50% More or the End Is In Sight! Plus a bonus feature!

Al writes...

After my success last Tuesday I decided it was time to try again yesterday. As Randy stated in his last blog entry "Another day, another few feet of wooden siding stripped, sanded, and primed. " I was feeling a little bit better this week than last, so my efforts were able to cover one and a half windows for a 50% increase in the area prepared for future painting. Although today was chilly, working in barn 8 with a heat gun was not entirely uncomfortable.

 One feature about the 36 is that it was apparently varnished initially and when scraping the sides using a heat gun the varnish tends to gum up on my scraper and requires fairly frequent cleaning. As you can see at the end of the day we are within striking distance of completing the car side below the belt rail. It sure would be easier if Randy would figure out that dipping process.

As it was last week, things were rather quiet around the campus. I didn't have time to go exploring but some of the usual characters were seen on site including Rod, Frank, Nick, Ed and judging by the music coming from barn 4 Tim Peters was hard at work on the 4412. Of course Jan and company were keeping the lights on in the office. And hearing equipment moving about the site I assume Dave was hard work on B&G activities as well.

Bonus feature

It seems that we have a new face at IRM. Seen arriving was this three unit set of Miniature Train Company locomotive and two cars. This appears to be an MTC G12 model  12" gage amusement park train. For those of you not familiar with the Miniature Train Company it is probably best known for its F3 like locomotives on 14", 15" and 16" gage track, that were used in various amusement parks around the country. The Chicago area had at least five MTC G 16 train sets that I am aware of. There were two at Kiddieland, two at Riverview and one at Lincoln Park and I understand one is in private hands not too far from IRM.This train set is a smaller model than those and may be familiar to some of you babyboomers as similar to the one that ran in the Fair Store (note the early history of MTC was building trains for use in in Dept. stores) on State St. during Christmas (electrically operated I assume). Also arriving with the train was a truckload of 12" gage "snap track".

The miniature train company was a local supplier of amusement park trains. It was a small enough company that there does not even seem to be a Wikipedia entry for it. However a brief history of the company can be found here. I guess we will need to watch IRM cyber space closely for further developments.

My only question is what relationship did the Rattlesnake Island Railroad have to the North Shore?

This Blog entry was brought to you by the Shameless Prodding Division of the Hicks Car Works.

Remember indoor storage is the only long term solution to maintaining our equipment and ensuring that the preservation efforts of our volunteers do not get undone by time and weather.

YOU, yes you are being prodded to do something about it!  IRM is in the process of raising funds for Barn 14.  There are several funds you can donate to, but we here at the Hicks Car Works ask that you donate to code name RISWEC for cars in the Electric Car Department Collection.  Make a minimum $25.00 donation today!  You can mail your check to this address:

Illinois Railway Museum
P.O. Box 427
Union, IL 60180

If you want to, you can donate through this secure online link.

Any bit helps, so donate today!