Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Call me all about lazy, or all about easy.  But this time I will put all project work under the Wood Shop category.  Let's start out with Cleveland Transit System 4223.

Welcome

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Dave Rogan who is a new volunteer at IRM.  He walked in in the morning and by afternoon was hard at work on doing the window sash restoration work on CTS 4223.

Another One

Al Reinschmidt is a long time member and volunteer but he made a fairly rare Wednesday appearance and also joined in the fray, here shown cleaning some of the tracks for the windows.

And Others

Lorne Tweed is a regular worker on the 4223 project and as usual it was hard to distract him with corny jokes. Very committed to the work at hand.  Not in these pics was Simon Harrison - yes - working on more sash.  The good news is that the stack of completed parts and sash is looking much larger than the stack of items remaining.

Wood Windows

Buzz Morrisette is on the home stretch for the large batch of new windows for ATSF 1400 caboose.  We caught him mitering and cutting to length the many small strips of quarter round to retain the glazing.

Saddles

Tim Peters is 'back in the saddle' or in this case making a set of new saddles for the roof of Chicago Rapid Transit 1797.  There is something about the smell of white oak sawdust early in the morning.

Having a Fit

John Faulhaber is sighting along two pieces destined to become new windows for Illinois Central diner 3996.  We try to mass produce parts exactly the same for each new 'order' or group of windows, but the last step is to match and custom fit the pieces before gluing.

Pressing

Victor Humphreys, Simon Harrison, and I took two of the completed frame sets and got them permanently glued and in the press to set up while being held square and true.

Parts

Pete Galayda just keeps plugging along on the Charles City Western 300 locomotive.  He is working to restore a headlight resistance box and it sits beside a newly refinished controller cover.

Window Sash

Steady work equals steady progress.  Alex Randow just will not give up, and continues to clean and restore aluminum sash for this car.  Note that he is wearing a NY GIANTS hat!  Alex hails from the New Jersey area and it gives one pause to gain such insight into the character of your workmates.  Is it a good move to wear that in the Midwest?  Just kidding, Alex.

Tracks

It is no less attractive to remove crud, bend the tracks straight, and clean the tracks needed for these windows.  Many surfaces, grooves and folds in the metal.  Lorne Tweed grits his teeth and continues the process.  He is nothing if not persistent.

Let There Be Light

Meanwhile, Bill Wulfert (above) located a headlight lens while Eric Lorenz proceeded to fabricate a reflector, install socket, wiring and bulb.  In short order a temporary power supply was rigged up and THERE WAS LIGHT!  This car looks to be ready to leave at any time if we have a long enough extension cord.