| BLOG | DIRECTIONS | SCHEDULE | STORE |
|
|
| BLOG | DIRECTIONS | SCHEDULE | STORE | |
Sunday, March 26. 2017Winter Activities in the Steam shop 2017
The new year has brought a lot of action in the steam shop. Every Saturday brings about 20 volunteers to the museum largest venue. Whether working on the shay, machining parts for the UP 428 or installing new shelves for storage of parts the members are making a difference.
 One of our young machinists working on a part for the 1630!  Dennis takes a break before again working on a welding project  This is one of the rods off the 1630 needing new brass bearings  Installing of the insulation being secured to the steam dome.  Moving the large driving wheels of the UP 428 into a better location for inspection  Setting the driving wheels on a wheel stand. Easy does it guys!  Yes, the UP 428 is receiving more attention. Here, the cab is getting fitted for its wood interior Thursday, March 16. 2017Everyone Helps and We Get It Done
Here is more news from our crew working on coach projects. This covers the time line from about January 15 to late February 2017.
 Dale is painting roof boards for the M-35. We had run out of projects that week so we were asked to paint them. Our volunteers painted some 60 boards in two weeks time.  After that we began again the next RI project. We started removing old rust and paint from the walkover seat frames. There are 42 of them not counting the rest of the seat frame parts that we had already painted  After a busy morning of painting our little crew sits down for a well deserved lunch, Sandy, Jeff and Curt are enjoying there sandwiches.  More seat frames in the process of being painted  Kurt painting more seat frames  The photographer has to have his picture taken too!  Working on those seat frames. Here Bob Olsen is cleaning more of them  Austin Harvey and his friend needle chipping on the Rock Island Project Tuesday, January 17. 2017More action from the Barn 4 annex
This is part of the activity, last Saturday, January 14, in the heated barn 4.
 Here I am spray painting one of the hat racks for the Dover bedrooms  We lined up the wooden roof supports for the M-35 restoration. Painting the M 35 roof supports  Dale in the background is scraping old paint off of a Dover Bedroom A baggage rack  Bill and Tim are working on brand new wood window frames  Buzz has been creating two new doors for our station. Dave Diamond and his Building and Grounds volunteers will be installing them later this year.  One of the two doors, all assembled and primed. Tuesday, January 17. 2017Coach dept early 2017 actvities
Our active coach dept members were again volunteering in the first part of January 2017. I would like to welcome another new volunteer to our group. Curt Wahlmark lives in Rockford. Welcome to our crew, Curt.
 Pictured here left to right Sandi, Curt, and Jeff  We are all in parts cleaning mode. Bob Albertson, Bob Olsen, and Curt Wahlmark. In the back ground walking into the picture is Paul Cronin  The next week we were painting the standee grab rings for the RI 2524  After lunch the group was prepping parts for the Dover Strait bedrooms A and B  Curt is working on the ceiling light fixtures. He is freeing up the rings that hold the glass globes into the brass rings. Monday, January 16. 2017A Growing Group of Young VolunteersI visited the Steam Dept Saturday, on a cold January 14, and was amazed to see so many young men and women working on various projects in the heated steam shop! This is a truly a growing Team of dedicated people. The volunteers were working on 5 or 6 projects and were making a difference, accomplishing something. The goal; To make steam a reality again in 2017! BTW this is not unusual to have this large a number of people show up on a Saturday. The large weekly turnout bodes well for the future of operating and preserving steam in the department as well as for the entire museum.  More parts have been loaded into the shelving that Jeff installed last week  The shays incomplete smoke box with a fake number 5 hanging on  Inside of the cab of the 5 showing insulation around the boiler  Struggling with the metal sheet  Pulling it up over the boiler This is the firemen side of the engine  Now the team is installing the sheet wrapper on the engineers side  Here is the boiler backhead of the 428.  Our machinist Eric is working on the brake rigging for the 428. Getting all the wornout parts machined and back into shape takes a lot of time and work Friday, January 13. 2017Building shelving in the Steam DeptThe team in the Steam Department are refiguring some of their storage area. Making full use of the space in the steam barn is Jeff Calidene with the shop's fork lift. Since space is at such a premium it was decided to make more efficient use of wall space by purchasing and installing tall storage metal racks. They are moving long stored engine parts from the floor and onto these palette racks. This solves two problems. First, it inventories and tags the individual steam locomotives parts and, second, it moves them from the floor onto the racks so that they can be accessed at later date. This clears valuable floor space for ongoing projects. Smart idea I would say! Stay tuned! More to come!  Jeff just finished building and installing the new racks  One of the first pieces of equipment to be stored in this space is our McCabe Flanger  A closer view of the flanger setting in the new storage area For some of you that are new to this site the Steam Dept is always looking for more volunteers who are interested in learning the many aspects of steam locomotive preservation and operation. Another aspect of their efforts is the constant need for additional funds [$] to continue the equipment restorations. One project comes to mind! The Union Pacific 428, our 2-8-0, is in desperate need of more funds to continue the work necessary to complete it to full operation. What is the estimate to completely fund the project, you ask? To finish the job by our volunteers the estimate is $22,750. To send out some of the machining work to a qualified contractor, you can more than double that figure, to an estimated 53,000!! That is why your donations to the steam dept are so important. Tom and his crew can accomplish a lot with the funds they receive! The museum, with its vast amount of ongoing projects, just does not have enough funds to devote to this one. Why not send in $10, $20, or $50, to UP 428 project, today. Thanks Roger |
Blog AdministrationFind us on Facebookfind us on instagram
Calendar
QuicksearchArchivesSyndicate This Blog |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Comments
Fri, 08-18-2017 00:52
Hi John T, We would love to have a copy of your Ohio crane information. Please contact Mark Secco concerning anything about rail bound cranes. Thank [...]
Fri, 08-11-2017 00:05
Randy, The 543 was never in that paint scheme. It'll likely be restored to the zebra stripe scheme whenever it does get restored. Jamie
Thu, 08-10-2017 17:46
If you ever get the money to repaint this engine, I would hope you would repaint it to have the big letters Santa Fe instead of the small print. [...]
Thu, 08-10-2017 10:38
I would like to know if these MR #649 and #542 were part of FEVR excursion in Nebraska? Awesome to have them to be part of IRM collection!
Sat, 08-05-2017 23:30
They need to restore Milwaukee road 33 and 37c along with the 3 Milwaukee road f units hey have
Wed, 08-02-2017 20:01
It was supposed to be restored and sat behind the NS Altoona shops for the better part of two years, waiting for that to happen. We finally had it [...]
Tue, 08-01-2017 02:42
those 2 Milw cars would actually look good behind one of the Milw F7's or the E9's.
Sat, 07-29-2017 22:02
I just donated to the Save the 800 campaign. Should the campaign fail, I would like my donation re-directed to ATSF FP45 #92 please. Please tell the [...]
Sat, 07-29-2017 13:14
I see Conrail 4601 has finally arrived. I suspect a cosmetic restoration and getting donations to put it in a barn are in order?
Sat, 07-29-2017 01:51
It was restored at Altoona before coming to Union from the Essex, CT area. BTW, is or was it going to be restored as a Virginian engine? or kept as a [...]
Fri, 07-28-2017 11:54
It appears to be the E33 that IRM aqquired a year or two ago.
Thu, 07-27-2017 14:06
What is the 4601 locomotive parked in front of the diesel shop?