Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Panels

Victor Humphreys measures carefully for the panels that will be made for the new station door.  They have been glued up and fabricated in recent weeks, and now is the time to make sure they will fit.  By end of day, all four were cut and planed, ready for the next step.

Roof Boards

When is a rainy day a good thing?  Answer: on a Wednesday, preventing Tim Peters from maintaining outdoor plantings and lawn at his home - and chasing him into our wood shop.  Today, Tim was custom making tongue and groove stock to repair rotted roof boards on CRT 1797.

Design

You have seen photos here of Rich Witt serving in the capacity of engineer in our design department.  He continues ably in that purpose, here on new windows for the Glen Springs.  And he caught some details previously missed, including the fact that the left side and right side window lifts are not symmetrical to the centerline of the sash.  Who would have thunk?

He Has Brass

Before Simon Harrison could continue restoring brass window latches for the Sand Springs 68, Henry Vincent helped repair some problems with the 1934 DELTA drill press we were using.  Once back in service, Simon continued the task of removing old lacquer and decades of oxidation and tarnish.

Our century plus old 16 inch jointer required some maintenance and it is running much better now, thanks to Rod Turner and Tim Peters.

Dave Diamond and the B&G crew continued on the Depot Street repaving and are digging and installing power conduits and manhole vaults.  It just keeps getting better and better.  Inspections continued on the electric cars with our father and son team from the Hicks family doing their thing on one of their favorite CA&E wood cars, the 319.  And the crew working on the NP 230 baggage car continues to make progress with a lot of gray primer applied to the north side when it quit raining and dried off later in the afternoon.