Illinois Railway Museum Blog

March 13-14, 2009

Last Saturday's gang was Tom, Frank, Steve and myself.  The original goal for the weekend was to get the mainline walked and inspected for defects and Tom continue to brush cut on the main.  Frank and I ended up getting out early and spent the entire day walking from MP0 to MP 4.8 marking defects along the way.  We came up with 3 full pages of issues to correct, mostly loose bolts and missing washers, but a few other important defects like sink holes near 4 culverts...  A day of repairs will be necessary very soon, but for now the line is open to 40MPH without any speed restrictions. Tom spent all day on the mower cutting brush from Seeman Rd to Four Mile Siding.  He made huge progress cutting areas with very heavy brush.  The improvement is very noticeable. 

Our third gang, Steve, worked on property all day.  He worked all day getting the EJ&E 580 motorcar cleaned up and running, which he ended up getting started later in the evening.  It hasn't run in years.  Before we got the EJ&E 585 motorcar this was Frank's project.  The 585 sidelined this project and has sat dormant since.  We now have two A-8C Motorcars operable for the first time.  Way to go Steve!

Sunday was Frank, Steve and myself.  We hit the main early with the EJ&E 585 motorcar, hydraulic power cart and tie crane and headed to Four Mile Siding.  Frank ran the crane prepping the siding extension for three track panels... This involved picking up about 50 ties laid out and clearing the area for weeds.  In the meantime, Steve and I drilled two bolt holes at the end of a rail that had never been drilled on the siding.  We now have bolts in both rails and the joint put back together.  There is no reason Four Mile can't hold revenue trains now.  We greased the new power switch at Four Mile, and continued greasing all of the spring switches as we headed back to the property for lunch. After a trip to pizza, I headed back out on the main with a bucket of switch grease and hit all of the spring and power switches on the mainline and station areas.  Frank and Steve headed toward the 580 and worked on the brakes.  Saturday the 580 ran, and Sunday the 580 stopped!  The brakes hadn't worked correctly for years, and now it runs and stops.  The only issue holding up a test run is that it's buried behind about a million freight cars and engines in yard 10 - 100 track.  Until the diesel guys get a large loco running to move everything it'll hang in limbo.  Again kudos to Steve and Frank for the work!
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March 21-22, 2009

This weekend we had a different focus.  Saturday we picked up the transmission filter for the Model 50 Burro crane from NAPA we had previously ordered.  Getting that and a complete set of filters for the 6000 filters set up the day's tasks.  Frank was out with Trackbolt (Frank's daughter Emily) and Tom was out with Tyler.  Frank and Emily did wonders getting oil changed and filters replaced on the 6000 while Tom and Tyler did a great job cutting the mainline.  By dark Tom had the entire line cut from one end to the other! Only a few chainsaw jobs left and we are 100% done with brushcutting.  As promised, the line is tree free by regular ops next month.  Tyler and Emily helped me top off the transmission fluid in the Model 50 burro and we tested it out with much success. A few hickups, but it seems with the proper amount of ATF and a clean filter the crane hauls very well.  We tested it by moving cars around Yd 11.

    The diesel guys had a bunch of trucks that needed to be rolled into storage at Yard 13... Long story short, 3 axle trucks don't roll well through streetcar curves.... We assisted by re railing those trucks about 10 times in a span of 3 hours... We had one set of trucks tucked away and another set half way to it's storage spot when the main radiator coolant line on the 50 Burro blew apart leaving the crane paralyzed with a passenger truck hanging from the hook.. This was around 9PM and we called it a day until we got parts due to lack of options to lower the trucks...

Sunday Tom and I made it out mid-afternoon armed with 5 gallons of antifreeze and a new hose.  By the time I showed up Tom had the new hose installed and antifreeze topped off and we fired up the crane.  We finished re railing the passenger truck with the crane and Tom hooked it up to the Jeep with a chain to drag it into it's storage spot a few rail lengths down.  It was a sight to see and got the job done without any more derailments or broken windshields...thank goodness.  The rest of the day was moving equipment around for the next project and getting the Burro Crane put away. 

Thank you everyone for all the hard work so far this year.  Soon we'll wind down the machine maintenance and focus more on projects.  Coming up soon we are going to try to get Four Mile Siding extended another 150', repair defects on the main and prep machines for tamping and tie work.  Machines that still need a fair amount of work is the Jackson 6000 tamper and the Model 30 Burro crane (X-17). We are out nearly every Saturday and help will be appreciated more and more as we get into the operating season.  Let me know if you can join in the fun!

Adam Robillard

Roadmaster

lzeje657@msn.com