Illinois Railway Museum Blog

I am a bit late getting this on line, as most of these pics were taken 7/18.  And as with many of of the recent blog entries, a lot of topics are covered, so I am going to leave it titled as WOOD SHOP, even if not 100% accurate.

Step Box Boys

Jim and Tom Windmeier (father and son team), have adopted the moniker of Step Box Boys, as they work toward manufacturing a dozen or so wooden replica stepboxes for use at IRM.  There is some really nice woodworking going on here.

Seat Hardware

Frank Sirinek and Dan Fenlaciki are attaching the yokes and hardware to one of the newly re-upholstered seats for TM 972.

Progress

Here are the same pair working inside the car to mount that above walkover seat back in the frame.  As you can see, they are homing in on completing the installation of most of these seats.

Cauls

Norm Krentel and Jeff Brady wrestle a sheet of plywood through the table saw.  They are cutting formers for a large bending caul which is being assembled.  That caul will then be used to bend and form sheets of new roofing overlayment for the Michigan Electric 28.

We also managed to do a small amount of painting and lettering on URTX 26640, wrestled with some air brake problems on CGW 601 caboose, took delivery of a new woodworking machine, saw Gerry Dettloff and John Faulhaber painting new roof boards for the TM D13, and noted progress on CRT 1797, being restored by Tim Peters.

We also witnessed a manufacturer demo of dry ice CO2 blasting to remove paint and accumulated dreck from a variety of materials.  To me it seemed too aggressive for some more fragile materials and yet not strong enough to handle several old coats of paint on other, heavier pieces needing cleaning.