Illinois Railway Museum Blog

As mentioned in the steam report, we had a squall line with heavy rain coming through in late morning, and that changed our plans somewhat.

This shows the difference between a true PHOTOGRAPHER, someone who knows what they are doing - and a point and click hack like me.  This is not a view that most snowplows have had recorded.  But if you are ever standing in front of one, it resembles or reminds you of nothing else than a giant set of jaws ready to gobble you up.  Stand aside.

We are very fortunate to have new member/volunteer Don Burkett to share his work at IRM with us.  Look for more of it in the future.  I could see the potential DRAMA in a head on shot as I was standing there, but could not capture it with the camera.

This sure does not look like a window.  But Buzz Morisette continues to work on closing up openings in the X 38.  Dodging the weather, he moved into the shop to cut up some plywood blanks for the openings.  Other openings have some parts of the old frames existent and he is re-glueing and patching them together.  Not strictly a finished restoration but it will safeguard the equipment and buy us some time to make new ones over the coming winter.

New volunteer Tom Bernacki is finishing up the last small area to be ready for painting.  Tom is a careful and energetic worker, and flexible enough to dart into the shop when the rain began; he helped make sawdust from some new timber.  Thank you Tom, it was a pleasure.  And yes, Victor Humphreys got all that primed before leaving for the day.  In my case the higher you remove yourself form terra firma, the somewhat slower the work goes.

THE RUSSELL SISTERS

We have here three really outstanding black and white photos taken by Rex Beach and shared with us by Joe Pierson.  Thanks, Joe!!!

The Chicago Great Western rostered three nearly identical Russell Snowplows, ours has a builders date of August, 1936.  In the 1960's all shared an orange livery with black lettering.  Let's take a look at them, in numerical order.

This shot was taken in Oelwein, Iowa, on May 5, 1965.  Oelwein was the site of the main shops for CGW and their operating hub.

Here we are in Randolph, Minnesota on March 20, 1965.  Apparently the plow was put to the test, despite the first day of spring being the very next day!

And of course, our very own X 38, here pictured in Oelwein, Iowa in 1962.  Quite a family resemblance, do you think they could be SISTERS?

Another good day on the X 38.  Working on a snow plow in the heat of summer, somehow it just seems cooler.

Buzz Morisette is making repairs to many of the existing window frames for the plow.  These are not permanent restorations but will fill the openings and hopefully keep weather and birds out.  These two from the cupola are being re-glued.

I just did not seem to have the camera around at the right time and place.  There were many volunteers stopping by to join in the fun for an hour or for all day.  Jim Leonard and Dave Rogan are taking a shift cleaning the old paint from the wing.  That is certainly a LARGE wing area, and is deceiving in a way.  But here, all the old layers of paint have been chipped off.

  Well, not exactly.  Jim Leonard is on the ladder and Fred Ash is attacking some of the lower side area.  There was a lot done to clean out the interior, most of the air piping has been found, identified and located, grinding and welding on the rear wall, just a whole lot of work.  By end of the day, Victor Humphreys stopped by and painted most of the remaining area on the top of this wing panel.  Still a little bit left to clean up.