Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Hi folks! We are still here, just a bit busy doing winter stuff. Sorry for the long drought in writing, but we hope to be a bit better as we approach spring.

Heavyweight coach work has been moving along. Many seat frames needed replacing after a long period of wear. The past four or five weeks of severe cold has made it hard to work outside, but Mike and Ray are hardy souls that have gotten it done! The window that was broken over Halloween is also being resolved. As usual with these cars, nothing is easy. The door frame is rusted, the window frame is rusted in and all the mounting screws are frozen. A "simple" repair is taking 2-3 days worth of work to repair the metal and repair the window frame to allow new glass to be installed.

Our participation in the Monee project, which also netted the museum two new steam locos, was to strip an ATSF combine for seats and other hardware. The seats we found were original design and so we can now begin the process of installing them in ATSF 2544. This will make the later version seats surplus, and we have asked several folks around the museum if they are interested and they have declined. Therefore, if anyone knows of a use for these seats they can be had as is, where is in Barn 3. See Mike Baksic and they are yours.

On the streamliner front we have made some moderate progress in the Birmingham kitchen. Last autumn, one of the fluorescent fixtures went bad, and it prompted us to begin to look up at the structure that was hidden by the lights.

OOOOPS!

We opened a Pandora's box, and began a project that would take much of the winter. We discovered three more exhaust vents that were open to the outside, letting all of our heat escape. In order to get to them, we had to tear out the cook hood from the ice cream parlor, and that led to removing of the steel wall panels to expose the railroad framework and wall structure, and that led to opening up the corridor wall further, and that led to a better understanding of the original design, causing us to move more kitchen structure to the original shape.

AND along the way we installed new incandescent ceiling fixtures in the original locations. While the fixtures are not authentic, they are in the same style as the originals, and the lighting now in the kitchen is a much warmer tone, much more as it would have been when built.

http://www.irm.org/gallery/Birmingham?page=1

RDC 9934 is also moving along in repair. The missing cab window has been located and rebuilt, baggage racks are being fabricated and spring plans for more seat work continue. Being a well contained open space, we hope to make several displays possible within the car this season.  

The set will be open for guests during the day of the Operating dept soiree in March, and we are planning all dept displays to be ready for Scrapbook weekend as a kickoff to the season.