Illinois Railway Museum Blog

I guess the heat wave is over and winter is on its way.  Far more pleasant to work outdoors on site yesterday than it has been for the last 6-8 weeks.

Lounge Chair

How does he do that?  Our upholstery guru, John McKelvey, has just finished recovering a lounge chair which will be used in the rear compartment of Illinois Terminal 234.  I do not hesitate to take a log and reduce it to sawdust, but I doubt I could do half the job in twice the time, than John can do with a basket case chair or seat cushion.

Roof Boards

Lorne Tweed and Dave Rogan were dry fitting and doing the first assembly work for a new roof board structure for Cleveland Transit System 4223.  There is a lot going on in a small space.  Now, how to hoist that up and over the car to mount it on the roof?

Off the Grid

Pete Galayda is assembling another resistance grid box for Charles City Western 300.  John Neligan assisted throughout the day.

Venting

Fred Zimmerman was on an outdoor bench working to restore galvanized sheet metal patent roof vents for one of our elevated cars, CTA 4412, a 1924 product of the Cincinnati Car Company.

On Site

He's here!!  Our blue friend arrived today and was unloaded from his semi truck.  The large tents are being erected, and our electricians were busy running power and cables.  Nine days from now you may come out and help with the event, and meet several thousand of your closest five year old friends.  BUCKLE UP!

This will include a wide variety to give some hint of some of the activities this weekend

COMING BACK TO LIFE!

SHRT 63

It sounds simple to make such a move but all the trolley fans got excited with the appearance of Shaker Heights Rapid Transit 63 inside Barn 4 over the pit.  Eric Lorenz is helping LARGE with a systematic and careful checkout. 

Passenger Side

Yes, it is really inside Barn 4 and it is looking good, if you do mind the last service paint scheme.  This car was originally built for and operated for the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

Pole Up

A trolley pole has been fitted and restored to the roof, as god always intended.  The pole was up and progress made.  The MG set was running, some of the entry doors working again, if only sluggishly, and the headlight worked!  What else do we need?

Framing

I am going to sneak this image in here, rather than a separate entry for only one pic.  We managed to make eight new interior framing timbers for the CGW X 38 snow plow, fit them, drill them, and all prime painted ready to install.  Victor Humphreys is in the shop taking shelter from the brutal heat Saturday early, before a line of storms blew through.

Letterboard

George Clark was in the Barn prime painting a new letterboard for the Lake Shore Electric 810.  We still identify this part as a letterboard although in this case, no actual lettering will be applied for this paint scheme.

Trailer Train

One of the things we are able to do is to do some work with industry partners.  Trailer Train had some of their Engineering Department on site to do some testing on the deck of our 75 foot TTX piggyback car.  The car presented a unique opportunity to help judge wear and life span of the white oak deck boards still being applied to some of their equipment.  In this case the car presented a good 'control' for wood which had seen years of use, without really being used in transport, virtually remaining as installed.

Chicago and West Towns

Frank Sirinek was escorting some visitors on a sort of 'private' access tour of the C&WT 141.  Smiles all around.

Vintage Transport

Sunday was our annual vintage car show and for the first time in recent memory, the weather was near perfect.  Over 400 vehicles had pre-registered, and an additional 133 were 'walk-ins' bring the total to over 500.  There were vintage restored cars on every grassy flat spot and it seemed there was a good turnout of visitors to enjoy the spectacle.