Illinois Railway Museum Blog

The increased restoration activity in the heavyweight sleeper, John McLoughlin, began in earnest, the Spring of 2019.  My long-term goal is to operate this sleeper, along with our other heavy weight sleepers, in our demonstration Pullman passenger train!

Here Sandi is re-priming a section in the long hallway.

With much of the interior restoration of the Mt Harvard finished my focus shifted from the Mt Harvard to the John McLoughlin. Comparing both projects I soon realized that the "John" was certainly going to be a more complicated and very expensive project! We had, in the past, worked in barn 3, on both the exterior, as well as, the interior. It was a fill in project and took a long time to complete anything. What we did accomplish took years. Please review past blogs concerning those efforts. The reader will soon realized the extent of our concentrated efforts. A project like this takes a lot of men and women power, as well as, paid and volunteer help. Critical to our success is You. Please come out and help!

These hallway walls and ceilings had been prepped and sprayed primed a number of years ago. Now they had to be primed again.

Here is the hallway entrance by the door. Notice the color difference between ceiling and walls.

Once that area was completed we turned our attention to the other end of the sleeper.

Here Mark Hoffmann is again prepping the surface in the hallway near the mens bathroom.

Mark is masking an area so that he can prime the area.

Two days later Sandi is painting that area.

Here is the finished product. Walls are painted. Yet to be done is the ceiling. Thats the hardest part. We began removing all the old ceiling paint by scraping and then sanding to get a uniform surface.

Sandi is painting around the Emergency tool box.

Andrew, our new volunteer, continues removing more old paint in hallway leading to the drawing room.

Not to be out done, the exterior receive a makeover from Howard Geier. Years ago Mark Hoffman and I needle chipped both sides of the John McLoughlin and applied a coat of Sherwin Williams primer and satin top coat.  I knew I wanted to coat it with a finish coat but never got around to it. Now the opportunity presented itself.

Howard is painting and having fun doing so.

The finished product below the belt rail.

Another beautiful August day and again Howard is painting above the window line.

The sleeper is finished painted on one side.

What a beautiful job Thanks Howard! Nice work as always!

Well, we got one side painted now for the other side. That might take a while for the car has to be turned around and that takes a lot of switching! If you are interested in volunteering see me or the other volunteers in our shop, barn 10! Progress on the John McLoughlin is on the fast track. Your donation will certainly help us reach our goal. Please consider a donation to the John McLoughlin restoration fund.   Thanks, Roger Kramer.