Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Despite the title of many of these entries, remember that while the Wood Shop DOES make a lot of sawdust, there are three distinct shop areas contiguous to the south wall of Barn 4.  You will see a lot of activity and work not necessarily sawing wood!

Track Department

We completed making new decking for the track department as Victor Humphreys is stacking and inspecting the finished pieces.

Windows

Does that caption sound familiar?  Tim Peters is somewhat hobbled, but he continues to work on the Chicago Rapid Transit 1797 project.

Light Socket Bases

A man whose skills know no limits, Tim began modifying and reworking porcelain light sockets to be 'correct' for use in the 1797

Doors

Here is a little side trip to show some work being done on our Kansas City PCC car.  This is a regular effort, I just happened to catch some pics this weekend.  Mike Stauber is working on one of the door leafs, removing paint and figuring a way to repair the rusted out sections.

Lights

On the other side of the shop, Frank Sirinek was cleaning and inspecting the glass diffusers or covers for the ceiling lights on the Kansas City PCC.

Still More Lights

There are a LOT of lights in the Kansas City PCC car and on Sunday, Frank was still at it.  He has moved to a different work table.  Did he wear out the one yesterday or just wanted better light?

Steam

Victor Humphreys is making adjustments to a special clamping jig as we just assembled a new window for the fireman's side of Norfolk & Western 2050.  This is an odd shape sash, and fabricating it was made somewhat tricky with the lack of right angles.

Glass

OK, this is not exactly a new subject, it is WINDOW glass.  Ray Schmidt has been cleaning this art glass panel for the Michigan Electric 28 for a lot of hours.  There were an estimated three coats of paint on this, applied when the car was used as a cottage.  And of course, that was applied to the textured side of this pressed glass.

Clear Sailing

Here is better idea of the glass panel, destined to be in a paired window upper sash arrangement.  By day's end it was either so sparkling clean, or Ray simply gave up on more cleaning.  It was placed in the waiting restored window frame and glazing proceeded.

LSE 810

We cannot leave out George Clark and his work on the Lake Shore Electric 810.  Recently reported was the work to prime and paint new siding, and here are two metal parts, a door track and side rub rail that will soon be finish painted and installed.