Illinois Railway Museum Blog

The day started as usual with a short meeting to review project work and address any safety or shop issues.  Before I knew it, Rich Witt had picked up my camera and started snapping pictures.  So, here are some of the 'usual suspects' for you to place names and faces.  It turned out I was not immune from the rampage.

Gwyn Stupar

Greg Ceurvorst

Bob Kutella

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Tooling

Moving on to some of the work at hand, we started setting up our very old Delta Heavy Duty shaper with tooling and guides to be able to start milling matching tongue and groove roof boards for the ETB Department.

First One

Later on, the arrangement had progressed to the point where we managed to run the first piece, complete with fences, featherboards, guards, power feeder, and dust pickup.  I am feeding the stock and Rich Witt is acting as the catcher.

A Frame Up

More accurately, window frames for the B&M 1094.  In the morning we cut all the tenons for these windows, and by day's end Rich Witt had completed the work to allow the first dry fit of the first frame.  No matter how well we are able to use machines to do the heavy cutting, there is always the craftsmanship element of fitting and trimming the parts.

CRT 1797 Side Doors

As you might expect on a cold snowy day, Tim Peters continued his work on CRT 1797, and the rebuilding and repair of the four sliding side doors.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Tim himself suggested this caption for the picture.  The end or train doors of the 1797 have small double hung (after a fashion) windows and Tim is nearly complete with making two new frames this week.  The new frame is THE GOOD, the older frame is THE BAD, and, well, the UGLY - - - -

Rapid Transit Accessories

We rarely capture an image of Bill Wulfert although he works tirelessly on the el car collection.  Here he has completed stripping and cleaning four pamphlet racks in gleaming brass, has more restored paddles for train markers in progress, and has one of the hang on end signs for our early cars.

It is hard to say where to start this report.  Lots of volunteers, and lots of projects seeing work.  For those that like the images, my hands were pretty full most of the day so I did not catch all the action.  We really need someone to come out just to watch, taking pics along the way.

More Planing

Victor Humphreys and John Faulhaber worked quite awhile preparing the new boards for tongue and groove roofing for the LA ETB.  By day's end they had all passed through our planer to finished thickness, and we had carried perhaps 200 gallons of sweet smelling woodchips to the dumpster.

In the background you will see Tim Peters who continues to work on the large doors for the CRT 1797, and he also assembled and glued two new window frames made earlier in the week.

Passenger Windows

Rich Witt continued on new windows for B&M 1094, here laying out the new rails and stiles, doublechecking with the sample of one of the old windows.  The stiles had some trim routing done by me, and the remaining layout work was completed to be ready to start the tenons next. 

John Nelligan is seen at the right painting a cleaned up radial coupler locking plate for the Charles City Western 300.  He also moved on to restoration of one of the arc headlights, while Pete Galayda was cutting and fitting new timber for the remaining 'naked' end deck on the locomotive.

Jack of All Trades

Henry Vincent is the seeming 'go to guy' in the shop for almost anything.  He completed installation of a new woodworkers vise adding oak jaw liners.  He worked to cleanup up and dispose of a whole lot of trim and wood scraps, and later helped with wiring for the TM D 13 dump motor.

Speaking of which, Jerry Dettloff and John Faulhaber were seen carrying out a completed set of new D 13 roof saddles for installation.

Other items included Victor Humphreys winterizing some nice machinery we are forced to store outdoors over the upcoming winter, his work on two of the window frames and glass for the MILW 01984 caboose, and a few other 'odd jobs'.  Every time you turned around progress was apparent.

Roger Kramer brought in some windows from the IC 3996 diner.  This heavyweight Pullman built car dates from 1916 and badly needs some TLC.  When I said he brought in some windows it is more accurate to say there were a few loose parts from rotted windows.  This project could really use some support from your donations as we would like to make a new set of windows for the car to keep the weather out.  Just the materials could easily run to $3000, and keep us occupied most of the winter.