Passenger Car Department

Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Sunday, September 11. 2016

Work Continues on our Ely Posted by Roger Kramer in Ely at 16:57

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Work Continues on our Ely

During the Summer months John Mckelvey and Buzz Morisette have been working on reupholstering the Ely seat cushions in the dining area and the observation end of the car.

A before picture of the long sofa in the obs end. It shows the very poor condition of the couch

This view shows the new fabric installed in the dinning room couch. What a great fabric match!

This is very tedious work when you consider 30 buttons must be hand made, threaded and individually sewn into place. Nice job, John.

Here John is in the shop threading new buttons to be inserted into the headrest

The floral pattern of the existing fabric is quite close to the new fabric we have found and installing. However, the existing fabric is not the original, but the second replacement. Interesting what you find once you start repairing these old passenger cars! Thanks to Buzz for sending me this information so that I can include it on our Irm blog. Roger

Friday, August 12. 2016

Back in service: The RI 2602 Posted by Roger Kramer in Passenger Car Department at 20:47

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Back in service: The RI 2602

The coach department has again met its goal!! We have completed the interior restoration of the 2602 and it will again be used for the Thomas event. Paul and I would like to thank all of you who participated in its upgrade! Here are the last few pictures taken before it was added to the Thomas train this last Thursday. We now have five reliable Rock Island coaches, all interiors repainted and in service. Just to refresh everyone's memory the numbers are: 2555,2571,2582,2602 and 2612. RI 2524 is now being restored and might possibly be ready for next years Thomas train. Be sure to follow the upcoming blogs on this our last R I restoration.

This picture was taken just after we completed the painting of the ceiling

Please compare these pictures with the ones on the last blog.

Jeff is priming the last of the seat pedestals. Yes, we cleaned all the rust from each frame and primed them.

We also paid attention to many details in the coaches.
Here Buzz is applying decal numbers on the bulkhead of the 2582 coach. Yes thats me looking on.

It turned out to be real hot the last couple of weeks but we continued working in spite of the heat. Thats the new fan we purchased to kool the crew!

Bob Olsen finishes the painting of the seat frames. Each one is now painted and properly working.

Seat frames are now painted. What a difference.

The weekday crew Jane Sandy and Jeff. Not in this picture is Scott our in-house artist.

Another view Thats Jane in the foreground and Sandy in the background

We had a crew of seven when we reloaded the coach with seats and backs. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures. Suffice it to say everyone was soaked with sweat by the time the job was finished!

The seats cushions are all installed and Bob Albertson is cleaning the dust and grime off the wall.

Its ready for the Day Out With Thomas.

I hope the public will enjoy the new interior. It was well worth all our hard work!

One other person I should thank is John McKelvey. He is our in-house resident upholsterer. He has been volunteering his time in the "upholstery shop" five days a week since May working on various projects. Without his talent and expertise the seat cushions would not have been recovered with new material in this and the rest of the fleet. Thanks John, for a fine job! Well, there you have it! Its another repaint and restoration job completed on time and in house by the coach department crew. My personal thanks to all of you who worked on the project! As I have said before, "its amazing what a coat of paint will do" If you would like to see more of this type of activity at Irm please consider a donation to the Passenger Coach Restrict Fund. Your dollars will be well spent! Thanks and see you on the Thomas train. Roger

Friday, August 12. 2016

2602 Before the restoration Posted by Roger Kramer in Passenger Car Department at 14:34

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2602 Before the restoration

This is small memory refresher for all of you! This is the RI 2602 two years ago before we decided to actively restore the interior. You must remember that the coach department was still restoring the 2612 at this time! The coaches interior was in horrible condition. We only had about three weeks, last year, to repainted the walls of the 2602 before the Thomas event. Here are some 2014 pictures. Like me, you will be amazed at the before and after pictures. What a contrast.

These pictures were taken April 21, 2014

A very dark and uninviting interior.

What a mess! Would you as a customer want to ride in a car like this?

The next blog will show you what the coach interior looks like now. What a difference! Please continue reading. Thanks Roger

Monday, August 1. 2016

RI 2602 It will be ready! Posted by Roger Kramer in Passenger Car Department at 06:28

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RI 2602 It will be ready!

I want to show everyone our latest project rushing to completion for Thomas. We have a small crew that has been feverishly working on restoring the interior of our last operating Rock Island coach 2602. Paul Cronin and I are very proud of the quality of work that we all have accomplished this season. We are just like Metra upgrading the interiors of our equipment. Here is the latest report, then, on the Rock coach.

The four person team has completed the painting on one side of the ceiling and now our attention focuses to the last side

Jeff has finished chipping and sanding areas above both doors. Next step is to clean with xylene and prime.

Another focus on the coach was to remove any ugly peeling paint on the exterior. Again Jeff needle chipped this stairs and now Sandy has begun priming it.

Jane AKA Steam Dept Jane has been working with us on the weekdays all summer. Here she is continuing her priming job on the second half of the ceiling .

Its water break time for her. We frequently do that to prevent any illnesses from the heat. As you can imagine its hot up there next to the ceiling.

This shows the vast space to be primed and painted. Jane is walking to retrieve another ladder

Sandy is priming the last section on the ceiling while in the back ground Jane has already begun to finish coat the primed areas

Do you sometimes wonder how your donations benefit the museum? Here is a prime example. We just purchased two heavy duty 6 foot step ladders and an 10foot aluminum plank scaffold to be used on this project! Your donations made it possible to purchased this equipment. Sure makes it a lot easier working on the ceiling.

The new ladders and scaffold are in use is this picture. This makes the painting of the ceiling a lot easier and safer. It also saves time.

This picture was taken, July 28, 2016. This weeks agenda includes painting all seat frames, heater covers and nickel seat frames. While that is proceeding we will also finish top coating both areas above the two entrance doors. Once those jobs have been completed we will sweep and clean the floor and begin painting it. Next week, once the floor is dry, we will begin cleaning by washing walls and cleaning windows. Lastly, begin moving in all seat cushions and backs. We shall then have reliable clean interior permitting us to focus our future attention on other projects. We need some help to clean the interior and move/ fit the seat cushions back into the coach. Please consider volunteering. The more volunteers we have the more fun there will be. Remember, Day Out With Thomas is soon approaching, August 13 and 14, and we would like to have the help to make things easier on all of us. Please consider helping!! Thanks Roger

Friday, July 29. 2016

More on DLW 556 Posted by Roger Kramer in Passenger Car Department at 20:34

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More on DLW 556

Here is another progress report of the 556. Included are a few scenes from other important restoration projects. We have accomplished so much in the first to weeks of July that I will be giving you a detailed report on the RI 2602 next week.

Heres Howard taking a little break before he starts priming the roof on the 556.

As I have previously mentioned we are upgrading the 556 from top to bottom.

We rigged a temporary awning so that Sandy could prime one truck on the 556

Here is a wider view of our restoration site in back of barn 3.

Howard is standing next to the recently primed 556 truck

Here Jeff has shifted his attention to the needle chipping of the last truck on the 556.

Remember the truck that Sandy had finished painting? Well, here it is all painted gloss black

Yes, this is a museum team effort. Victor is priming the battery box that was needle chipped the first week of July.

Do you recognize this coach? Very possibly not! Its the interior of our CNW combine 7700.

This is the interior of the CNW 7700 combine. After all these years its floor has been finally been painted

We painted the floor June 29th and what a difference it makes.

Here is Jane and Sandy in the process of painting the floor.

Yes, it now makes a big difference in the appearance of the interior. We have expanded our work schedule to include this upgrading of the combine. By all accounts it surely needed it! First, Sandy sanded, primed and then applied two coat of gloss black to all the window sills while it was stored in barn 3. During the same period Sandy also sanded, primed and coated gloss black to all the wooden arm rests. Lastly, we painted the floor and steam heat pipes all an indian red color! It so dresses up the combine that you will be amazed at the difference! Still much to do including a ceiling repair but that might happen when funds become available in the coming years. In the meantime, it should be kept indoors, when not in operation, to prevent anymore more damage from rain leaking into the ceiling from the roof.

Although Rod is not in the picture he is operating the fork lift and lowering one of the huge motors in to the truck.

Another view. This is just for a test fit. Some modifications were made to accommodate the motors

These two picture's proudly show the rebuilt motors for the 1024 "L" car that Tim Peters has been restoring for the past 4 years!

The weather has been somewhat cool for the first two weeks in July so BIll and Victor have resumed painting the wagon top box car

Another view of the freight car crew painting the B and O wagon top box.

Lastly, Rich and Henry are manufacturing special contour wood beading. The wood pieces will used for the future installation of mirrors in the Dover Strait, John McGloughlin, and Mt. Harvard.

That's the round up for the first two weeks in July, 2016. As you well know, the last two weeks of July were very, very hot but we kept working as you shall see in the next blog. Thanks Roger

Saturday, July 9. 2016

Another Lackawanna report Posted by Roger Kramer in Passenger Car Department at 14:44

Comments (2)

Another Lackawanna report

This past week a large group of volunteers continued working on the Erie Lackawanna coach, 556. We are now focusing our attention on the exterior with work being preformed on the trucks and the roof.

Mark Rickert is priming one truck on the 556

Mark travels all the way from Kentucky to volunteer. Thanks Mark for your help

Jeff is finishing the needle chipping on the second truck WOW sure will looked much better when its completely painted in gloss black

July 6 and 7 were the two days devoted to this painting job. Here Sandy is priming the truck that Jeff has just finished needle chipping.

Jeff is touching up some spots on the first truck. He missed some spots earlier. This is the same truck that Mark primed in the morning.

A Photo of last weeks crew. L to R, Scott, Jeff, Jane and Sandy These four people really deserve a lot of credit. Thanks to all.

We are putting the finishing touches on our Thomas and Percy train for this years Day Out With Thomas event, Please consider coming out to help. We still need to paint two coach floors and clean all 12 coaches. Please stop on by, OR if you cant make it please consider sending a donation to the Passenger Coach fund to help defray the costs of paint and materials. Thanks Roger

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Comments

Matt about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
Tue, 06-13-2017 15:09
IRM is planning on painting the BN E Unit they have now (the one in the passenger scheme) into a CB&Q. Idk if that's what your referring to as [...]

Jerry Pyfer about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
Tue, 06-13-2017 09:07
Did I see a Santa Fe Blue & Yellow GE setting near Barn 4 a couple of weeks ago? If so, what is the story on that unit?

Raphael about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
Mon, 06-12-2017 22:56
i think what he means is to give the Executive units some detailing while retaining the Executive Colors, because if you haven't noticed, some of the [...]

Nick D about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
Mon, 06-12-2017 19:47
BN1 and BN2 represent the executive fleet well on their own, BN3 was used far less and was 9919 much longer. Another CBQ E unit is a bit excessive at [...]

Matt H about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
Sat, 06-10-2017 00:31
I honestly am not a fan of repainting the BN-3. There are plenty of BN E9AM's out there that don't need full repainting. Now I understand it costs [...]

Andrew Ossler about Steam Department April 2017
Wed, 05-31-2017 13:59
According to the schedule posted yes. This can all change at any time due to mechanical failure without notice.

Ted Douglas about Steam Department April 2017
Fri, 05-26-2017 11:01
Steam Dept. Crew: You guys are heroes to a lot of us out in the hinterland!

Mike G. about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
Sun, 05-21-2017 08:14
Yes, the plan is to have CB&Q 9976 available as an alternate silver locomotive for the Nebraska Zephyr should 9911A be unavailable for service. Since [...]

Joe Harper about Steam Department April 2017
Tue, 05-16-2017 13:08
Question. Will there be steam operating on either June 17th or 18th? Will be visiting from the state of Washington and was just curious. Thanks in [...]

Daniel Walton about Burlington Northern 9908 body work
Tue, 05-16-2017 11:36
You mean Burlington Northern #9908 will go back to being Chicago Burlington & Quincy #9976 ?

Eric W Kriesant about CNW Night Photo Session on May 20th, 2017
Mon, 05-15-2017 14:41
Will there be a rain date just in case?

Raphael about Freight Car Update
Tue, 05-09-2017 00:35
so, will 992300 have the welded windows cut out? because after seeing a 1977 photo online, it had the windows there.