Chez la Porte Rouge

 Thursday in the Car Shop sees Gregg painting deck boards for the line car platform.  

And John is making new walls for a toilet compartment in the 306, using paneling that was removed from one of the other cars that was scrapped.  The old wood will have just the right patina.

Tim, of course, continued working on the interior of the 1808.

And I spent all day working on Jewell Road again.  In the morning, the old trim pieces for the door frame were removed, and new wood that was cut to size and primed at home was installed.  There are still a few pieces to make and install, but it looks much better:

Especially after painting.

The floor still needs work, but the threshold is missing and I'm not sure what is supposed to go there.  

You will notice above that the highest red board is badly split.  Now you see it, now you don't.

And the second blue board from the bottom is almost as bad.  These two also had lots of graffiti chiseled in.  I don't like chiselers.

So that plank goes into the scrap pile also.

And after two new boards from home were installed, the front side looks much better.

I started putting some primer on the west side, but the wood on that side is certainly the worst of the whole structure, so I decided to stop wasting paint.  At this point in the calendar, I may not have any more painting days until spring.  My plan now is to make sufficient siding pieces over the winter to completely replace the west side.  Stripping off the old siding and installing all new pieces will be much more efficient, and I should be able to do that in one day.

Geography lesson: In its original location, the front of the shelter was facing northeast, so what is now the west side was facing southeast, which is perhaps why it's more badly weathered.

Dave Diamond stopped by to see how things were going, and we talked about getting me a ladder or two so I can work on the top of the walls.  He also tried to talk me into joining B&G and working on other buildings, but I'm not so sure.  Maybe what I need is a good career rep to help me maximize my potential here at IRM....

Line Car Update

The IT line car has some very complicated mechanical parts, but Gregg Wolfersheim continues to restore the system so it will be functional.  See for yourself:

The roof of the line car isn't the only thing that gets attention. The stove pipe was mostly missing when I started this project. I replaced it with new pipe. It should be usable in the future. Good memories of working with the late Bob Bruneau in the '70's with the stove keeping us warm with painting projects in winter before we had heated shops!

The insulators and their brackets got mounted recently.

Then the lower slide rails were attached. This took several days as some of the holes didn't want to line up. I also had to locate some of the hardware as the originals were too deteriorated.

Another view of the lower slide rails attached to the six insulators.

One of the outer rails is being test fitted. Currently the boards for the platform deck are being prepped and will soon be installed to the upper rails.

Delivery Service

Recently, our Museum was offered the donation of a small forklift.  It will certainly come in handy in several ways in the Car Shop, so we're very grateful to the donor, Kyle Liberg.

I got to drive a Museum truck down to St. Charles and to pick up this equipment, as seen here.  

And as a bonus, we were also donated a nice big stick welder, and a device for cutting sheet metal.  These are really great additions to our collection of tools of all sorts.

When I got back, the truck was parked in front of the Bruneau Car Shop.  I'll let others unload it.

Again, our heartfelt thanks to Mr. Liberg for these donations!  Speaking of which...

DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO DONATE?

  IRM will be glad to accept almost anything train-related, or which is useful for restoration work, such as the forklift above.  Books, pictures, models, and artifacts of all sorts help further the Museum's mission.  If you want to donate something, or have questions, please go to the donation page and let us know.  We'll get back to you as soon as we can.

And now, back to the news!

After lunch it was time to get to work again on the Jewell Road shelter.  The weather was perfect.  Here we see on the left two new (red) boards that replaced the originals.

And on the east side, the lower of the blue boards needed to be replaced also.  I don't have a good "after picture" though.

Then I finished painting the red siding on the left side of the front.  Painting the front is almost done, except for the door frame trim pieces that I want to replace, and a few more planks to replace, perhaps next year.

Then I did more scraping on the west side, and started applying white primer.

But I quickly ran out, and will have to get some more.  Actually, I think I've been robbed.  I'll have to start carrying the primer back and forth in my car, as I've been doing with the finish colors.  And I'll be reporting this to the IRM Police Department.  I know he'll take me seriously!!

Sunday Progress Report

Frank writes...

Sunday was a beautiful fall day in the 50s, and thanks to several volunteers in the department, we made a lot of progress on the 18.

The most photogenic progress was on seats. Frank Kehoe painted the last of the seat cushions for the car during the week - thank you, Frank!! - and so Jimmy helped me carry these over to Barn 7. He then bolted the transverse seat cushions in the front half of the car into place while I screwed the various bench seat and "nickel seat" backs in place. Above, the bench seat in the drop section is shown after reassembly. The single seat furthest from the camera, which was added after the coal stove at this location was removed, hasn't been painted. This was beautifully re-covered by Tim Peters a year and a half ago and for the moment, at least, I don't have the heart to paint it. It blends in pretty well with the painted seats anyway, though.

The rear bench seat is a real pain to install since the 10 pieces fit together very tightly and only seem to go together in one order.

Later in the afternoon, I painted two more transverse seat backs, making three of these in total that have been painted. Above you can see two, with the unpainted ones behind them. Painting these in fresh "straw-colored" paint makes a real difference!

Meanwhile, Greg and Good Nick were helping with mechanical issues. Nick removed the brake stand, which had a stem gasket leak, and replaced the stem gasket. That takes care of what was by far the most noticeable air leak on the car. He also re-secured the buzzer interrupter to the wall in the cab. Thanks, Nick! For his part, Greg scraped some old duct tape residue off the windows and then gamely crawled under the car to check the air compressor. We'd like to put the car over the pit to pull and clean the bottle valves, given the close clearances under the car.

For my part, I also went over the snap switch lettering in the cab. The original lettering was so badly faded that even in daylight it could barely be read without a flashlight (note that there's no overhead light in the cab - the motorman relies entirely on light coming in through the windows from the passenger compartment). This helps out. That gap between the middle and right switch used to contain a fourth snap switch for the coal stove blower, as evidenced by the word "STOVE" along the bottom, but since that switch no longer exists I didn't trace over that lettering and just left it original.

In other news, several of the regulars were out of town but Joel was doing more prep work for HHR, Jimmy was priming new boards for the new DC Line switch enclosure, and Bob was machining more contactor pins for the Class B.

Switching the Siding

Before we get to the siding, let's see what's happening on the main line.  John continues his painstaking work on doors for the 306.

Speaking of doors, Pete and Fritz weren't there today, but they're making progress too.  Some of these doors are huge.  What's left of them, at least...

And Gregg continued his work on the line car.

Tim continued his work inside the 1808.

On Wednesday I got some pine boards for the Jewell Road shelter, cut them to shape, and primed them.  In the morning on Thursday I put a coat of finish paint on all surfaces.

Luckily, an excellent photographer I know sent in a picture of me at work:

Photo by O. Winston Link

And while the paint was drying, I changed out another window in the 18.  This one probably has too much black paint, but I think I'm getting better with practice.  It's not easy.

And this one was taken home for refinishing.

At lunch I walked over to see the locomotive cab we recently got.  It looks like something you could order from Tyco back in the old days.

Then it was time to actually start replacing the bad siding pieces.  We talked about this earlier.  You can see that some of the boards are much worse than others.  Here is the front (south side) -- the upper two boards marked with an X were replaced today.

And on the east side, you can see that two of them are beyond repair.

And one on the west side is missing the bottom two inches or so:

Out with the old:

And in with the new:

So piece by piece, I'm switching out old siding for new.   And don't even need a locomotive.

The Bus is Back

Thanks to Richard Schauer for sending this update of our Milwaukee trolley bus, 441, which is no longer off at a contractor getting repainted!

441 has returned to IRM and is safe and secure in the Hoffman Garage.  It awaits work to return it to a running, and very attractive, condition.  

It figured that yesterday, November 8th, had to be the only rainy day this week.  But that was what was arranged, and a little bit of rain didn't bother anything.  Loading, transporting, and unloading the bus went as smooth as silk.  

I've included several pictures that should be self-explanatory, along with one showing 441 following its last day of service, September 25, 2022.

Line Car Getting Decked Out

 Piece by piece, the Illinois Terminal line car is rapidly approaching completion, thanks to Gregg Wolfersheim.  And it's all being documented here!

The trolley pole for 1702 was wire wheeled and primed. Later, a coat of black was put on. The wheel was cleaned up and the bearing greased.

Six pieces of ash were cut and drilled. Here they are being primed. Holes were drilled near the end. Long bolts will pass through them and the four posts to provide a rigid base for the platform to sit on.

Today (Tuesday) the six pieces were bolted together on the roof to the posts.

Then the planks were added. Here, about half are in their proper place. Next, the six insulators will be mounted on this area to support the rails which in turn have the actual platform deck applied to them.

These are the rails getting cleaned up and primed. The two on the right are on the bottom attached to the tops of the insulators. The other two slide on the previous ones with the deck boards on top of the deck.

A Brand New Look

Thanks to Richard Schauer for sending us this exciting update along with photographic proof that Milwaukee trolley bus 441 has emerged from the contractor's paint booth in fresh as-delivered orange, cream, and maroon. Remember, getting buses or trolley buses painted off-site like this is primarily a factor of money - if you've been thinking of donating, and would like to see one of our other buses or trolley bus made "good as new" like this, drop us a line!

The 441 project is nearing completion... at the body shop, that is.  As I'll discuss in a moment, it will need a substantial amount of work to return it to being an operating, complete trackless trolley.  But what a beauty she is!

On Friday, it was rolled out of the paint booth, and its full new appearance could be appreciated.  The workers there were busy painting the rub rails orange, as well as touching up various imperfections on the bus itself.  The most noticeable spot was in the point of the V on the front end, where some gold color got onto the ivory.  By the time I took these photos, it was close to being fixed.  (The white line in the orange below it is from some liquid they were using at that moment.  The employee stepped out of frame while I took the photos.)

Now, as you will see, there are some things missing.  The number on the front end, part of the TRANSPORT CO. lettering on the street side, and the number on the back will all be added at IRM.  We had some difficulty with a few of the lettering masks, so rather than create an unfixable and unattractive problem, I opted to have the letters remade as stencils and apply them later.  

We expect the shop to complete its work on 441 this week, and it will be moved back to IRM.  A partial list of the sundry items required to complete the project follows:  clean, prime, and paint trolley poles; clean, prime, and paint trolley bases and boards; reinstall poles and add new ropes; source and install appropriate roof mat material; reinstall marker, head, tail, and right turn signal lights; drill out holes for rub rails, source hardware, and reinstall; clean up, send out for chroming, and reinstall front bumper; paint retrievers and brackets; paint and reinstall builders plate; complete battery box door work; clean, prime, and paint wheels.... You get the picture.

It's still too early to pin anything down, but a date during 2024 for the completed TMER&T 441's presentation will be determined and disseminated.