Illinois Railway Museum Blog

This weekend was spent mostly cleaning up the shop while we had the opportunity. Over the past few months, and quite often during the last several weeks, the electric car guys have been using the track 22 bay to prep, prime and paint the 2000 series rapid transit cars. That has severely limited the times we can do other work with their priming and painting and the requirement for respirators while they're doing that sort of work. Anyway, we were able to move about a dozen pallets of stored material from the isles of the shop. The 20 EMD 645 power assemblies from the Dresden Nuclear plant, several pallets of electrical contactors and parts, the original air compressor from 803, and a couple pallets for miscellaneous parts were moved into one of the two storage units assigned to the diesel department in the new storage building. Jim West began sorting parts on three other pallets, stacking many cummins engine parts into a crate.

Many pallets moved to the new storage unit.

We'll continue with this sort of work over the next weekend or two, as well as move a few locomotives around after the 2000's are moved out. The 9908 will be coming into the shop to continue the rotted steel replacement around the cab sides and get the nose door changed out for the one we traded at Spencer last year. The 411 will come in to have its cab restoration and painting completed. We're always looking for new volunteers, please contact Me, Roger B, or Eric Z if you want to help out in the diesel shop.

An old magnet drill that Laddie found locally for a great price.

The electric car guys doing a great job on the 2000s.

Jim West sorting engine parts.