Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Saturday Report by Frank DeVries:

Tom, Adam, and myself made up the crew. I arrived early and resolved an air leak problem in the mower, I found one of the air lines had gotten out of place and rubbed against the drive shaft. I replaced two hoses with a quick trip to Napa, and pulled them up into the cab and had the machine running again. While at NAPA, I also retrieved the hydraulic filter for the same machine. Tom and Adam were out next. Tom took the mower to get fueled, and was back on the main to finish mowing. Adam went to barn 2 to finish draining the fuel out of the 585.

I continued to work on bolts to remove the two failed motors off the Jackson 6000 tamper, but decided north winds and 33 degrees, this was a job better left for another day. Off to the barn. After Adam drained the fuel and re-filled the tank with fresh gas, Adam and I tackled the leaking brake calipers on the 585. We jacked and cribbed the front of the car to allow access to the underside. Since the bolts didn't want to budge, we employed the blue wrench and quickly had the old calipers off the car. In short order we had the new calipers on, and bled, and tested. This car should stop on a dime, and give nine cents change. About this time, Tom was coming back to the property, having finished mowing the main. After a minor derailment, we had the mower put away. That machine will need to be greased again after it's winter workout.

After lunch, Adam got the fork lift out to sort material back by yard 10/11. Tom and I switched out 24 track to get the tamper and tie crane first out. Monday Wes and Warren Lloyd are going to again do the track department a huge favor and go retrieve the engine for the tamper. If they have time, and the snow isn't too high against the door, they will once again put this engine back on the frame of the tamper. Hopefully Fischbach has it right this time. Next weekend we will have to get this baby out and break her in.

After the switch move, it was back to the 585 to get the engine running again. I left our heroes improvising a new rubber fuel line to the fuel pump. I'll run to Napa next time and get some replacement 1/2" ID fuel hose to complete that job.

Frank D.

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Sunday's Report by myself:

Today started out kinda dreary; snow on the ground, drizzle and lots of clouds. 

Today's gang was myself, Tom H, and Frank D.  Frank got out first and replaced a fuel line on the EJ&E 585 taking care of a small fuel leak.  I joined shortly afterward and we headed to the Model 50 burro crane in Yard 10.  Our goal was to test the recently repaired transmission and decided to dig two cars out of Yard 13.  We needed the C&NW flatcar for Four Mile Siding and the gondola for scrap loading.  With Frank as the operator we found out just how much the crane can haul.  We were able to move 1 load and 5 empties at once...  Not bad for a smaller crane.  Playing it safe we cleaned out Yard 13 and moved everything to Yard 14 in three car cuts.  We got our two cars and brought them over to Yard 11.  We expected to take the entire day digging out the cars in Yard 13 but in fact we were done a lot sooner than planned. By the time Tom arrived we were finished and decided to head back out to Yard 13 to start shuffling track panels around to build Track 134.  We used the Burro crane to dig out all of the 100-25lb panels and set them roughly in place.  We got six set in place and there are four more 100lb panels to set. One at the bottom of a stack in Yd13, two are on the Rock Island flatcar and one is on the connector track under the switch timbers.  Those four should put us within a few rails of the end of track.  Yard 13 is clear so we can come in with the rail saw and drill and crop the panels together.  Complete, this will add about 600' of storage space to the yard.  Frank did a great job on the crane today and the machine didn't have any failures to report.

As soon as Barn 11 is ready for us to work in, we will.  Within the next few weeks we'll try and get the three 112lb track panels to Four Mile Siding and set in place, just as we did in Yard 13.  By the time we left the sun was out in full force without a cloud in sight with temps in the mid 40's.  The property was almost entire void of other life, but it was well worth the trip out.

Check out the rest of my photos from the day in my Member's Album: http://www.irm.org/gallery/album144

Adam Robillard
Roadmaster
lzeje657@msn.com