Illinois Railway Museum Blog

This first week of June in barn 10 was very productive even with volunteers keeping the prescribed distancing. The four ongoing projects were the Mt Harvard, Milwaukee Road 649, John Mc Laughlin, and the Pawnee. The following is a summary of the four projects in pictorial form.

First, the Milwaukee Road coach, 649.

Steve is standing next to window frames that were freshly painted.

Our resident paint sprayer, Howard, is spraying more frames.

Later that day Steve is working in the interior of the 649.

For the last seven months the bulk of our restoration efforts in the coach department have been devoted to the John McLaughlin. I am proud to say that we have accomplished our goal of repainting the entire eight sections of the sleeper. Here are pictures of the last areas being repainted.

Not to be outdone, I painted the ceiling trim on the last day of May.

Work on the interior of the John McLaughlin, This is the last section to be painted.

Sandi is painting the brown wall color.

She was painting again the next day.

Here you realize there is much ladder work taken place on this entire project.

It takes many volunteer hours to restore the McLaughlin. Here Jane and John are reupholstering one of fifteen seat bottoms in the sleeper.

June 5th finds Tim removing paint from the last berth in the section area. The last one!

June 8th Sandi has already primed the last upper berth and now will begin painting the final coat.

The Pawnee has received a drumhead sign.

Here Jane, Robert and Logan are poising for the camera on the obs end.

Howard is working on restoring the shine on the car body.

Howard just finished buffing the exterior.  You can see his reflection.

The last project is the Mt Harvard.  I am committed to repainting the sleeper this year.  We are focusing all our attention on the exterior.  Getting it prepped is a labor intensive job.

Robert Kersey continues the body prepping by cleaning this area in preparation for priming.

One window in the mens bathroom.  We removed it in order for a repaint.

Here Robert is sanding more of the body. He is a new member to the coach department and is doing a fine job. Thanks, Robert, for your efforts.

Here is our VIP resident mechanic, Gregg Wolfersheim. Here he is repairing one of the two trap doors needed for the Mt. Harvard  vestibule. A little more about that later in another blog.

If you would like to see more progress in these four projects please consider make a donation to any or all of them.