Freight Car Department

Wayne Baksic takes some time off from working in the Wiidshop to board the caboose for an unscheduled EXTRA freight train movement.

Here we have an unscheduled EXTRA train ready to run the mainline on Sunday afternoon!  The loco is Illinois Terminal 1565 Class B electric.  The train is Great Northern 70104 hopper followed by Rock Island 19135.  We have done the mechanical inspection on the hopper, and nearly finished the caboose restoration.  So, it was time to put some miles on those and check how they run.

On the back platform, the crew/riders included (l to r) Wayne Baksic, Barbara Lanphier, Kirk Warner, and Dick Cubbage.

We were fortunate enough to have an IRM friend who has a brass foundry in the back of his property.  They invited us out to help (watch) a pour to make replacement parts for the Michigan Electric 28 and the doodlebug Union Pacific M-35

The furnace is opened.

The crucible has been removed using a motorized chain drive on a jib crane.

The first flask has been poured and the second is in process.

The first ones are opened - smoking hot!

Just like proud parents of a newborn, Dan Mulvihill and Bob Sundelin hold some of the completed parts.

As part of the never ending series of repairs, we returned to work on this car.  Last year we discovered that the power hand brake was inoperative.  This weekend we removed the Ajax brake due to some very skilled torch work by Jerry Saunders.

The car is sitting at the east end of Track 53 and here is where the 'culprit' used to be mounted.

Next was a fairly difficult disassembly job by Kirk Warner.

Followed by the repairs.  Here Kirk has the rear cover of the assembly in a hydraulic press to work at straightening it.  This was followed by some expert welding by Rod Turner, a lot of grinding and various other 'dirty work'.

June 7, 2008

Work continued to repair and rebuild the power handbrake for the car.  Here, Victor Humphreys and Rod Turner have heated the nut holding on the handwheel, and are struggling to remove the yellow hot nut to release the wheel.

Next, the assembly backplate is being hot riveted back in place.

Work continues here every week, even if your reporter does not get back there every week.  Here, Joe Luciani shows where one of the step wells has been removed.  New steel is being fabricated for the body repairs, and ultimately a new step well is to be created.

Here are three views of our newest Freght Car acqusition.  It arrived on the property 5/28/08.

The car was built by Genral American in October, 1941, and operated its entire life in the GATX lease fleet, numbered 33519.

It is an insulated tank car, a six compartment tank car, and with its built date in the 1940's, all three of these attributes fill missing links on our already world class tank car collection.

Each of the six compartments are a nominal capacity of 1030 gallons, and this was used to transport several varieties of wine in a single shipment.  The compartments are numbered B-1 to B-6, starting closest to the 'B' end of the car.

The last IDT or In Date Testing of the air brakes was 1-22-82, and this coincides with other test and maintenance dates performed by GATX at their station name abbreviation WC.  Perhaps West Colton, CA??

The car is sitting on temporary shop trucks, the permanent trucks and 'missing' coupler are still in California.

As with any new acquisition often we have to sieze the moment, and hope friends and members recognize that fact.  Where this is going is that there are bills to pay, and more expenses to be incurred to get this complete and intact.  As always, donations can be sent to:

Illinois Railway Museum
Box 427
Union, IL 60180

Attn: Freight Car Dept.