Entries by Roger Kramer

Our fun has continued focusing on the exterior restoration of the Mt Harvard. When you view these following pictures, please realize there is a common thread here. The majority contain the pictures of people volunteering and contributing to the various projects. Please remember, without our volunteers, the museum is just a group of old machines. Thanks to all of you in barn 10 as well as the other departments that have assisted us. Anyway, both entrance doors, tops and bottom, are now completed with one side hung and in place. Both traps are also in place and functioning quite well. Here are more pictures of those events in progress.

Dale is sanding on side near the Pawnee.

With Dale in the background Robert is also sanding the car.

Top part of the vestibule door painted and ready to be installed.

Here Gregg has installed the second trap.

The entire door installed and painted.

There is much sanding entering the pictures.

Darek is working removing the old layer of paint.

Kathy, wife of Darek, smiling for me taking a break while sandblasting more parts.

Andrew is working on the other side doing the same thing.

Here Howard is removing the old Mt Harvard sign.

The next week he was sanding around more rivets.

All three from the Special Projects team working on the end of the car.

Lee working on the scaffold sanding above the buffer.

Adding to our barn 10 crew are the Special Projects folks, Ed, Paul and Lee. They will be joining us; bring their much appreciated energy and talents to help us.   More about them coming in future blogs.

Here Andrew is removing more old paint. A future picture will show this side completely primed. 

Robert is back sanding a corner post.

Now to the other major project. The John McLaughlin, as seen in the previous blog, has the interior sections completely repainted. The next far reaching project in this sleeper is the upholstering of the many torn and damaged seats and backs.

John and Jane are busy installing new fabric on the old seat frames.

June has been a busy month in spite of the pandemic taking hold of our country. The museum will be open to the general public starting the weekend of July 25.  New guideline will be issued to each visitor as they enter the museum. Some displays will be open to the public within the constants set by the governor. All in all you still will enjoy your visit to the Illinois Railway Museum. Thanks, Roger.

This first week of June in barn 10 was very productive even with volunteers keeping the prescribed distancing. The four ongoing projects were the Mt Harvard, Milwaukee Road 649, John Mc Laughlin, and the Pawnee. The following is a summary of the four projects in pictorial form.

First, the Milwaukee Road coach, 649.

Steve is standing next to window frames that were freshly painted.

Our resident paint sprayer, Howard, is spraying more frames.

Later that day Steve is working in the interior of the 649.

For the last seven months the bulk of our restoration efforts in the coach department have been devoted to the John McLaughlin. I am proud to say that we have accomplished our goal of repainting the entire eight sections of the sleeper. Here are pictures of the last areas being repainted.

Not to be outdone, I painted the ceiling trim on the last day of May.

Work on the interior of the John McLaughlin, This is the last section to be painted.

Sandi is painting the brown wall color.

She was painting again the next day.

Here you realize there is much ladder work taken place on this entire project.

It takes many volunteer hours to restore the McLaughlin. Here Jane and John are reupholstering one of fifteen seat bottoms in the sleeper.

June 5th finds Tim removing paint from the last berth in the section area. The last one!

June 8th Sandi has already primed the last upper berth and now will begin painting the final coat.

The Pawnee has received a drumhead sign.

Here Jane, Robert and Logan are poising for the camera on the obs end.

Howard is working on restoring the shine on the car body.

Howard just finished buffing the exterior.  You can see his reflection.

The last project is the Mt Harvard.  I am committed to repainting the sleeper this year.  We are focusing all our attention on the exterior.  Getting it prepped is a labor intensive job.

Robert Kersey continues the body prepping by cleaning this area in preparation for priming.

One window in the mens bathroom.  We removed it in order for a repaint.

Here Robert is sanding more of the body. He is a new member to the coach department and is doing a fine job. Thanks, Robert, for your efforts.

Here is our VIP resident mechanic, Gregg Wolfersheim. Here he is repairing one of the two trap doors needed for the Mt. Harvard  vestibule. A little more about that later in another blog.

If you would like to see more progress in these four projects please consider make a donation to any or all of them.

Among the many restorations and building projects in 2019 was the painting of the steam locomotive T&NO #975, a 2-10-2 wheel arrangement. This project, which was started in 2018, was financed by the museum through the general fund. This is an example what can be done by the museum through the hiring of paid employees. A member, Gregg Wolfersheim, was hired to paint the engine and with his hard work he turned a rusty old steam engine into again a work of beauty.

Here the wheel frames are primed and prepared for a coat of black paint.

Here Gregg has removed the old rust and paint and is now applying a coat of Sherwin Williams  primer.

One brush stroke at a time.

The running gear on the west side is almost all primed with pink primer. We added a little too much red colorant into the primer. 

Here Gregg is spraying the front pilot area black.

1630 fired up. This could a rail yard in Texas! No, its at the Illinois Railway Museum.

Side view facing East.

Side view facing West.

Side view with smoke box painted.

More progress.

Here Gregg has painted the front of the smoke box gray.

West side where Gregg has prepped and painted most areas.

The tender has been painted and hand railings painted white.

975 almost finished. Lettering has yet to be completed!  

The headlight now is installed.

Now it looks like a steam loco. The Headlight sure makes a difference.

To preserve the 975 and its paint job we would like to house this engine in a new barn when built.  Please send donations to the T & NO 975 fund to help make this happen.  Thanks, Roger.

The Mt Harvard has changed its appearance since my last report on the sleeper. We have continued working on it through the winter and have made great strides on our goal of operating the Pullman. The change, has been amazing! I will explain as well as letting the pictures do the talking. You will remember we had our first xmas party in the Mt Harvard lounge last December. At that time party goers were impressed when shown our progress on the sleeper. We are making more progress concentrating now on the vestibule. Renewing and repairing that area is now our goal. Along with that is the prepping of both exterior sides for future painting.

Here is what the vestibule deck looked like in November 2018.

Another view of the project ahead of us.

Gregg has been restoring the vestibule deck floor. He has done this by removing the old rusted steel plate and then installing new painted steel sheets to support the deck.

He now has the new deck plate installed and painted black.

A more detailed view of the replacement steel welded in place.

This exterior sheet has also been replaced.

Gregg finished drilling holes and now a second coat of primer has been applied.

January, 2020 Gregg was busy fitting a new side panel into place.

He is checking his work.

North side of the vestibule.

The long awaited installation of the second stair. I am sure glad I had them manufactured eight months ago.

In April 2019 I contracted with Harmony Metal of Gilberts, Illinois to manufacture 6 duplicate stairs at a cost of $1200 ea.  One stair was installed in August, 2019 on the Mt Harvard. Now the second stair has been installed. An additional four stairs were made for the John McLoughlin's future installation.   

Just a reminder what the area looked like before we started this side of the restoration.

Here Sandi is trying to persuade the stair to get into proper alignment.

Using a comealong device, we moved the stair into position. Gregg drill holes from underneath and then fastened the last stair to the frame of the car.

Here is the finished product.  A couple of things must be added but now one can enter the sleeper from either side of the car.

The next job we worked on was installation of the two steam traps. These were removed in order to transport the Mt Harvard from the Mid Continent RR Museum to IRM.

The last project we started on before the shutdown was the rebuilding of the two traps for the vestibule. Parts have been made for the rebuild but we ran out of time to reassemble them.

Here Gregg is removing the brass support pieces for future installation.

We have also been working on the exterior. 

Here Bob Olsen of Waukegan, Illinois, is sanding one side of the car in preparation for future painting. 

Bill L. Davis, part of the father son team.

Darek Mitura pausing for the camera while  sanding a panel.

Bill R. Davis prepping the rivets.

I am so very proud of all the volunteers and employees that have contributed to this project! Many hours of work still lay ahead of us but we are all working together to get the job done. The Virus has complicated our time frame to return the Mt Harvard to limited service. Hopefully, we still might see the project get finished by the end of this year.

The Mt Harvard restoration is being solely funded by your donations to the restricted fund. Please consider a donation to help with the restoration of the Mt Harvard project! https://www.irm.org/donations/category/passenger-car-department/  

Continuing the restoration news on the John McLoughlin is the repainting of the Men's bathroom. Mark Hoffmann started by abrading two walls in late 2018.    They were primed to preserve the surface from rusting but we never top coated them. 2019 brought an increase in activity in the entire sleeper. That is when the work in the men's bathroom resumed. You will see, in these pictures, our renewed efforts.

We have sanded this wall and now Sandi is ready to prime.

Partially primed.

Now the wall has been primed and Sandi is applying the top coat.

The wall is painted but still lots to do.

We now switch our efforts to this wall. A future mirror will be installed in that large white area.

Now we have started the hardest job. Working on the ceiling and using a sander and electric wire wheel to remove the old paint. Thats Tim Fennell inspecting Sandis fine work.

Taking a break from the ceiling we worked priming and painting on another wall.

Not shown in any of these pictures is the actual painting of the ceiling. As we found out in the Mt Harvard, working over your head on the ceiling is no easy task. The ceiling did get painted! Many thanks to Mark, Andrew, Tim, Bob, our volunteers.

Here we just finished painting the last two walls. A corner sink gets reinstalled underneath the mirror.

Here I have installed most of the brass shelves. Already, it looks more like the mens bathroom.

With much of the work completed we moved on to the stripping the old paint from the steam and water pipes below the sinks. They are now also painted. That almost finishes the job. Removing the clutter will make it even better!

After reinstalling all of the wall light fixtures, brass shelves and two sinks we moved on to the more difficult job! The team was to begin the most labor intensive work yet, the repainting of all four sections. Removing old paint from ceilings and walls was going to be a major, major job! We first had to remove the four seat cushions that made up each Pullman seat. No easy task. The seat cushion themselves are very heavy. Made up of metal coil springs, straps and wood, each weighted about 40 pounds. Yes, That's one reason why these sleepers were called heavyweights. Everything about these Pullman sleepers is super heavy. They were made to last a long time. My back can attest to that. Anyway, the next blog on the John Mcloughlin will focus on our repaint of the four sections. Donations to continue this project can be sent to: https://www.irm.org/donations/category/passenger-car-department/     Thanks, Roger.