Wood Shop

On September 27, 2008 we made the long planned road trip to Decatur, IL to load and acquire new woodworking machines for our carshop. These machines were owned by the Illinois Traction System (Illinois Terminal) dating from about 1900. One of the machines is much older from about 1875, so must have been acquired used by the IT.

When the Decatur Car Shops stopped that work in the mid 1950's a woodworker and fan bought most of them and opened his own business in Decatur. Now heading for retirement, he offered these three to us and is working on selling the remaining stuff. A very difficult decision for him, and for us as we could have likely gotten more, but space and money intervene. It is a shame in a way that this "IT Collection" needed to be split and broken apart after surviving another 50 years relatively intact.

Here is a rare photo of the Decatur car shops about 1910. Our planer is on the right behind the table saw. Our tenoner is on the left side along the wall, behind the shaper!! All machines were line shaft driven at this time. Anyone find it odd that an electric railway had no machines in their shop driven by electric motors? Although it does appear there was a LARGE electric motor driving the line shaft on the left side. Such was technology in 1910.

The crew going down there consisted of Richard Schauer, Tim Peters, Barb Lanphier and myself. A VERY long day but the loading went ok and the truck made it back to Union without incident.

Following are some of the images from that day.

This is the oldest machine and serves a multi function purpose with two tables for doing different operations. A FAY sash sticker circa 1875.

Here we have an H B Smith tenoner already partly disassembled for loading but still inside the shop, with motor and drive slid into place to provide a record of the setup.

The big American No. 4 1/2 planer is on the museum truck and the tenoner is being set into place for the trip.

The sash sticker is on the hoist out in the street moving toward our truck. For a small side street there was a lot of traffic that day!

The final two pics are the loaded truck parked in a lot by the local hash house. Loose pieces are being stowed for travel, and chains and binders added to prevent things from shifting. Estimated weight - 12,000 lbs.

We have been getting ready to host a national meeting of folks interested in old woodworking machines, and we have 'em!

John Faulhaber works on drilling holes in our framing for a circa 1880 molder while Victor Humphreys watches and waits for his turn on the drill. The machine is very close to fully restored and we hope to use it soon - the first job will be new corner posts for the wooden Chicago EL cars.