(railway clacking)
(whistle tooting)
- Look at all the people in the stations
taking our picture.
- This is always a head turner.
- That's so cool!
- [Geoffrey] When was this car built?
- [Graham] This car was built in 1923
by the Cincinnati Car Company.
- [Geoffrey] 1923!
So this car's almost 100 years old?
- [Graham] It is.
And we're coming up on its Centenary.
- Who thought to save it?
- Well, CTA did immediately after its retirement.
- This car?
- This car.
Long before the Heritage Fleet was a formal program
that CTA created in 2016,
this car was selected for preservation in 1974,
a year after it was retired
because CTA recognized that this
and a few other pieces of equipment were worth saving.
And so CTA's had it
and actually maintained it
and periodically operated it since that time.
- [Geoffrey] And I love this.
Look at this nice arch here.
I mean there's a little elegance to the car.
- There was, I mean there was definitely a sense
of craftsmanship to the cars in their construction
and trying to make them visually pleasing.
And these cars,
this specific group of 4,000's from the 1920's,
represented an evolution in that comfort.
Earlier cars just had bare light bulbs,
but these have lampshades on the lights.
- [Geoffrey] Nice.
- The handholds on earlier cars were just leather straps,
but these are porcelain handholds.
- Porcelain?
- Porcelain.
Which they did largely,
actually for health reasons.
'Cause they could be wiped clean.
- [Geoffrey] So you have the vintage ads all around, right?
- [Graham] We do,
we have vintage ads from throughout the life of these cars.
So back to the 20's and 30's,
as well as ads from the 40's and 50's.
- [Geoffrey] I gotta go back to that 1973
these trains are still running.
- [Graham] Yes,
they had a very, very long life.
(whistle tooting)
- Tell me about your uniform.
- I'm wearing the uniform of a conductor
or perhaps a collector or other type of personnel
who would've worked the train,
either operating the doors,
or collecting fares onboard.
And this dates from the 1940's,
from the Chicago Rapid Transit Company,
one of CTA's predecessors. - CRT there.
- Yes, that was an emblem of the Rapid Transit Company
- [Geoffrey] Have you driven this train?
- [Graham] I have.
- What's that like?
- It's a lot of fun.
(laughing)
It's a very different experience
than operating an L car today.
The biggest difference is the fact that it has air brakes...
(air whooshing)
- Oh, I just heard them.
- Right, that was the hissing on cue.
Which means you have two different handles to manipulate:
One operates the motors
and the other operates the brakes.
Whereas today there's one handle
and it's all electric,
so it all works in concert automatically.
- Look at that guy! (chuckling)
That guy was like, what?
- [Graham] This is a piece of Chicago's everyday history.
People rode this to work,
to play, to family,
to recreation.
And it's a glimpse into the past
of what Chicagoans did day in and day out,
and how they got around the city.
- [Geoffrey] I don't wanna distract the driver,
but John, toot the horn.
(horn tooting)
(railway clacking)