Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Friday Report.

Brian Harp was in town for the annual safety meeting, board meeting, etc. and was in town for Friday. I elected to take a vacation day as well Friday. We started with qualifying Brian on the Model 50 burro crane. He was instrumental in it's acquisition, and restoration to operation. So we used the 50 to dig out the Amtrak flat, CNW ballast car, and CNW flat from station 2, use two to build a work train for Saturday's trip to 4 mile siding. The Amtrak flat and Ballast car were moved to the East end of station 2, and we took the CNW flat back to yard 13 for loading of track panels for a future project. We also dug the EJ&E 529 caboose out of 11-0 track and moved that up to station 2 as well. Jeron joined us and we scavenged the battery out of the tie crane to get the Model 30 crane running. The 30 was put up against the ballast pile for later use to load ballast.

Once we completed all that, we still had daylight and lots of hands. We were joined by 1 other gent, whom I neglected to get his name. We elected to take the three car train out to dump stone on the main where we tamped last week. The crane was working well, except she seemed to fall on her face after running for a bit. More on that later... We made it out to the job site, and held a job briefing. Brian was elected to be the crane operator, Jeron, and our mystery volunteer were doing the dumping, and I was the dump master. We put down a little bit of stone in the middle to fill in the cribs from the 5" lift near the pond. We also dumped a bit on the shoulders. Once dumped we fought the air on the Amtrak flat back to Station 2. When we got back to 11-0 track with the 50 we noticed a transmission fluid leak. Investigation showed it appeared to be coming from the tranny fluid filter mount housing. By now we were losing daylight and called it a
day...

Saturday Report.

It was the day of the annual rules exam, safety meeting, Board meeting, and lots of familiar faces came out of the woodwork. It was good to see some people that have been MIA for a while. Hope they come back more during the year!

I was late today however when I arrived Jeron and Brian were preping the regulator, and Tom and Adam were locating a 112lb 18' long rail for 4 mile siding. While Tom and Adam continued preping the work train, Brian, Jeron, and I took the regulator out to dress the main were we dumped stone on Friday. Jeron did a great job in plowing in stone, pulling more from the shoulder and brooming it off beautifully! When we returned to the property, Tom and Adam met us back in yard 11 to pull a leaking cylinder off the regulator. We made short work of that, and loaded the cylinder in Julie's truck to take for repairs. Another big Thank you to Julie for again getting a cylinder out and back for repairs. We elected to break for lunch and then the Safety meeting.

After the meeting, those of us not needing to take the rules test went back to property. Brian and I fired up the switch tamper without the recommended Priest, Rabi, and witch doctor. The machine fired up, the pumps were working, and all seemed well.... untill we tried the newly replaced motor. The replaced motor did not start. We shut down, and started to investigate. We pulled the cable off, and started to ring it out. Unfortunately we found all three conductors to be OPEN. A spare cable was pulled off the shelf (thank god we have a spare), rang it out, and hooked it up. The second attempt the motor spun right up. We then shut down and declared success. The next victim was the 6000. We installed the cable for the pendulum, while Adam and Tom worked on the leveling potentiometer box. The cable was a success, the potentiometer box requires more parts, which will be ordered up.

Next up was to investigate the oil situation on the EJ&E 580 motor car. Last we looked the oil was way too clear and flowing way too easily. Turns out our 6 quarts of oil also had about 2 gallons of gas in the oil pan!!!! Thank goodness nobody tried to start that puppy!!!!! JD and Steve showed up about this time to help out with the oil drain function. We determined the problem was a blown diaphragm on the fuel pump, and removed the pump. Someone will have to go to NAPA and order up a new pump. Questionable oil was used to flush the pan, and a sacrificial 1515 filter was put on the machine. We'll have to order up a new filter as well.

By this time we decided to go out to 4 mile and start on some of the prep out there. Tom ran the crane, Adam the conductor, Brian, JD, and Greg all went out to 4 mile. We positioned ties, knocked off the metal screws sticking out of the ties, cleaned up some debris, set off the one rail we needed, and then proceeded to work on the big chunk of tree that was fouling the extension of 4 mile siding. We were successful in getting the big chunk of tree up on the rails. In our next installment of "As the Rail runs" our heroes will attempt to slide the chunk of tree down the rails of the siding and somewhere we can get it off the railroad. Picking and pivoting was tough as Tom kept hitting the load limits on the Kruger computer. We ran back to the property, tied up the crane and everyone was off to the Board meeting.

All in all a good day.

Photos have been posted here: http://www.irm.org/gallery/album240


Frank D.