Illinois Railway Museum Blog

We recently changed two wheelsets on our IGC 199458 steel caboose and the Wednesday Special Project Team has taken up the challenge to spruce it up.  They are not much in the limelight but quietly go about the work of rehabbing many many cars on site.  Right now they are finishing up the MILW baggage car as the USED BOOK STORE.

ICG 199458 Interior

Paul Gasiorowski and Joe Luciani are conferring about the caboose interior.  They have cleaned the inside, spot primed and painted much of it already.  Paul documented any lettering, and created new stencils.

Cupola

It is hard to get a working picture in the cupola area, but that is Lee Regione contorting his body to cut in and repaint behind one of the seats.

Boxes

The woodworking is about done and Rich Witt is in the home stretch of prime painting the replica First Aid boxes for our CA&E cars.

A Door

The morning weather was rainy so the crew turned to other tasks for our Chicago Great Western X 38 snowplow.  Buzz Morisette is a genius when it comes to fussy work.  He took a few measurements and did some trimming on the second new cab door for the plow.  Here the door is inside the rear box while Buzz does some final trimming and shaping.

The First Door

Victor Humphreys is cleaning up the glazing compound and doing some other touch up on the first door recently hung on the plow.

In Place

It Fits!!!   Buzz is testing the fit on the second door, the one on the north side (right side) of the plow.  These things make a huge difference in the appearance and are a big morale booster for the crew.  Dave Rogan worked all day on the project as well, making a fairly complicated framing block to advance the interior wood lining.  We fit the last side window and touched up the paint on that.

Roof Work

John Faulhaber seems to be breathing a sigh of relief as roof work is nearing an end of the woodworking phase on traction trailer 810 from the Lake Shore Electric.  Above him is the last piece of curved end tack molding installed

Saw Base

Meanwhile in the shop, Jim Foraker stands beside our restored table saw sitting on a new welded base for measurements.  Henry Vincent helped on this lift and relocate, and the shop area got a nice cleanup in the process!

More Roof Work

Work continues on our Michigan Electric 28 roof project.  Jeff Brady and Norm Krentel are now attacking the very fussy work of bending new roof boards for the front end of the car.  I did a similar exercise years ago for the Sand Springs 68 and can testify that each board has to be shaved and trimmed before fastening down.  And there are TWO layers of these boards on each end.