Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Steaming

The weather was great yesterday and the Leviathan was looking good.  Here she has just dropped the coach train and is running light for water.  Including today you only have three more chances to see and ride behind this locomotive at IRM.  Don't wait.

Slats

Jeff Brady and Ray Schmid have made hundreds of thin slats for the end roofs of the Michigan Electric 28.  Now it is time to install them, basically each one trimmed and custom fit to build up the two layers to fit round contour roofing on the car ends.  This is shown on the rear end of the car.

Making Tracks

We have previously shown work in progress to completely replace the number 31 track in yard 3 and inside Barn 3.  Those fearless, hardworking track guys have assembled two large stacks of prefabricated track panels.

First Panel

The old rail and ties have been removed inside the building, and Buildings and Grounds, in the personna of Dave Diamond, has graded and leveled the track bed.  Using the Burro crane, the first panel has been lowered into place and is about to be bolted up.  As each panel is connected, that will allow the Burro crane to lift and run further inside with the next one.

Stripping Paint

Roger Kramer was hard at work stripping and cleaning many layers of old paint from the east end of the JOHN MC LOUGHLIN.  The weather turned cooler and I am sure that made this work much more enjoyable - as if grinding old paint was ever an enjoyable pastime.

Exercise

The boxcar got some rare mileage 'exercise' as it was pulled from Track 40 by the US Army switcher.

Into the Barn

The car was turned end for end to facilitate the next work, and then travels Track 41 going into Barn 4.  Note the good progress in cleaning and priming several of the side panels.

Patches

Not the old pop song "Patches", but some new steel.  Five areas of rusted out sides were removed and new steel plates made by Victor Humphreys.  Rod Turner welded them in and now the grinding will ensue to smooth out the repaired areas.  At day's end the car was turned again and placed back on the Track 40 work area.

New Fixture

Meanwhile back in the shop, Rich Witt was making the female part of a new set of fixtures and dies to bend some sheet metal for future application to the car.  Using hard oak, we are hoping the new metal can be formed to shape and then used to patch still more rusted out parts on the car.