Passenger Car Department

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