Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Again there was a large turnout of enthusiastic volunteers at the Barn 4 shops today.  Here is some of the work - - -

Berlin Woes

The BIG JOB in the wood shop was to run a handful - no two handfuls - no, more than two handfuls, of windows for the CRT 1797 through the Berlin sander.  Tim Peters has been making these new frames for a few weeks and it was time to get to the the next phase.  The machine was set up and some time spent making some fine adjustments based on the last job run through this machine.

In short order it was determined that we need to pay some attention to the abrasive media wrapping the third drum.  I am on the floor reaching into the end of the drum, Tim is on the deck reaching in, and Bill Moran is turning the drum by hand to get at the needed areas.

Of course, an assortment of tools were dropped into the innards of the machine in the process, in places you could not possibly get them into if you tried.  Dan Fenlaciki dropped by and helped a lot with a new set of eyes and outlook on how we could get to a particularly stuck dropped screwdriver to remove it.

Production

Well, we did some good.  Tim snapped this pic with my camera while I was feeding the new frames in, and Bill Moran was acting as the 'catcher'.

Kansas City - -

Mike Stauber and Frank Sirinek were cleaning off a piece of interior trim from our Kansas City PCC car.  In this case, trying to get an unblemished panel for a good color sample for having new paint custom mixed.  Look for more work on this car later in the year.

Trim Routing

John Faulhaber was busy on the router trimming the profile beading on 22 new stiles for the IC 3996 diner windows.  This task is a necessary step to be able to start the final dry fit of the new frames.

Step Boxes

Tom Windmeier (and Jim W) were out working on RUN TWO for another six new step boxes.

Diner Trim

Tim Peters and Buzz Morisette were routing roundovers on many pieces of new trim for our diner interior.  They are using a SPRINGBOARD on the router table, something new for us, and which improves the ease of setup, consistency of the finished molding, and safety when routing small pieces.  Buzz made this jig earlier in the day.

Max Tyms was out and working on electrical conduit installation in the shop annex area.  There were several other familiar faces engaged in their projects, but you get the idea.  It was busy and productive.

Again we are indebted to Roger Kramer for sending these images, taken when he visited the steam shop this week.  It is a tough environment to get really good images, but I think you may be interested nevertheless.

428 Wheels

As reported elsewhere, two driver sets have been removed from UP 428 using our drop pit.  Here are the guilty parties!

Naked

The locomotive lower portion shows one driver set remaining in this view, and the empty 'pocket' in the frame behind it, with the driver and bearings removed.

Support Equipment

Not all the work is on rail equipment solely, as it takes a lot of tools and other stuff to keep the wheels rolling.  The shop crew is doing needed maintenance over the winter on this SULLAIR compressor.