Illinois Railway Museum Blog

The warmer weather is here although you wouldn't think with 8 inches of snow April 13th and 27th here in Huntley where I live. With a few volunteers we have been scheduling work on the John McLoughlin. This year we are beginning to tackle a large job of repairing the worst of the two vestibules and adjoining steel support structures. The sleeper sat outside for many years in Hamilton, Illinois and the weather took its toll on the exterior steel. Both stairs and all joining structures must be replaced. Here are some pictures of that beginning.

We have just started removing the rusty steel.

This is a before picture of the entire area.

The old stairs are removed.

Part of the wall behind the trap is also removed.

We are also resuming the interior restoration. Mark Hoffmann and Matt Holtz have already removed more old paint in the hallway near the men's bathroom. Three weeks ago Mark primed the area after Howard Geier had repaired a number of imperfections on that wall.

Mark is sanding the wall after Matt removed all of the old paint.

The wall after Mark primed it.

Another angle of the wall after priming.

The next report will detail the application of the finished coat of paint in these areas. Please consider a donation to the John Mcloughlin project.   Thanks, Roger

The Milwaukee Road coach project is slow but is receiving some attention recently. We finally measured and cut new steel panels to replace the ones that did not meet our standards for restoration. Our welder installed the new panels this January and February of this year.

8 ft section of steel welded into place.

Our welder, Jarred, beginning to weld.

In January of this year the sparks are flying as the welder installs the second panel. 

This is the results of the welders efforts.

Howard came out to begin the future prepping of the just welded two panels. On a somewhat warm March day he began applying bondo to the panels and sanding them for April priming.

Howard is applying bondo to the newly installed area.

Howard working the second day he was out applying more bondo then sanding the imperfections.

On a rare warm spring day Steve was out applying Spar urethane varnish to the new oak trim made especially for the inside window trim. Another job that was completed last fall was the repair and installation of new florescent lighting tubes in the fixtures. We now have all the lights operating in the 649. Its quite an impressive site.

Here Steve is working on the interior trim.

Before Howard and Steve can finish painting the coach we need to resolve the issue of replacing the old window glass. We need ten sets of glass plus new gasket material to replace the old cracked ones. At a estimated price of $300 ea they are some what expensive. Please consider a donation to cover the cost of at least one set. That would surely help us with placing this coach in service at your museum.       Thanks  Roger