Illinois Railway Museum Blog

                      The days are steaming by fast and the interior progress on 2612 is beginning to really show our work. Gary and I have been spending about 3-6 days a week concentrating on the interior. That's one reason why I haven't posted for a while.

The Western door and frame just painted

                     With the help of a few new volunteers as well as the old regulars the planning and hard work continues.   We should be done with the interior around the 15th of July. That's what I aiming for!! Here's a recap of the week before Memorial Day Weekend.

The southern wall already for paint

All painted and masking paper just  removed

Another angle of the freshly painted wall

                       We have been sandblasting seat parts but found that  the time  it takes the volunteers  to blast one complete seat frame could take weeks.  I decided to take  the frames apart and have a  company  professionally strip them down to bare metal.  We will prime and paint them in house.  It obviously costs money but it gets the job done much faster.   I have also decided to have  professionally polished  the brass  interior door handles and the walkover seat handles.  Both well worth the price.   The interior will really be "dressed up"  once the door handles and walk over seat  handles are installed.   It's well worth the money and will certainly makes a better impression for the customer.   The difference  is eye-popping. 

Seat frame parts just delivered from Reddi Strip.   I picked them up.  Notice how clean the parts are. 

Door and seat handles before being professionally buffed and polished 

Stunning results of the contractors work.  Nice and shinny.  

Three new  nickel seat frames manufactured by R and B Metal