Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Still not as many photos as I had hoped but I am fighting the meds and the health issue they are supposed to take care of.  Time for a BLOG post now since a doctor canceled the appointment for today - leaving me some time.

Ceiling

I had mentioned in previous BLOG entries that the new ceiling in our Chicago Great Western X 38 snowplow was proceeding and showing good progress.  So finally, here is a pic of the work.  Victor Humphreys and Dave Rogan nail up one more board.  I should point out the ceiling in this area runs all the way from the rear wall of the plow to the control cab cupola.  That is a lot of wood, and as you can see, they have passed the halfway point.  Dick Cubbage and I are working out a plan to build a new seat box/tool locker for the cabin at the rear of the plow.  There are clues, pitifully few that show its location.  So if anyone can help with a pic of the inside of these snowplows when they were still in service - we would really like to see it.  It does not have to be from a fancy camera, or only of a dead on view.

Jointing

Buzz Morisette is running some new douglas fir through our jointer - this operation will produce one straight and true side.  The timber will be planed and cut down and will find its way to the new ceiling in our private car, ELY.

New Help

We want to extend a wood shop welcome to Rick Serenda (right) who has joined us on this Wednesday.  He and Bill Leider spent most of the day priming new post caps for Chicago Rapid Transit 1024.  These were fabricated a few weeks ago by Tim Peters.

Ad Card Panels

Meanwhile Lee Regione was applying the first finish coat of paint to the inside of the ad card panels for Cleveland Transit System 4223.  Fellow volunteer from the Wednesday Special Projects Team, Joe Luciani, helped Paul Cronin and they made good progress on a set of eighteen new windows for the passenger coach department.  Those Wednesday guys really like to stay busy.

A Whatzit

Jon Fenlaciki and Rich Witt worked on a tricky small block of wood for seats in our Indiana Railroad 65.  New research has shown that the seats in the car now are not quite perfect for the seats as when the car was built.  The plans are to reupholster all the seats, so now is the time to make these blocks and otherwise tweak the seat frames to make them perfect.  This little inch thick six by six block of wood had to be sanded to create scalloped hollows.  One down, another 18 to go.

And as usual lots of other projects had workers.  John Faulhaber placed another coat of canvas paint on the roof of the Lake Shore Electric 810; and Gerry Dettloff and Jim Foraker worked on modifications and repaiirs to trucks for the car.  One truck is now virtually complete and will be cleaned up, primed, and painted.  John Nelligan and Pete Galayda are working on the wiring for our steeple cab locomotive, Charles City Western 300.