Illinois Railway Museum Blog

As I mentioned previously in these entries, my time this weekend was almost totally consumed by IRM hosting a meet of folks interested in old wood working machines.  Over 85 attended on Saturday and I would like to thank all the volunteers that contributed their time and effort to make it a success, led various tours, and to those who cooperated indirectly in deferring their work, or scheduling it around the clinics and demos in the wood shop area.

That said, I managed to pick away at machining a new window sill for the X 38 snowplow and there was other work going on.  We thought the brutally hot summer would never end, but mother nature knows differently.  Nearby Sugar Grove registered a 32 F reading Sunday AM.  Now the race is on to use remaining good weather days on our projects before Jack Frost settles in for the winter.

Side Repairs

Victor Humphreys continues at warp speed on the repairs to the sides of our B&O wagon top boxcar.  Here is the first panel with new steel welded in, the welds ground down, and body filler applied and sanded.  Also you will note the new 'rivets' in place and the area ready to be prime painted.

Back In Barn 4

The Electric Car department managed to execute a long and complicated switch move to reassign space of many cars now that the Zephyr repairs are complete and the trips have been run.  (Remember that the Zephyr occupied most of Track 41 to allow repairs to take advantage of the repair pit.)  So the big news is that TMER&T 972 is back in Barn 4.  Watch for developments on this project in the coming weeks.