Illinois Railway Museum Blog

another weekend of steady progress. I promise to try and get some more photos in the gallery, but for now at least a report to update our firends and neighbors

The ATSF combine is slowly getting its "new" seats installed. Mike is reworking the walls and other surfaces behind them first, and we hope that Mark Hoffman gor the chance to get the surfaces primed this weekend.

The RDC luggage racks are completely assembled in the west end of the car. We are waiting for a bit of consistent warmth, then the plan is to caulk them to keep them assembled, and paint them to a dull aluminum finish. They are not metal, but they look pretty good even in white, so a finish to them should make them fill the job until we can afford to make metal ones.

Birmingham is making some interesting progress. The kitchen walls are more and more back dated to the original. We have the ceiling lights in all locations now, and the difference in appearance is surprising.

We got the stove hood apart, and relocated part of it to its original spot. Now there is a gap in the middle, where the ice cream parlor cut it out, but we will try to fill that with a panel of some kind down the road.

The rest of the kitchen work for this season is adding a couple of lights inside the stove hood, in a method close to original. We also have figured out how to improve the heat exhaust this summer. We had a significant accumulation of heat up0 towards the ceiling last year, and it probably made the AC system less than perfect.

This summer we will run exhaust fans, (again similar to the original) and try to improve the circulation.

The air curtain at the entrance works, and we hope to have it functioning as well this summer.

We also want to replace the blank wall at the breakfront end, to enclose the kitchen and separate it from the dining area.

Lots of small projects all aiming at returning the car to something closer to its original spaces. We doubt it will ever get all the way back, but I think we can give our guests a better sense of the space with these changes.

Silver Ridge will get some bedroom work in a little while. I didnt see much value in trying to heat the car for doing spot work here and there, so I always kind of planned to make it the early spring project, and concentrate on Birmingham over winter.

we have eleven weekends until we open for public display in May, so we are already planning the prep work. Beginning in mid March, we have to clean and inspect all the cars in the streamliner set, plus set up all the cars in Barn 3. Mike has to take a lot of time in Apriil just inspecting and testing the mechanicals of the coaches so i have the responsibility of setting up the showpieces, tracking lighting circuits and changing all the lamps.

Anyone that is interested in helping out with passenger cars is welcome.

Any weekend time in late March or April tha you want to join in feel free to let me know. 

We also could use folks as docents during the season, if you just enjoy coming out and visiting. We would like to open the Susan Marie this year, but would need someone to be in the car to allow that. Shelly will also try to open the Ely some, but that too is her decision as she guides folks herself.

Hi folks! We are still here, just a bit busy doing winter stuff. Sorry for the long drought in writing, but we hope to be a bit better as we approach spring.

Heavyweight coach work has been moving along. Many seat frames needed replacing after a long period of wear. The past four or five weeks of severe cold has made it hard to work outside, but Mike and Ray are hardy souls that have gotten it done! The window that was broken over Halloween is also being resolved. As usual with these cars, nothing is easy. The door frame is rusted, the window frame is rusted in and all the mounting screws are frozen. A "simple" repair is taking 2-3 days worth of work to repair the metal and repair the window frame to allow new glass to be installed.

Our participation in the Monee project, which also netted the museum two new steam locos, was to strip an ATSF combine for seats and other hardware. The seats we found were original design and so we can now begin the process of installing them in ATSF 2544. This will make the later version seats surplus, and we have asked several folks around the museum if they are interested and they have declined. Therefore, if anyone knows of a use for these seats they can be had as is, where is in Barn 3. See Mike Baksic and they are yours.

On the streamliner front we have made some moderate progress in the Birmingham kitchen. Last autumn, one of the fluorescent fixtures went bad, and it prompted us to begin to look up at the structure that was hidden by the lights.

OOOOPS!

We opened a Pandora's box, and began a project that would take much of the winter. We discovered three more exhaust vents that were open to the outside, letting all of our heat escape. In order to get to them, we had to tear out the cook hood from the ice cream parlor, and that led to removing of the steel wall panels to expose the railroad framework and wall structure, and that led to opening up the corridor wall further, and that led to a better understanding of the original design, causing us to move more kitchen structure to the original shape.

AND along the way we installed new incandescent ceiling fixtures in the original locations. While the fixtures are not authentic, they are in the same style as the originals, and the lighting now in the kitchen is a much warmer tone, much more as it would have been when built.

http://www.irm.org/gallery/Birmingham?page=1

RDC 9934 is also moving along in repair. The missing cab window has been located and rebuilt, baggage racks are being fabricated and spring plans for more seat work continue. Being a well contained open space, we hope to make several displays possible within the car this season.  

The set will be open for guests during the day of the Operating dept soiree in March, and we are planning all dept displays to be ready for Scrapbook weekend as a kickoff to the season.