Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Wow!  Wednesday was a very busy day in the shop and without spending a lot of time counting, I think I can name SEVENTEEN volunteers on hand.  They are a bunch of likable, friendly, hard working guys HAVING FUN and enjoying fellowship with like minded individuals.  I may have missed a few names so maybe there were MORE.  As a result this will be a long post with lots of pics, and even then some activities did not get recorded.  A lot of people, a lot of work, a lot of projects, and a lot of PROGRESS!  Over the past few years we invested a lot of time and effort to expand the Barn 4 shop space.  Just like in the movie FIELD OF DREAMS - build it and they will come.

Engineering Dept

Rich Witt continues to be a valuable resource in the Engineering work.  You need to have a plan before starting to build anything and he has been involved in producing working drawings and making decisions about two new round topped windows for the Boston & Maine 1094.  These prove to be far more complicated than a traditional rectangular window for our railcars.

Plans

Ted Anderson is the Curator of our Pullman Library and he found original plans and drawings for these type of windows.  Ted reviews them with Rich, and we were pleased to determine that many of our choices and decisions are justified and were the way the originals were constructed.  In this case we needed to make common sense choices based on historical examples since the remaining one window is in bad shape and has been patched several times,  Not much of the original fabric to go by.

Door Panels

Progress continued on the scheduled winter shop work for Chicago Great Western X 38.  John Faulhaber and Dave Rogan are laying out and preparing pieces for gluing up another of the four solid panels needed for two new doors.

Cupola Windows

Victor Humphreys was adding the first exterior primer paint to eight new completed windows destined for the X 38.  There are many steps to making a new wood sash and almost as many for the finishing process, with only being able to do one side at a time and waiting for drying time.

Mortises

John Faulhaber breathes a sigh of relief beside the rails and stiles for the X 38 doors.  Drilling square holes with a rotating drill is a touchy operation requiring some care and finesse.  Note all the completed slots (mortises) in the stack of parts beside him.

Tenons

Jim Leonard is laying out parts for one of the doors after he helped cut the tenons.  This should give you a good idea of the size and shape for these heavy doors.  Now for the fussy work of custom fitting each of the eight mortise and tenon joints to allow assembly.

Panel

Dave and John have assembled one of the solid door panels they prepared in the morning and are trying to use almost every available clamp in the shop to hold it flat and square.  New volunteer Jim Foraker is learning and helping at the same time.  WELCOME ABOARD, Jim!

Door Repairs

Lets move on from the snow plow work to Henry Vincent continuing his careful work to repair a train door for Chicago Aurora & Elgin car 36.

The Next Table Saw

We have talked before here about our efforts to bring an old larger table saw back to life.  Jim Leonard is working to clean the innards and outards(?) of the disassembled motor for the saw.  Also this week a troublesome motor bearing problem was resolved with some machine shop work (Thanks Rod), so we may be close to reassembling and testing the motor.

The Saw Body

Jim Heinlien helped a lot as we strip and clean the failed paint finish from the saw.  Jim Foraker is just outside this view but he pitched in on the task.

Interior Panels

The next few relate to the PCC car, Cleveland Transit System 4223.  Lorne Tweed is studying old prints as he tries to decode the many parts removed from the car maybe 20 years ago.

More Panels

Jim Leonard is busy cleaning up some of those old CTS 4223 panels.  They were primed at the time of removal but primer is somewhat of a porous coating and years and years in storage has not been 100% kind to them.

Still More Panel Work

After the panels have been cleaned up we see Lorne wiping them down to remove any dust and debris before adding new primer.  There are many panels and no two seem to be the same.  Many had received the new primer by the end of the day.

Rear Window

Last week we showed you how we made a new mahogany bottom rail for a rear window in Indiana Railroad 65.  Jon Fenlaciki quickly checked the work and set about sanding the many layers of old paint.  The new wood is the piece on the right side with no paint as you view the image here.

More Windows

Tim Peters is not to be outdone in his quest to manufacture 72 new windows for Chicago Rapid Transit 1024.  He is now to the stage of making the new clerestory windows, each with three lites or panes of glass.

Tack Molding

After all, how much window work can you do?  Frank Kehoe and Tim are working on creating the right dimension stock for more 1024 tack molding.  With the upper tack molding under their belt, they are now working on the lower tack molding, this one mounted where the lower hip roof meets the car sides.