Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Once again we are following the pattern with most of the volunteers for this project attending on Wednesdays, and, weather permitting, a large dose of 'progress' can be seen every week.

Back Wall

In the previous BLOG ENTRY we mentioned that Victor Humphreys continues on the B&O wagon top boxcar.  Arriving refreshed (exhausted?) from a recent trip, Victor is also the go to guy for much of the body work on the plow.  Here he is touching up some of the weld areas, where scrappers had once provided us with a torched out large opening.

More Fred

Fred Ash provide some much needed help in an area not very easy to get to.  All the work had to be done from a ladder much taller than I am.  But here he is, wirebrushing the last untreated steel on the rear wall.  It got primed later in the day ahead of the rain which was predicted, and which materialized.

Headlight

Dave Rogan used the bucket truck on loan from Dave Diamond to provide some measure of safety and comfort getting up to and an top of the plow roof.  He has removed the remains of the old headlight - not necessarily a simple job with well rusted nuts and bolts.  Jim Leonard is in the shop here with the old headlight base in yellow, and the new donated base in red, much of the old red has now been removed.

Winning by a Nose

The major work scheduled and hoped for on Wednesday was to beat the rain and apply the first finish coat of black to the nose areas previously in primer.  Dave Rogan and Jim Leonard are starting the process here, aided by use of the bucket truck for areas not accessible by ladder or scaffold.

Done

Here is the nose in its new black paint.  Quick to type it in here, but a substantial job of several hours for Dave and Jim, just finishing up here.  It makes a milestone leap of progress evident.

Built By

While the painting and other tasks were ongoing, I snuck in some time to apply more lettering to the plow.  Here is new art work done just this Tuesday at the home computer, and applied to the side of the plow near the front.

More Lettering

Anyone who had done modeling on any car quickly realizes there was a lot more lettering used on any car than its simple reporting marks, and this becomes really evident when restoring a full sized rail car.  Here is the SAFETY APPLIANCES block of lettering and a REPACK block applied to the north side of the plow.  All researched, sized, and placed to historical photos.

Framing

Jim Leonard was inside the box fitting some more framing timbers and I had just finished the big CGW reporting mark on the side.  Yes, there is still a lot more lettering to painted on, but this gives a much better view of what to expect.