Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Following the recent pattern, there were several volunteers pitching in on the Cleveland PCC

Sandblasting

Alex Randow began the day by sandblasting over 100 fasteners to be ready for priming and painting.

Removal

Inside the PCC car are two large ceiling panels that some have referred to as 'clamshells'.  When the body dismantling was done years ago to make steel repairs, these remained inside the car.  Now we are faced with removing old paint and refinishing them INSIDE THE CAR!  That is both good news and bad news.  Right now they are too large to remove through the door openings, and if they had been removed earlier, they would be too large to get back in.  Here, Lorne Tweed is removing old light fixtures and other hardware on the one that goes in the rear of the car ceiling.

Goodbye Paint

Alex Randow 'volunteered' to start the old paint removal.  Actually he was quite cheerful about it, not needing serious arm twisting.  He is doing a fine job as you can see on the upper portion of this panel.

Welding

Ed Grzesik returned to continue welding repairs on the front dashboard area.  Of course any volunteer usually earns a nickname.  In Ed's case his fine work resulted in fellow workers referring to him as "THE WELDER" in a reverent tone.

Side Windows

Eric Lorenz has been kept very busy sorting out the next steps and keeping the new volunteers busy.  But he managed to start work on the first of the side windows.  Here he is installing two of the old extruded aluminum window tracks.

First One

Here is the first side window installed as sort of a test to determine fit and any repairs needed to install those many old parts in the car openings.  This will be a long process with many parts needing to be cleaned and repaired, holes to be drilled and tapped.  But here is a hint of what each window will look like as they are in place.