Illinois Railway Museum Blog

This seemed to be an unusually busy day, or maybe just many folks on hand working on many different projects.

Leg Work

Henry Vincent brought the donation of a new workbench, motor, and arbor which is to be dedicated to polishing and cleaning the many brass items needed during a restoration.  Here he is cutting 4x4 blocks to adjust the leg length and working height of the bench.

A Spinning Wheel

And in no time at all the unit was set up, the polishing wheel set installed and spinning, and Simon Harrison was hard at work buffing still more brass window latches for the Sand Springs 68.

Done

After some more sanding and finish work the new door for our station is DONE.  Victor Humphreys and John Faulhaber both worked hard on this project, as did many others.  Here they examine the door standing up, which should give you some idea of the size of it.

Let There Be Light

Pete Galayda and John Nelligan are continuing to make progress on the Charles City Western 300 steeple cab locomotive.  Pete completed work on one of the headlights and has installed it on the east end of the locomotive.  It sure looks like he has it wired up and burning brightly, but I confess it is only a trick of the camera reflecting the flash.

Brick

Lorne Tweed is moving right along on the project for the steam shop, to make a mold for casting a fairly unique piece of firebrick.  During the day, John Faulhaber did a lot of tricky profile sanding and did a very good job!

Box Trailer

George Clark always seems to make a lot of progress when no one is noticing.  Here he is at the side doorway on the Lake Shore Electric 810.

The Jig Works

John Faulhaber watches as Rich Witt tries out the 'universal' routing jig for passenger car windows.  It worked as intended and promises to be a useful timesaver on the four Glen Springs windows we are making, and on any in the future.