Illinois Railway Museum Blog

This late fall the Buildings and Grounds Manager, Dave Diamond, focused on the the major upgrading of the Barn 3 structure. The barn was built in the late 1970's or early 1980's and certainly needed attention. The structure was beginning to fail in spots and so the decision was made to invest a rather large amount of money into the structure. This will preserve the life of the barn for many more years. Dave Diamond and his crew inspected the supporting posts this summer and discovered a number of them were in a fragile state. A contractor was selected and work began this late November to repair and replace any supporting posts and to also reside the entire barn. The large eastern four barn doors will be replaced this coming Spring. Your donations to the General Fund have made this and many other projects a reality. Please remember it when you consider this years donations to your museum.

The contractor is beginning to replace the siding on the north side of the barn.

The 84 and the Dover partial exposed.

The North side of the barn. Does that look nice!

In order to let in more natural light new skylights were added near the top of the roof line.

Here is the Southern exposure of the barn.

With the old siding removed the Lake City comes in view.

Another photo of the beautiful Lake City before the new siding has been installed.

The South side is now complete.

The Western entrance before the new siding has been installed. Please notice the ripples in the old siding. Now take a look at the very last picture and you can see the difference.

Here is a photo of the southern side facing the signal display.

The Western entrance being repaired and resided.

What a beautiful upgrade to your museum campus. There will be other projects like this one happening in the near future. Remember the General Fund this year! Have a safe and healthy 2019 New Year!      Thanks    Roger