Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Really Smooth

The weather was not very conducive to doing outdoor work or painting so we proceeded on finishing work for the new station door, which is being made for our depot.  Kirk Warner, Victor Humphreys, and Lorne Tweed are at the ready as the door is passed through our large Berlin sander.  This is a heavy door and it made several passes for each side, requiring some work by these three to pass it back to the infeed end.  We generally take a very conservative approach in the set up for this work, preferring to run it a few more easy passes rather than risk any unintended consequence to the work or to the machine.

Done

The door sanding was completed without incident and Lorne, Victor, and Bob Kutella have it set down for final inspection and touch up.  Nearest to the camera you are looking at the top end of the door.

Careful Work

Dave Fullarton is working on the Cleveland PCC, CTS 4223.  He is carefully sanding and preparing the dash lights, and other hardware for finish painting prior to being mounted on the car.

Steam Work

We get to see and do a lot of different projects, each with their own challenges.  Lorne has a mockup of a custom made refractory firebrick needed in the steam shop.  There are also some loose pieces for us making a negative form box so that the brick mixture can be poured, in and then removed once set.  Also we made up splices for a special leather drive belt for one of the machines in the steam shop.

In the Freight Car Department we need to thank all the volunteers who helped with the inspections and repairs needed for clearing five cabooses for operations.  Especially key to rapidly completing the work was substantial help from the fellows in the Electric Car Department.  A missing piece of the air brake system was installed today on RI 19135, and it joins CGW 601, CB&Q 13572, UP 3786, and MILW 01984 as 'on the ready track' for public operations this season.