinois Terminal 415 has been doing regular circuits on the loop since reopening. She’s an old hand at this (being the first car to actually run at the IRM all the way back in 1966!) and the visitors love her for it. I’m always amazed at the versatility of our interurban fleet. The cars are so small, but just as robust as any railroad engine. 415 didn’t even complain about the heat during her first run of the year when it was nearly 80 degrees out, which made her unique among the coaches that I spoke to that day.
And with that I’ve started an argument on my own train, so I’ll leave it there. Hope it’s not so hot by you!
Your friend,
Pilot
April 1974
Dear Pilot,
People - my guides were quite delighted to inform me - aren’t born knowing anything at all! It’s why they have schools and museums. I suppose that makes some sense. Locomotives are built all at once so we mostly know what to do as soon as we leave the shops, but for people it’s a process that takes years. There’s even an exhibit about it inside! They don’t have a postcard of it to show us (they say it doesn’t make for a pretty photo to send in the mail) but the exhibit shows that people start out so small that you can hardly see them at all and then they get bigger over time. At first, they can only cry and eat and sleep, but they start learning things like how to walk and talk very quickly. When they get big enough, they go to school and learn how to do science fair projects and write letters. Then the schools bring them here to learn about how they were once too small to know anything, haha!
U-505 and I do talk quietly to each other on our days off. Ours is the same as any yard, where we talk about the same things over and over. On Thanksgivings, I always like to ask him what he’s grateful for. I mostly mean it as a joke since U-505 thinks he’s been rather unlucky (I disagree). Thanksgiving is an American holiday so he always tries to argue with me that it’s not any German machine’s place to intrude on our celebrations. I think he is really just avoiding the question. With enough goading though, he usually will admit to being grateful for “American hospitality”, which I suspect is him joking back even if he says it with total seriousness.
On our Christmas days off, I ask U-505 to tell his Christmas story. He just has the one because he was only in service for two years and he was in dock over his first Christmas because he was being repaired after that airplane attack. It’s a funny thing though. U-505’s very proud of the story, but it’s also a little embarrassing so he’ll only tell it if he thinks 2903 isn’t listening. I can only ask him to tell it on Christmas then.
The guides say that you and I are both products of the Great Depression and this is why we are more given to appreciate our lot in life and even the lots of others. U-505 and 2903 are both wartime builds and maybe that is why they do not get along.
415 sounds like a very dedicated, hard worker. I imagine all of your engines in operating condition are determined to give your visitors a solid ride. I always kept an ear out for complaints about heat from coaches though. If coaches are hot, the passengers probably are too. They’d be used to having air conditioning now so they’re more sensitive to heat. Has there been any progress on repairing your coaches’ air conditioning? My guides say that stainless steel reflects the sun’s rays, rather than absorbing it like dark paint would, so they should be cooler than a lot of other stock in your yard.
Maybe we come out of the shop knowing how to do our jobs, but we’re still learning new things all the time, aren’t we? And it’s another thing to be grateful for! I don’t think it’s too terribly hot yet, so it must be working like they say. We also get nice breezes in from across the lake too.
2903 and 999 are agreeing loudly about their paint absorbing sunlight, but they don’t mind. It’s nothing to a hot firebox. U-505 mentioned to me that he was painted all black once for his war bond tour, but he says now that he was also still in the water then so he doesn’t know if it makes much of a difference for boats.
“If it did,” he says, “it was less than three inches.”
Everyone is being so agreeable about it. It might not be too hot to argue there, but maybe it is here!
Your friend,
Pioneer
May 1974
Dear Pioneer,
I wonder why a baby exhibit wouldn’t make a good postcard? People seem to love taking pictures of babies.
It seems like I learn about a new exhibit at your museum every time I write. When they told me your museum was in the city, I could only picture the warehouses and tall buildings I used to see from the rail yard. You can imagine my surprise when your guides sent that postcard and I saw you and U-505 outside with the museum in the background! I suppose it makes sense for the MSI to have so many exhibits with a building that big to keep them all in. Do you know how many exhibits you have all together?
I was told a long time ago that the IRM used to be in the city too and it shared the grounds with the Chicago Hardware Foundry. Originally they were called the Illinois Electric Railway Museum, and were founded to preserve just one interurban car, Indiana Railroad 65. Apparently creating a museum was the best way to save her from being scrapped. And they didn’t stop with her, either, they started acquiring lots of cars! Eventually they got so many that they had to move the museum all the way out to the country to hold them all, which is why we’re in Union now.
IR 65 is like our founder in a way! Without her, none of us would be here. I’ve never met her myself but from the stories I hear, she seems nice and not at all stuck-up, even though she’s a bit of a yard celebrity. When she was built in 1931 (even earlier than you!) she was very modern, comfortable, and quiet which made her very popular and must be why the man who worked with her wanted her to be preserved. She gets some special treatment from the staff and volunteers for being the IRM’s first car, but even she’s not operational yet. It just goes to show that no one’s playing favorites when it comes to restoration, I suppose!
The weather’s nice enough now that we’ve started running our steam engines again! CE 5 is handling the bulk of the work, since the price of oil means keeping Tuskegee 101 in steam is a little too expensive. They said the high price of oil might also be why we’ve seen fewer visitors too, as it affects gas prices. Probably a good thing I’m not operational right now! Tuskegee 101 said she feels a bit guilty when they do take her out. None of us wants to be a financial drain.
CE 5 has been doing a great job though. Lower ridership means shorter trains, but it also means we get to spend more time with individual visitors and answer their questions when they have them. The Burlington heavyweight coaches are a little cranky about the lack of riders because it means they don’t get to hit the main line as often as they’d like, but Vesta just sniffs at them and tells them at least they get to run. That usually cuts off the complaining pretty quickly.
No word yet on the Goddesses’ air conditioning, but there’s talk of trying to get us running before Members Day again this year. That’s a ways off yet and there’s a lot to do before then and not just on our train, so I’m not counting my chickens - to use a country expression. Venus calls this being ‘cautiously optimistic’.
If the weather is as nice by you as it’s been here, maybe your visitors can walk to the museum?
Your friend,
Pilot
June 1974
Dear Pilot,
I’m learning about a new exhibit every letter now too, now that I have a reason to ask about what’s inside!
For instance, when my guides read your last letter to me, they explained that babies don’t look very cute before they’re born. The ones in the exhibit aren’t done yet so they look gross, but children sometimes enjoy when things are gross so the babies are still quite popular despite that! It seems they’ve also recently become controversial though so it’s another reason not to have a postcard of them. I don’t really understand why exactly, but I was controversial when I was new too so I’m sure it’ll blow over in forty years or so!
There’s too many exhibits at the MSI to count, especially since many of them aren’t permanent and get switched out for new things. Even with such a big building, the museum doesn’t have room to keep everything it displays forever. Having new exhibits coming in all the time gives people a reason to come back so it’s good that they swap things out.
It’s funny you mention that your museum used to be called something different. Mine did as well! Our building was first built for the World’s Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. It was called the Palace of the Fine Arts then and they showed art from all over the world in it. Because we had that big famous fire twenty years before, the other countries sending art would only do it if the building was fireproof. All the other buildings for the Fair were not built so sturdily so when it was over, the rest of the White City got torn down or fell apart… all except our building! (999 was also built to show at the Columbian Exposition and is just as resilient!)
The museum went through more name changes before they found one they liked. There was a lot of back and forth over whether it should be named for the man who donated the money to found the museum. His name was Julius Rosenwald and everyone wanted to call it the Rosenwald Industrial Museum in honor of his civic contributions, but he insisted that the museum shouldn’t have a donor’s name on it. If it wasn’t named after him, then it would belong to the people of Chicago and he thought that was right since the people pay taxes to support us. He wanted instead to name it the Museum of Science and Industry and everyone eventually came around to his way of thinking.
When they finally settled on the name though, people didn’t quite understand how a museum could display industry. They even wrote letters to the newspaper about it. They must get it now since that’s the name that stuck. Your museum only needed two tries to get it right, but I’m glad they changed it to be broader. We wouldn’t have got to be pen pals if they only wanted your IR 65 and cars like her. But then, if you go to the trouble of founding a whole museum for one car, you have to find other things to display with her. You can’t have a museum with just one exhibit; everyone would only visit the once!
It sounds like we here in our yard are lucky that we don’t need fuel or coal anymore. The visitors can take the train and then walk to the museum to save gas, although it is a bit of a trek from the station. Our lawns are quite vast. We’re still getting plenty of visitors though. It helps that we don’t charge admission except for certain things. U-505 is making money on his tours. There’s a coal mine under the museum that costs extra to see too. I thought to ask if maybe we could send your steam engines coal since we have the mine, but my guides say it’s not meant to actually produce coal, it just shows visitors how it would be done. That’s how you display industry.
While we’re on the subject of counting chickens before they hatch though, you can do that here too. There’s an exhibit inside where you can watch baby chickens hatch from eggs right in front of you. Chicks are also kind of gross when they’ve hatched, but they get cuter real quick like babies do once they’re born. New chicks hatch here every day so keeping count of them after a few days would be difficult.
We cannot send your museum coal from our mine, but we have plenty of safely hatched chickens to count on your return to working order.
Your friend,
Pioneer
July 1974
Dear Pioneer,
Venus had to explain what "controversial" was before we got too far into your last letter. She said it’s when a lot of people are in disagreement about something. That was easy enough to understand, but I’ll admit I had a hard time picturing you causing any kind of disagreement, even unintentionally. Minerva said most new inventions are controversial for a little while because change can be hard to adapt to. (Babies aren't exactly new though, so I’m still not sure what that’s about...) It made sense when she put it like that, but I can’t help but think that the people who weren’t sure about diesel engines at first must have changed their minds when they saw how fast and brilliant you were! I’m sure premiering at the Century of Progress probably didn’t hurt either.
Seems like that’s the way to become a famous engine if you and 999’s histories are anything to go by. I didn’t realize how many World’s Fairs Chicago had or that the MSI was kind of like its own exhibit at one! They could easily have called the MSI the World’s Fair Museum instead. I’m glad they didn’t though, otherwise 2903 and U-505 wouldn’t be in your yard the same way I wouldn’t be at the IRM if they’d only stuck with preserving electric cars. Being about science and industry lets them have more exhibits anyhow, and switching them out means the MSI can still show art and fiestas and things! It’s still a Fine Arts museum, in a sense. All this to say, the MSI sounds wonderful. I’m so glad to have a friend who lives there!
It was very thoughtful of you to offer to send us coal from the mine! I passed along your message through CE 5 and he just laughed. He was delighted to report back that the whole steam fleet now considers you to be a regular comedian. I think they must know more about where coal comes from than we do. Or maybe they just think coal from a museum sounds silly. Either way, CE 5 seemed interested in the idea of a mine inside a building. He asked if I had a postcard of that too. I said I wasn’t sure how they’d fit a whole mine on one, but I told him I’d ask. Personally I’m more interested in the baby chickens. If there are new ones hatching every day, you must be overrun! …And now my letter-writer is laughing at me. I guess we’re both comedians.
We started weekday operations last month so it’s been a bit busier! Ridership is still down compared to what it was last year, but it’s not stopped the L cars from having a good time. They reopened operations on the west end of the line and installed a flagman at the street crossing, so on Sundays the Chicago Rapid Transit cars 1808 and 1024 can speed through without having to stop. The staff here are very pleased with the arrangement, since it’s much more in line with how they used to operate when in service. The visitors like an authentic experience! 1808 and 1024 are in agreement that it’s just more fun not having to stop for cars for a change.
The local summer festival, Schwabenfest, is at the end of the month and we’re all expecting a big turnout regardless of gas prices. IR 65 got a coat of wax for the occasion and the Goddesses are a little jealous. I told them they don’t need wax to look impressive, they’re magnificent enough as it is! (Am I getting better at this?) It’s too hot to expect someone to wax our whole train anyway. Stay cool by the water for us!
Your friend,
Pilot
August 1974
Dear Pilot,
Minerva is very wise! That’s exactly why I was controversial at first. Even after the Century of Progress, there was still a lot of talk that diesel was just a novelty and wouldn’t catch on. Steam engineers especially liked to say this, although I think they just didn’t like anything that might put their engines out of work. There always seemed to be plenty of work for all of us though. If I’m being honest, a steam engine like 999 is stronger and can do more things than I could. She’s worked practically every job there is to do on a railway, even despite being built for express passenger service.
If her record is to be believed - and I think it is - she’s also half a mile per hour faster than me. She is very modestly telling me now that that’s only under perfect conditions. World’s Fairs do seem to make an engine famous, but breaking a speed record was often how you got to be notable enough to be exhibited at a World’s Fair first.
My guides say they are learning a lot about the history of the museum in order to help me reply to your letters, since we are both so suddenly interested in it. Most of the first exhibits here at the museum were displays left over from the Century of Progress that companies donated since they were just going to throw them out otherwise. So the museum seemed like a World’s Fair inside at first.
It was actually meant to be very much like the Deutsches Museum in Germany though. There, all the exhibits let you touch the buttons and operate the machines and devices. They call this “interactivity” and it’s what made that museum special because this was a very new way to think about museums at the time. Before that, museums would put everything behind glass and you could only look at it. After seeing the Deutsches Museum and how well people liked interactivity, it was decided that Chicago should have the first museum like that in our country.
The Deutsches Museum also had a mine exhibit so when they were thinking of how our museum should be, they knew it had to have a mine too. That was the first thing they started building, even before they thought to ask for leftover things from the fair. Ours isn’t a real coal mine, but it is meant to look exactly like one called the Old Ben No. 17 that used to operate in southern Illinois. They even took all the old machinery from the real mine and put it in the replica they dug out under the museum.
Leave it to diesels to know nothing about coal, but at least we’re a little less ignorant about it now. You were right; the mine is too big to fit on one postcard, so they have a few different ones with smaller parts of it. My guides will enclose these so you can see.
The coal mine was our museum’s first exhibit and until U-505 arrived, it was the most popular one too.
As it happens, my guides say too that even if they had named the MSI after the World’s Fair, U-505 might still have made it here. The Deutsches Museum has a submarine so of course the MSI had wanted to have one too. It’s unfortunate everything that had to happen in order for our museum to get its submarine, but it’s also very fitting in the end that he should be a German one, since we get so much else of our Ways from the Deutsches Museum.
As to the baby chicks, when they’re about a week old they get sent to the Lincoln Park Zoo. They have a Farm-in-the-Zoo exhibit there where people can pet the animals. We have a farm exhibit here too but aside from the chicks, our animals are just models or robots. Apparently, though, some parts of the farm exhibit had to be put behind glass. The baby chicks are in a glass case because they are small and could get hurt or lost. The cow milking exhibit has a glass wall too because people kept twisting the tails off the model cows. That’s not the kind of interactivity they had in mind!
Your new flagman sounds like a great addition to the authenticity of your museum. Stopping to wait for your L cars to pass is very interactive. You’re also right about wax: wax would just dull stainless steel. I’m sure your cars shine just as brightly as mine do without it (you’re catching up, haha).
Your friend,
Pioneer
September 1974
Dear Pioneer,
We’re at the height of the busy season, so I hope you’ll forgive this letter for being on the shorter side. Thank you and your guides for the coal mine postcards! They created quite the afternoon of activity over in the steam shop, I’m told. CE 5 in particular was very complimentary. I think he thought you must have been exaggerating when you said it looked like a real mine, but after he saw the postcards, he was nothing short of impressed. He used to pull coal too (though it was above ground for the electrical plant), so I suppose he must know what he’s talking about. I, on the other wheel, couldn’t tell you what I was looking at, but I can see why it was so popular with your visitors. It’s not often people get to see such large machinery like that, let alone reach out and touch it!
Our visitors often say that one of the best parts of coming here is being able to climb in our cabs and put their hands on just about everything on us static displays as long as the museum says it’s okay. That’s not something you’re usually allowed to do with engines who are in service, and I don’t think our visitors would have as much fun if we were behind glass like in the old days. And you would need a very large pane of glass for our train, besides. Riding a working train is also a kind of interactivity, so even when visitors aren’t allowed to touch, they’re still interacting with us in a way.
Is U-505 proud of the German influence on your museum? I would be! On the topic of German influence, Schwabenfest went off without a hitch at the end of July and was one of our busiest days of the year so far. That’s not too surprising, since the museum wasn’t the only place celebrating. I’m told Union had 10,000 people or better turn out for the weekend festival and since we’re so close by, many of them took the short drive out to see us! The rapid transit cars got quite the workout that day, let me tell you.
There was a similar turnout for the antique Auto Club day in August, although those visitors were here to see cars of a different sort altogether. The automobiles were nice enough, but they’re small and mostly kept to themselves. Venus said automobiles don’t feel the need to make conversation, but antique models tend to be more chatty since they’ve been around so long. I guess regular everyday automobiles don’t talk much at all! Vesta called that “antisocial behavior” and Venus made a tutting sound at her.
Members’ Day is at the end of the month and we’ve been told we’re on track to run that day for at least one trip, possibly more if it goes well. No plans for lunch on Ceres like in ‘72 in case there’s another hitch like last time, but I think we’re all just excited to be moving again! The folks in the shop have been doing some tests and they’re confident we’re going to do fine. They tell me one or two trips up the main line won’t put too much stress on my system and I’ve no cause to doubt them.
CE 5 and Tuskegee 101 have been keeping me informed about Frisco’s progress in the shop and tell me she and Shay will be out that day as well. It will be nice to see them again. I’ve missed them!
Were you nervous before your Denver-to-Chicago sprint? Maybe that’s a silly question to ask. Members’ Day isn’t exactly the Century of Progress. I suppose there’s a beautiful Zephyr trainset to look at in both cases, and that’s what matters – whether it runs or not.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Give everyone in the yard my best!
Your friend,
Pilot
October 1974
Dear Pilot,
My guides are quite amused to hear of how interested your steam engines are in our coal mine exhibit. They’re - we’re - very proud of it, as it was the model for how every exhibit should let people directly experience the thing it’s about. It makes industry more exciting.
It’s great that your museum makes us exciting that way too. The idea of a museum just for trains is unusual when you think about it. Your museum is an entirely new idea about how to display things too, just like the Deutsches Museum was. But it’s better this way, isn’t it? We’re not too delicate to let the visitors come inside and look still. We let them tour my cab here too, as well as my cars. That’s the way trains are best experienced outside of actually riding in them. 999 and 2903 have stairs to let the visitors up into their cabs too. Your museum’s founders - being railroaders themselves - knew exactly how we ought to be shown to people, I expect, because that’s how they would want to see us in a museum.
Our museums are really very similar, despite being very different places at first glance. You even have cultural festivals there like we do. We hosted one about Poland last month. And we have antique automobiles too! Actually, we have an entire exhibit about automobiles: Motorama. The antique autos are part of a different exhibit though. Yesterday’s Main Street is a replica of a typical American main street from fifty years ago. The guides say that our old autos are quite chatty indeed and put a lot of historic flavor on that stretch of cobblestone!
I don’t have much experience with cars, aside from the times I crashed into trucks. For the most part, cars only ever seemed interested in racing me. The guides say though that automobiles tend keep to themselves because it’s safer for everyone that way. We have our drivers who have years of experience driving us and we’re on tracks so we tend not to do unpredictable things. Not so for cars: their drivers might be new or going blind or ill or just scatterbrained and if they’re not, the drivers of others cars might be. All that together and it’s a lot easier for mistakes to happen and for a car to be somewhere he’s not supposed to be. There’s a lot more things to consider as a car, so my guides say they tend to be quieter so as not to be distracting, not because they’re antisocial. I am assured that people still know a car has a personality though and people get just as attached to them as they do to us.
U-505 thought very hard about your question to him before he answered. It turned into a much longer conversation, which I am simplifying for him here because it wouldn’t all fit in the envelope otherwise.
It makes him think of how, when all the German companies made new parts for him and sent them overseas for free, it was because they wanted him to be a credit to German technology. It is of some relief to him to have a larger purpose in his disposition beyond his part in losing the war. Machines made for war, he says, understand that their ultimate goal is peace but that they will not be needed if it is achieved. Knowing this, it would have been honorable to have been scrapped after the war, even having been on the losing side. He is here though, not strictly because he was captured, but because our museum so admired a museum in Germany and wanted everything it had to offer for their own. So then, if he was not to be scrapped as he would have expected, it is some consolation to be in our yard with us because our countries were allies before the war and now are again.
He is also - perhaps for the first time - thankful that our museum only cut doorways into his portside to allow for his tours. He’s always been a bit mournful over not being seaworthy anymore, but it’s harder to feel sorry for yourself knowing that the Deutsches Museum’s submarine is cut completely in half!
But you can only look at a submarine that way. Our visitors experience our submarine.
As to my experience with the Century of Progress run, I wasn’t nervous before that run because everyone was so certain I could do it. I’ll admit, I did start to get a little worried during the run when things kept going wrong. Anytime my speed would dip though, my crew were on top of the problem and set it right. I rolled into the World’s Fair in record time and if I ever doubted I could do it, my crew never once did.
It’s great news to hear your volunteers expect you to be running again! By the time this reaches you, you’ll already know whether you’re operational again. It feels a little silly to say whether you should be nervous beforehand when I know you won’t be able to read it until after.
But I can say this: the Century of Progress was incredibly important not only in my own history but to that of my museum and so many of its other exhibits. But when I was actually racing to get there and after I arrived?
The Century of Progress was just the first of so many important events in my revenue service. It is my hope that your Member’s Day run will be the first of many more in yours.
Your friend,
Pioneer
November 1974
Dear Pioneer,
It’s hard to know where to begin. I suppose I’ll start by asking you how you’ve been, because I’m afraid that by the time we get to the end I’ll have forgotten to. What kind of pen pal would I be if I let that happen? I hope your Yard is well and that the cold snap hasn’t troubled the steam engines too badly. Ours are mostly tucked up now, taking a well-deserved winter’s nap after their outstanding performances.
I’m sorry, I can’t delay it any longer. Do you ever tire of hearing that you must be the wisest engine this side of the Mississippi? I can’t be the only one who thinks so. You said almost two years ago now (gosh!) that you thought I’d be operational again. At the time, I was so disappointed but I still felt so lucky to be even here at all, so I did my best to come to terms with the idea of being static. Silver Bullet used to say that it’s better to be kind than right. You were both! So I want to thank you again for your perspective and continued patience. I’ll ask for just a bit more, as I think if I don’t get the whole story out soon, my one good engine will turn over on its own!
It was no Century of Progress, but I think it’s about as close as an engine like me is ever going to get! The turnout was great and there were so many of us lined up for service, I wasn’t sure how the schedule would accommodate every engine. I needn’t have worried though, there was time enough for all of us on the main line. CE 5 and Tuskegee did the bulk of the runs as a double-header, much to the delight of the guests! Two steam engines pulling together on a passenger train is a rare sight anymore. When they both needed a break Shay and Frisco were more than happy to take over. Frisco in particular did the whole steam fleet proud. She’s been so good about her restoration, it was great seeing her finally be rewarded for all that time she spent in the shop. Compared to the other steam engines, she’s so tall and striking when she runs. Venus called her "photogenic". I think the guests thought so too!
CTA 1024, 1268, and 1808 made a three-car train and really put the ‘rapid’ in Rapid Transit. Wood-bodied cars are a boisterous lot and they rattled up the line, singing the whole way. It was nice though! In a way it made me feel better about all the noise I was about to make.
I knew ahead of time that we would probably be able to move - a couple of test runs confirmed that much. The question was if we’d be in any shape to make a whole trip up and back, and whether or not it would be a smooth ride if we did. When I tell you how the whole train squealed at first! I thought for sure they’d throw the brake right away. But on we went…
Is it conceited to say I wish you could have seen? Not just for my sake! All of us in motion, the shine on the fluting as we rolled up the line! Venus cheered and I swear I heard Vesta let out a whoop. I felt stiff and sore (and sounded it too), but it was so refreshing to shake the rust off and lay down a blast on the horns for good measure. Up and back, the passengers seemed thrilled! When we rolled back in from the trip, Tuskegee and CE 5 both were as pleased as I’d ever seen them. The October Rail & Wire said we were “the highlight” of the event. I don’t know how much of that was just everyone being impressed that our old static display could pour on some speed, but the Goddesses were thrilled with it anyway. It really was a marvelous day, the whole way through.
I’m not sure when we’ll run again. It took a lot out of me to do it even just once, but that’s okay, because we’ll be closing for the season soon. There’s plenty of time to rest for now. I expect they’ll want to get the valve spring squared away (along with a few other things) before we’re ready for any kind of regular service, but at this point once a year is more than enough for me.
I hope I haven’t gone on for too long! Really, I owe you my thanks again for writing so often and being so kind. Please give everyone in the yard my regards! I feel as though I ought to thank them for their patience as well, having to hear all my letters the same as you, haha. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone at the MSI. Stay warm!
Your friend,
Pilot
P.S. - With the recent snowfall, do you imagine it’s nearly time for U-505 to tell his Christmas story?
December 1974
Dear Pilot,
I don’t think anyone’s ever called me wise before. And surely there must be wiser engines than me. A thing I do know is if your people say they’ll see to your repairs, then at the very least, they want for them to happen. I’ll admit, I didn’t actually know if you ever would be operational again when I said I thought you would be. Sometimes people say they want things to happen, but other things get in the way. Sometimes the hope is enough to see everything else through and make sure it happens though.
To the point, U-505 says you seem kind enough not to make too much fun of him so he’ll share his Christmas story for this letter. He had to think about it for a few days because we engines - particularly us passenger engines - care quite a lot about smells. We keep a mind to it because smells sometimes mean something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Other times, they just make things unpleasant for passengers. And then there’s just the difference in smell between a steam engine and a diesel. Some people like one or the other or neither. Suffice to say, engines are very aware of how we smell.
Submarines are not. They spend much of their time underwater and so don’t smell things all that often.
They themselves smell quite a lot though! U-boats were nicknamed schweinboots, “pig boats”, because of how they start to smell once they’ve been on a patrol.
People - I had never considered and so I assume you hadn’t either - start to smell bad when they’ve not washed for a few days. It explains why people are so sensitive to smells since most of them are quite diligent with their hygiene. But U-boats don’t have showers so U-505’s crew would go months without washing. They would get sweaty and smelly and U-505’s interior would stink of them. It still stinks of them! It’s the first thing his visitors notice. It’s been thirty years since his crew has been aboard, after nearly everything in his interior had been ripped out and stolen, and it still smells! Their sweat is soaked into his steel. (U-505 says this with some pride actually, but quietly because 2903 is sleeping.)
Rank as it all was though, my guides explained to me that people will also forget about a bad smell after a while. The smell is still there, but with enough time their noses just ignore it. They say this is called nose blindness. So even though U-505’s crew could smell how pungent he was after coming back from their furlough, they’d forget about it after a day or two, just as they were starting to stink again themselves.
Which is exactly where U-505 and his crew found themselves on December 28th, 1943.
They had just left port on Christmas Day and were given orders to meet with four other ships who were assisting German Destroyer ship Z-27, who had gotten into a battle with some British ships. At first, everyone was excited to go because they thought there might be a chance they could sink an enemy cruiser. U-505 says that U-boats are not really meant to get into fights like that though and while they did have the order to attack any enemies they saw, they got more important orders shortly after: to search for survivors from Z-27. U-505 and his crew assumed that meant Z-27 had been sunk.
It was very cold and U-505 was worried for his own crew in the weather, but they were worried for their fellow sailors who would be cold and wet. People don’t survive very long in cold water. It was early morning and the waves were very choppy so it was nearly impossible to spot anything in the dark, but his crew kept watch and prepared coffee and blankets in the hope that they would.
And amazingly, they did! They found two sailors adrift together on life rafts. They were injured and suffering from hypothermia (which is when people are so cold that it’s dangerous for them). U-505’s crew put them in the engine room where it was warmest and got them dried off.
Meanwhile, his captain stayed on deck to keep looking for more. This was U-505’s first patrol with his new skipper, a man named Lange, but he says he liked him quite a bit more than his previous captain. Lange stayed out well into the night, chain-smoking his cigarettes as he looked for more survivors through his binoculars, while waves ten feet high crashed over U-505’s deck.
Early the next morning, they finally spotted more survivors on the waves. A little more than two dozen! These weren’t from Z-27 though, they were from a torpedo ship, T-25. She had been sunk too. As it turned out, T-25 had herself rescued crewmen from U-106 who had been sunk earlier that year. U-505 says it is then a great honor to return such a favor.
It was a challenge too because U-boats are only built to hold as many men as are needed to operate them. The German navy had decided to add even more crewmen earlier that year too so U-505 was operating at a surplus. He was also fully stocked with provisions since he’d only been at sea for a few days, so every spare spot had boxes of food in it. His crew set to work trying to get their rescued survivors dry and warm, but they didn’t have much place to put them!
On top of the problems of space, the survivors were also sick from hypothermic shock, not being used to how a U-boat moves on the waves compared to their own ship, and (U-505 suspects) the general stink of his interior. His own crew put out spit pans for them to be sick into, but a lot of them just threw up into his bilge which just added to the smell. He says they felt quite bad about making a mess, but his crew made jokes about their cook serving their sick-up for dinner and brushed it off.
Meanwhile, the conditions on the surface were getting too rough so Lange ordered U-505 under the water and his own crew had to step over their rescued sailors to do their jobs. The torpedo ship crewmen weren’t used to diving so some of them started to panic. In such close quarters, they couldn’t have anyone tossing themselves about so U-505’s crewmen had to tie them up in hammocks and stuff them in the aft crew quarters to keep them from distracting operations. U-505’s crew was very resourceful when it came to compounding problems like this.
“Alles kleine fische,” he says.
Lange and T-25’s captain, whose name was von Gortzen, kept looking through the periscopes for more survivors but for a long time, all they found after that was empty life rafts. It was disheartening and Lange insisted von Gortzen finally get some rest. Just before sunset, though, Lange spotted an emergency signal light. U-505 charged towards it and when they arrived, they found five more men. They were almost dead, but U-505 and his crew found them in time.
After that, they were feeling emboldened and turned on their searchlight to keep looking. This was risky because if any enemy ships saw them, it would give away his position, but they thought it was worth it. Eventually, they were told a neutral Irish ship was searching in the area and Lange decided to take the survivors he found back to port. Obviously U-505 and his crew hoped they would have found more, but he does wonder where they would have put them if they did. As it was, they rescued thirty-four sailors which is quite good for a U-boat!
But there was still the trouble of getting the back to shore.
We call U-505 a submarine, but technically he’s a submersible. What this means is he can go underwater, but he can’t stay there indefinitely. When he’s underwater, he runs on batteries but the batteries drain if he moves and he has to surface to recharge them. Being on the surface is dangerous because planes might see him though. It’s tricky then to get back to port without being seen.
There’s also that he runs out of air when underwater. My guides explained it to me that air is made of oxygen and people breathe in oxygen but when they breathe it back out, it’s turned into carbon dioxide which people can’t breathe. So in an air- and water-tight container like U-505’s interior, as his crew breathe, there gets to be less oxygen and more carbon dioxide. And since he had so many more people on board than usual, the oxygen would run out faster.
More people also make more… waste. U-505 has two restrooms, but only one of them was available to his men because the other was always packed full of provisions at the beginning of a patrol. With all the extra men on board, they’d resorted to using buckets. Their rescued survivors were still ill, but now from the other end and the buckets were quite full by now. So on top of the sweaty, unwashed men and the puke smell, there was also that.
Eventually the sun set and they were finally able to surface. When he was on the surface, U-505 could move much faster with the use of his diesel motors. The motors also sucked air into his interior too so at least for a little while, all the stink of this rescue operation would be flushed out and replaced with nice, crisp sea air. It made everyone feel better and quicker to work. There was much scurrying about to empty buckets, pump out the bilges, and fix their position to find their way home.
So it was that as he was cruising along on New Year’s Eve, his captain got on the intercom and wished everyone a happy New Year and the hope that they’d see each other to the next. Like a good omen, from then on out, the water was glassy smooth and though they had some mechanical error that put U-505 a little off course, they made it back to port safely.
But… when they were finally moored in the U-boat bunkers and it was time to finally disembark, one of T-25’s men tried to climb the ladder to the bridge in too much of a hurry, fell off, and knocked into the rudder control, causing U-505 to crush his diving plane against the pier. The accident bent the drive shaft in that plane and he had to stay in port for two months while they found a new one and made repairs. A fine thanks for his assistance!
All the same, U-505 considers this his best Christmas. Despite all the unseemly stenches it involves, he thinks it’s got all the hallmarks of a good Christmas story: selflessness, togetherness, and gifts. Just as he considers rescuing her crew to be a final gift to T-25, who gave that same gift to U-106, his own crew were rescued when he was captured as well (and as a result they did indeed live to see each other to 1944). He enjoys the knowledge that even machines for war like him sometimes get the chance to show each other such kindness.
And anyway - as he always finishes this story - that wasn’t even the worst smelling thing that’s happened in his interior.
I quite prefer that pine and cinnamon and orange scent that people seem enjoy this time year. I hope you and your yard are also enjoying fresher air this holiday season. Congratulations on your return to operational service. I expect (hope!) you’ll get more than just one run next year.
Your friend,
Pioneer