Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Well, I am glad to say that the continuing atrocious weather seems to have increased the determination of the steam shop volunteers.  We had an excellent turnout on Saturday and made good progress on some items that have been holding us up for a while.

On 1630:

One large team focused on preparing the cab for spray painting.

The edges of the cab sides where there were signs of blistering in the paint were all needle chipped.  This revealed a few areas where Dennis will need to make good some holes and cracks.  Nothing too major but we do want to get this thoroughly sound before we paint;

Removing unsound paint

The arm rests were removed from the window frames … and identified another job.  The wooden base of one of them looks more like sponge than timber.  That will need to be remade;

A section of the inner cab lining on the fireman’s side proved to be corroded thru.  This was cut out, the rust and scale removed from between the inner and outer sheets and the whole area primed.  Dennis can now weld in a new section of sheet metal;

Rick cuts the bad area from the cab

The cab sides were rubbed down ready for painting.

Cab side substantial progress

A big area of concern has been preparing the frames and wheels for painting.  Ideally it would have good to have blasted the grease and oil from these using the high powered steam cleaner.  Unfortunately the extreme weather is against this.  There are serious doubts around the practicality of using the steam cleaner in the shop and the obvious concern over how long it would be before there is any chance of moving outside again.

Jim, Jerry and Vince decided to try the liquid degreaser that was obtained for the Shay truck.  This proved very successful.

Jim and Vince degreasing

One or two passes with subsequent washing off using a small pressure washer took large areas of the frames and wheels back to bare primer that we had never seen before.  We are unclear whether these areas were not previously painted black or if the top coat was so badly adhered that it came straight off with the grease.  However, it is certainly clear that the method is getting back to a sound and grease free surface.

and Jerry then removes the grease

Hopefully a second session next weekend, with a more powerful pressure washer to do the final washing off, will bring much of the lower part of the locomotive to a suitable condition for painting.

Jason finished testing all the cab gauges and also trained Phil in this operation.

Jason sets the gauges

One of the gauge faces is much worn.  It raises a question of how it was originally painted.  All the black lettering is indented, even the fine detail of the maker’s name.

I wonder how this was done

On the Shay:

Eric and his Dad worked steadily thru the job of fitting the long bolts thru the frame and truck pivot casting.  By end of day, all six of the bolts were properly fitted.  Nuts are noticeable by their absence !.  Tom did not make it to Union because of the weather but a telephone discussion indicated that supplies of 1 inch nuts were likely to be in the container.  Ah Yes!.  That thing sitting out behind the 3 foot snow drift at 10 degrees in a gale !.  Nuts will be for another day;

The bolster was turned over and Eddie cleaned the other face to allow it to be primed.

Eddie prepares the last face of the bolster

In the shop in general:

Stu and Bob finished painting the planer, which Phil and Jane had progressed over the last week.  Unfortunately it was not possible to reassemble the valve block and test the machine.  The distorted face of the valve block has been surface ground to ensure that it will seal but was in Tom’s car in Chicago.

They then worked on rebuilding the lubricator for another of the machines.

Phil has now made a big difference to the storage area and is planning what to do with the adjacent areas..

So overall a pretty successful day.

Nigel