Illinois Railway Museum Blog

This entry is late since COMCAST was down most of the day today.  But look on the bright side, I got to make driveway repairs!  Always on my top ten list!  And despite the title of these posts they include work done in the barn 4 shops as well as car work, often in the freight car department, and elsewhere on site.

Winner by a Nose

Jim Leonard is always a hard worker and today he spent a lot of time on the nose of Chicago Great Western X 38 Russell snowplow.  Lots of tricky areas hard to reach, to clean old rust and paint.  We would like to remove the bent train line pipe, but so far that task has eluded us.

Primed

Lots of work was done by the crew in several areas on the plow, and here Jim closes the workday applying more primer to an area on the knife edge of the nose.  Dave Rogan, Victor Humprheys, and Buzz Morisette helped along on work for the interior.

Buzz

Speaking of Buzz he measured up and cut many pieces of wood for trimming out and repairing the cupola interior.  So naturally he had to stay late and get primer on one side of the pieces.

Room With a View

One of our other ongoing projects does not get much press.  That is the restoration of Illinois Central Gulf 199458 steel caboose.  From the newly painted and lettered interior you have an excellent room with a view.  Joe Luciani is on the west platform preparing to start re-painting.

An Inside Job

The Wednesday Special Projects crew has made remarkable progress in a short time.  Here is another view of the interior, including new lettering.

New Paint

After cleaning and priming, Lee Regione is applying the new interior finish coat at the east end and under the cupola.

To a Letter

Paul Gasiorowski has taken charge of the artwork on the caboose interior - GOOD JOB - and now is documenting and preparing patterns for the exterior lettering on the caboose.

Boxed In

Rich Witt is applying finish paint to all the replica CA&E first aid boxes he built.  The color is sort of a butterscotch pudding tan, and almost close to the color of the natural wood.

On the Beam

Speaking of the CA&E, Randy Hicks and John Faulhaber have a boring job.  That is, boring mounting holes 3/4 inch diameter in new solid oak third rail beams for car 36.  That is certainly not a job for a hand drill, but it looks like they have it all figured out.

New Ceiling

Lorne Tweed, and behind him, Simon Harrison, sanded down the new ceiling panels for Cleveland Transit System 4223 and applied finish paint by the end of the afternoon.