Illinois Railway Museum Blog

I am a bit late getting this on line, as most of these pics were taken 7/18.  And as with many of of the recent blog entries, a lot of topics are covered, so I am going to leave it titled as WOOD SHOP, even if not 100% accurate.

Step Box Boys

Jim and Tom Windmeier (father and son team), have adopted the moniker of Step Box Boys, as they work toward manufacturing a dozen or so wooden replica stepboxes for use at IRM.  There is some really nice woodworking going on here.

Seat Hardware

Frank Sirinek and Dan Fenlaciki are attaching the yokes and hardware to one of the newly re-upholstered seats for TM 972.

Progress

Here are the same pair working inside the car to mount that above walkover seat back in the frame.  As you can see, they are homing in on completing the installation of most of these seats.

Cauls

Norm Krentel and Jeff Brady wrestle a sheet of plywood through the table saw.  They are cutting formers for a large bending caul which is being assembled.  That caul will then be used to bend and form sheets of new roofing overlayment for the Michigan Electric 28.

We also managed to do a small amount of painting and lettering on URTX 26640, wrestled with some air brake problems on CGW 601 caboose, took delivery of a new woodworking machine, saw Gerry Dettloff and John Faulhaber painting new roof boards for the TM D13, and noted progress on CRT 1797, being restored by Tim Peters.

We also witnessed a manufacturer demo of dry ice CO2 blasting to remove paint and accumulated dreck from a variety of materials.  To me it seemed too aggressive for some more fragile materials and yet not strong enough to handle several old coats of paint on other, heavier pieces needing cleaning.

Although titled as wood shop news, I will start with work on the URTX 26640.  John Faulhaber and I managed to do some more lettering work on the car (never ending) and Victor Humphreys put the final coat of orange paint on the last of the four corners.

Then we went over to UP 3786 to take measurements regarding coupler replacement.  This has turned out to be a tricky job, and perhaps no way to do this 'in-house' with IRM volunteers and tools.

Here are two images by Gwyn Stupar.

Having Fun Yet?

Lots of fun trying to take apart stuff so that more stuff could be taken apart.

Parts

But on to the wood shop area - sort of.  Somehow the guys working in this area seem to have made a new acquisition.  We have 'acquired' responsibility for reupholstering all 58 seat cushions in the TM 972.

On the Bench

Here, Victor Humphreys and John Faulhaber are fastening the yokes and mechanism in the shop, to one of the walkover seat backs.

In the Car

Next, Victor and John venture into the car in the blistering hot weather to mount that to the seat frame.

Have a Seat?

And finally a shot of the first two done, NICE huh?  Before we all wilted, five sets had been installed.

New Roof

And in keeping with the above TM theme, we caught Gerry Dettloff prime painting many new thin wood slats destined to be a new cab roof on TM D 13.