This year's report must begin with the sorrowful news of the passing of our founder, George Krambles. In mid-November after attending his usual round of activities including a meeting in Houston, Texas, he was found to have a heart problem that necessitated open-heart surgery. The surgery was successful and he was making a good recovery when he suffered a heart attack while in the hospital. A funeral service was held Tuesday, November 30. A memorial dinner to help the Scholarship Fund will be held in March 2000 when George would have celebrated his 85th birthday. An announcement with the date and prices will be sent to all CERA members. If you are unable to attend and would like to make a donation or memorial in memory of George, please do so to the George Krambles Transit Scholarship Fund, PO Box 425, Lake Forest, IL 60045-0425.

During the year, the Association sponsored a full range of membership activities. The nine membership meetings held during 1999 covered a wide range of topics covering electric railways both past and present and a bit of the future with the new line in Kenosha under construction. In most cases these programs were prepared and presented by CERA members who gave freely of their time to share their interest in a particular facet of the hobby with their fellow members. The subjects of these presentations were as follows:

Our thanks goes to those presenters for sharing their insights and the fruits of their photography with us. If you would like to present a program or you know of someone who would be interested in presenting a program, contact a director or send a letter to the attention of the Membership Activities Manager at CERA.

Brief “newscasts” covering current events in the electric railway field were also presented at many meetings. These are truly audience participation events because they rely solely on members bringing material to share. We encourage you to bring something for the newscast whether or not you have illustrative material. Material should pertain to something in the electric railway field and be relatively timely. Material from the trade press and popular press as well as personal observations are applicable and appreciated. See the Membership Activities Manager or the projectionist prior to the start of the meeting to be put on the program. Please limit your slides to a dozen per topic.

In late October CERA was fortunate to be able to visit the Michigan City Shops of the South Shore Line. Extra cars were attached to a regular eastbound train on Saturday morning, October 23, and when the train reached the shops, the cars were cut off and run into the yard. Box lunches were loaded aboard the cars and everyone ate before taking the shop tours. The railroad kindly provided knowledgeable persons to guide us and answer questions about the current operations and equipment and about plans for future operations and the mid-life overhaul program. Unfortunately, the first AC propulsion conversion was not ready for operation. Travel options allowed participants to travel onward to South Bend or stay at the shops where South Shore personnel gave a presentation on their plans for the future. Though no photo stops usually occur on regularly scheduled trains, the people who returned to Chicago on the mid-afternoon train had an unscheduled photo opportunity when the train snagged the overhead wire east of Odgen Dunes and was delayed an hour while the crew and maintenance personnel untangled the pantograph from the wire.

Early in the year, Bulletin 132, Northern Indiana Railway, by George K. Bradley was distributed to all 1996 and 1997 members. If you were a member in both years and have not received your copy of the book, please write us as soon as possible and we will send out your copy.

Work on the Houston North Shore Railway book has been completed and we expect final review by the authors to be finished early in 2000. This book of 164 pages should be issued by Fall 2000 to all members for 1998. The text for the Chicago-New York Electric Air Line story has been completed. Because it is the work of several authors, CERA is taking advantage of the gift from George Hilton to hire a professional editor to review the material and suggest improvements to make the style uniform. The manuscript on the Cincinnati, Newport and Covington, “The Green Line,” was received earlier this year and has now become a project for publication. Work is progressing on the text and publication may be possible late in 2000. The Chicago and West Towns Railways project continues with existing text material being committed to computer where is can be easily edited. Much more work is needed to consolidate the text and fill in the blanks in the research as well as locate photos. Work is also underway on a major revision and expansion of Forty Feet Below--The Story of Chicago's Freight Tunnels for issuance as a Bulletin. The latest project CERA has begun is the history of Chicago's streetcars. Much research on the subject was done by the late James J. Buckley but much remains to be done, especially on the early years. In order to set the actual scope of this massive project and how it should be handled, CERA has contracted with a researcher to search for records on the early years and then to see how that can be integrated with the already competed research to make a coherent history. This project, as you can understand, is a very long term one. At this time there is no schedule, but the final product, if completed, must consist of multiple volumes over several years. Here too, George Hilton's generous gift to CERA early this year makes possible the hiring of outside assistance.

While it may seem that CERA has a full publication program, such is not the case. It is always important to have several projects at various stages of development to insure a flow of finished books to the members. Thus we solicit your assistance in finding possible projects for our publications efforts. If you know of an author who is interested in an electric railway subject or have a manuscript, finished or not, that might be of interest to CERA or if you would be interested in tackling a writing or research project, contact us to see what can be worked out. Our publications are justly famous for their quality and comprehensive coverage of topics. You can help extend our program into the next millennium.

Sales of bulletins picked up this year with publication of the Northern Indiana book. In addition CERA entered into an advertising program that has seen ads in many publications both for the books we have for sale and also to attract new members.

Attracting new members continues to be a problem, and our membership will drop this year, as older members are unable to renew their membership or pass away. This problem is not unique to CERA and we need your help in attracting new, younger members to make sure CERA survives another 60 years. If you have some ideas on how we can be more interesting to younger fans and how can attract them as members, please write us or contact a director at a membership meeting. We need suggestions.

We also need volunteers to lend a helping hand in CERA's operations. Committee membership (Audit, Election or Nominating) is an easy and painless way to help the association. Meeting only a few times in late fall, these committees perform vital functions. Membership is open to all active members and no special skills or knowledge is needed for any of them. We also need volunteers to assist in our book sales operation. Once a week two or three members meet at the CERA office in Chicago's Loop to pack and ship the books that have been ordered during the last week. This usually takes 2-3 hours and then everyone goes to dinner. Dinner expenses are reimbursed , so the only cost to you is getting to the office (easily accessible by CTA rapid transit) and a few hours of your time once a week.

Walter R. Keevel, President January, 2000

Note: The printed report also includes a list of Sustaining and Contributing Members. That portion of the report has not been produced here.

back to Activity Reports

Home | Books | Programs | Bulletin Archive | Trips
 About CERA | Membership | Links | Privacy | Contact Us

© 2006-2007 Central Electric Railfans’ Association