Illinois Railway Museum Blog

This will be rather light on pics, I was very busy and probably not in the right place at the right time.  To further complicate things, a lot of the stalwarts were on site working away, but I also think the turnout was lighter than usual since many elected not to get really grubby with the evening banquet scheduled.  Perhaps someone will report on that in the coming week.

One of the highlights for me was another chance to meet and talk with Malcom Mc Carter, age 91, who is the last surviving founding member of IRM.  He is a real gentleman and was on site touring before the evening dinner.  It gave many of our younger members a chance to meet and learn a bit more about this iconic man in IRM history.

Upholstery

Let the cushions fly!  John Mc Kelvey shows us some of the seat cushions newly recovered this week.  The big news is that you all owe a big thank you to long time member, Dick Lukin, who has worked behind the scenes to get new material for our restorations.  First the arduous process of getting samples, then placing the purchase order for two bolts of new material.  We also owe a thank you to Alicia Gellman, daughter of member Mark Gellman.  She volunteered to drive to the south side of Chicago to pick up the new stock and then to deliver it on site to our upholstery shop.

Lettering

In between running around, I managed to get three more blocks of lettering applied to our Great Northern X-1390 tank car.  This is relatively small one, located low on the tank body toward the left end of the car.

Length

At length, (pun?) I was also able to place this on the tank body, also toward the left end of the car.  Sadly, I ran out of time before completing the last two characters, so this may not be totally understandable.  You will have to use your imagination.

A lot of other work went on.  On the Chicago Great Western X 38, Victor Humphreys again cheated old man winter and took advantage of fair conditions in the morning.  He got some finish paint on a large area of the plow roof which had previously been cleaned and primed.  While Victor was up in the roof, Bill Peterson primed both sides of another 80 feet or so of boards destined for the car lining inside.  He and Victor also worked to install more of the new ceiling.

And the steam department delivered some really ratty things for us to make anew.  Six side windows, four lights each, and a collection of cab doors and other wood for the cab of our Illinois Central 2-6-0.  They are badly deteriorated and their construction speaks to the fact they were probably replacements,  fabricated in  the hills of south Missouri by the locomotive's second owner.

OK, back on schedule almost.  Here is some sampling of work going on in Barn 4 this week.  A wide selection of project work, and I saw many other volunteers, working on still more projects.

Lettering

Last week I did a sort of tease showing the Great Northern X 1390 tank car lettered with only DIESEL.  Moving on, it now carries the complete DIESEL FUEL OIL legend on its side.

More Lettering

Then it was on to add more lettering, this time two blocks on the center sill.  We have the railroad reporting marks and car number on the right, and the builders painted logo on the left - American Car  & Foundry.  I guess our shiny new paint job on this car is holding up since the reporting marks are clearly reflected on the belly of the tank, just above the center sill.  Jim Leonard filled in the open apprentice position in our lettering department and helped on this work.  What do you think?  Does he get a passing grade?

Still More Lettering

It is only a small detail but you can see the white diamond shaped character on the tank car dome.  Of more note is the fact that this was possible due to the re-mounting of the dome walkway and ladder on this side of the car.

Specialist

Jim Heinlein is working the needlechipper to remove decades of rust, grime, and oily residue from a truck on Charles City Western 300, a steeple cab locomotive.  He is rapidly becoming our specialist 'go to guy' for this type of work.

A Glazed Look

Jeff Brady has that glazed look (no, not really) as he glazes two restored upper sash window frames for Michigan Electric 28.

Engineering Department

Rich Witt continues to hold down his spot at the drafting table.  The window sash there is a cupola window from our Pennsylvania Railroad 'bobber' caboose.  With his drawings complete, it looks like this will be our winter shop work this coming season.

New Canvas

It almost seems that three crews are racing each other to put new canvas on their project first.  For this car, John Faulhaber is on the scaffold while Gerry Dettloff rolls it alongside the car, challenging John to keep up.  This is the first coat of canvas paint for the roof of the Lake Shore Electric 810 freight trailer.

Jointing

Paul Cronin is jointing some of the over 100 pieces of stock on hand for new passenger car windows.

Ceiling Car Lines

Buzz Morisette did a lot of work on ceiling repairs in the observation end of private car ELY last season.  He has moved on to the dining room where these new ribs will stabilize and repair the badly deteriorated car lines.