Illinois Railway Museum Blog

The holiday spirit was all around us and the smell of sawdust filled the air as a few souls put their other activities on hold and came out to work in the shops.

Defying Gravity

Tim Peters continued on his monumental quest to get new windows made for the Chicago Rapid Transit 1797.  While Randy Hicks stopped by to consult on his work for the CA&E 36, we caught this odd image of a new window sash defying gravity.  Actually Tim modified a commercial jig to drill angled mounting holes in the sash.  If you have been following these entries for some time, you may remember seeing a more elaborate home made contraption over a year ago, which was used to do a similar task for CRT 1268 windows.

Ripping Good Times

Roger Kramer, John Faulhaber, and Rich Witt made a lot of progress yesterday on our job to build nine new windows for Illinois Central 3996.

Production

Rich and John set up the various jigs and featherboard on the table saw and Roger and John continued to process the pieces.  Altogether 36 pieces of stock were handled.  The blanks were ripped to size, a roundover beading created on the table mounted router, and the rabbet cut on the table saw to accommodate the glazing.  Rich laid out the needed mortise slots on the stiles, and Roger squared off and cut all the top and bottom rails to length.  A good days work!

New Item

I have been working to build a new jig for window work, to square and size rails on any of our new window projects.  It is a bit of a challenge to make this out of hard maple, essentially to machinist tolerances, and to envision the needed adjustments and flexibility to handle whatever the future holds in store.  Rich Witt helped out by patiently listening to my tale of needed functions and closely examining some of the seven pieces seen here, and contributing suggestions and tips.

A lot has happened quickly on this subject.  A lot of IRM member help has developed as well as local model railroaders who have joined the effort.  In many ways this a sad or gut wrenching effort to saw apart what was years of effort and fine work.  I will follow this with a set of photos showing some of the work, but not a lot of prose.  The pics speak for themselves.

Cutting the Rails

Al Reinschmidt starts the process.

First Cut

Henry Vincent begins the ceremonial first cut through a layout section near the door.

Drill It

Wally Unglaub works along the west wall.

Moving Mountains

Planning Meeting

Henry Vincent and Barb Lanphier engage in some strategic planning over lunch.

Hard One

This part had been constructed around a building support column.

More Sections Gone

This area is now empty but was filled with layout sections two days earlier.

Old Men of the Mountain

Bob Kutella and Henry Vincent (red hat visible) pop up inside one the spectacular sections of mountain scenery.

The Way Out

Bob and Henry work their way out of the mountain.  A lot of time was spent on hands and knees.

I would like to thank all the members and friends of IRM that have contributed support over 2011.  Your time and donations are what make projects work!  That goes for the Freight Department and the Wood Shop where I spend most of my time, and for any project or activity on our campus.  There are major projects in almost every department that are close to being completed and we have every reason to expect some exciting announcements and developments in 2012.  If you have been reading these BLOG posts you know what many of them are.

THANK YOU, but the work is not done yet - we appreciate your continued support.

It may not be politically correct but it is how I was raised and part of what I am, so - -

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sometimes you work for weeks and wonder what progress you have to show for it.  Sometimes all that prep work comes together quickly and shows gratifying results.  Such is the way of restoration work.

First Rear Marker

The crew got busy early with Rod Turner on the ladder and Eric Lorenz working from the ground.  New threaded inserts had to be installed to allow the marker lights to be installed - we hoped.

Right Marker

Eric was up on a ladder most of the day, here wrestling the right rear marker into place.

New Step

Meanwhile Alex Randow was working to mount several other items.  This one is a fold up step to access the roof, here mounted on the side behind the exit doors.  There are only three of these to scale the height, and not much to balance upon if you were the unlucky guy that had to climb up there.

On the Roof

This is another of the items installed by Alex.  Once up all the steps you were considered lucky to grab this rung and haul yourself upright.  Woe be to you if it was rainy or snowy.

Rear End

Now to see what the opening paragraph was all about.  Here is the rear end of the car with most of all the accessories and parts installed.  Rear windows, retriever bracket and retriever, two rear marker lights, two rear stop lights, and the three rear bumpers.  It looks like a complete car!!