Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Lots to show and tell for this entry including a variety of other work going on at IRM.

By the Numbers

It is always exciting to see a restoration project nearing completion.  Tim Peters is applying the numbers to CRT 1268 and it involves some careful hand painting.

Letterboard

Tim has already completed the application of RAPID TRANSIT to both letterboards of the car, it is really looking sharp and the lettering sets off thousands of restoration hours spent on the car.

New Window

John Faulhaber was helping Henry Vincent install one of the new shop made windows on CNS&M 757, while Frank Sirinek cheers them on.

Mortising

Later on John Faulhaber volunteered to plunge eight more mortises for new windows for caboose 9792.  And still later he was working with Gerry Dettloff to cut and fit a template for new roof saddles for TM D 13.

Sanding

Rich Witt was on hand and continued his fine work making a new signbox sash for CA&E 409, his second one for this project.

Scrollwork

Frank Sirinek has been making roof repairs and other doing other work on the Vera Cruz 19 open car.  This is some of the fancy filligree scrollwork now found on the dashes of this open car.  For now Frank plans to keep it in the red livery for this coming operating season, perhaps painting over the CP&SW lettering.

The Number

And here is the number which appears in one spot on each end.  All of this needs to be documented, and then scaled, sized, and reproduced in drawings or with decals to be ready after the re-painting proceeds.