WABASH CABOOSE ST CHARLES MO

DEAN LEVIN took this picture while in ST CHARLES, MO

Emailing: 9246.1244174471

 

Nippy but nice at HVRM 9/25/10

A cool low 60's day, with sun on and off all day.  All in all, a good weatherwise day at North Judson.   Apparently, the FRA inspector found some problems with some of the museums cabooses including no built dates on three of them.  These were added this morning.  Also, the inspector stated that the hand rails on GTW transfer caboose had to have at least 4 inches of clearance and three of the seats had to be moved forward slightly to accomplish this.  A 4th seat could not be moved without some special work so that seat was just removed.   Cory Bennett and Dave Cook were plugging holes on the south side roof of the East Annex to the Shop.  The north side roof had been finished a few weeks ago and apparently no longer leaks.  Cory reported that they are about half finished with the south side.   Unlocked the crossing watchmans shanty for visitor inspection.   Andy Hershman and Mitch Montgomery were working on GE # 11 in an effort to get the unit its blue card.  Lots of work done on it today and Andy and Mitch were still at it when I left the museum late in the afternoon.   Joe Kingsbury cut grass for a while.   I noticed that Mike Koehler had put bondo on the south side of LIRR 2937 when he was here last weekend.   Steve Newland was in the Shop, measing and cutting the missing boards for the north side of Grasselli Tower.  After eventually putting them into place, he then gave them a coat of primer.   I started out working again on the seats that need to be added to the interior of GTW 75072.  Went down to the Shop and, with the assistance of Steve Newland, managed to get a wood pattern made for the needed riser legs from the 4 x 4 blocks that we have on hand.  Cut and drilled three additonal wood risers and then broke for lunch.  Pizza, salad, soup and various deserts were served in the NKP kitchen car.  While eating, the 11:00 caboose train arrived back at the depot, so after lunch, I headed over to the GTW caboose to see what I could get done before the 1:30 departure for English Lake.  Ran a long extension cord out to the caboose and managed to get one leg down and the other two marked, and the wall marked for lag bolts.  Train time came too soon, so I disconnected the electric, returned the cord and then, since all my tools were still on the caboose, decided to ride the train to keep an eye on my stuff.  Nice group of folks on board and they enjoyed the ride, although the wind and cool temps finally drove some of them inside.  I heard later that we carried over 100 riders on the two trains.   After we returned to the museum and the crew put the cabooses away on the caboose track, I went hunting for the electric cord and started in on the seat once more.  Managed to get all three legs bolted down and the lab bolts put into the wall before leaving for the day.   Mark Knebel, John LaOrange and Dave Cook were doing some kind of track work on the east end in the afternoon.   Pat DeGan reported that the gift shop in the depot had a very busy day.   Others members at the museum today included Bob Jachim, Andy Roeske, Randall Downs, Bill Dauber, Loretta Kosloske, Margrett Cook, Judy Boyer and Jason Annen.  Engine crew was John DeGan and Doug Kosloske and the conductor for both runs was Fred Boyer.  I am sure I missed some folks.  Another senior moment!   It was a tiring, but worthwhile day.   Les

[MONONPIC-L] Dearborn 2

Here's an interesting shot taken at Dearborn Station in Chicago of a Monon train arriving in 1950.  Note the C&EI cab unit waiting to go outbound and the C&WI RS1 switching a string of cars.  Also note the dwarf semaphores up on the signal mast.

Dearborn

 

Here is an interesting photo taken at Dearborn Station in the late 40's or early 50's.  Note the Santa Fe steam engine switching.  Since the AT&SF was not one of the owners of the Chicago & Western Indiana and thus Dearborn, they did their own switching.  The C&WI switched for the Wabash, C&EI, Monon, GTW and Erie, its owners.  Note also the two sets of Monon passenger F's; probably one for the Louisville train and the other for the Indianapolis train.  Also of special interest are what appear to be Railway Express Agency trailers that appear right above the boiler of 0-8-0 # 825.  Do these look like they might be the same type of trailer that you are working on at HVRM?   Les

FW: Running on the C&WI

 

Tom -   Nice photo of a steam powered Monon train.  Wabash connection?  This is where the Wabash left the C&WI on its way west toward Landers Yard and beyond.   Les

FW: MRM Railroad Days at MRM Sept 2010

Gents -   Attached are a couple of photos of Southern Railway 2-8-0 # 401 at Monticello Railway Musuem on Saturday, 9-18-10.  Thanks to Don Crimmin for these photos.  I was at MRM today (Sunday, 9-19-10) and what follows is a quick report.   First of all, the 401 looks and sounds GREAT!  Betty and I rode in Brian Higgins IC business car # 7 that carried the markers on the steam train.  New wood panelling has been put in the rear compartment of that car and it looks wonderful.  And the seats remain as comfortable as I remember them.   We also rode Wabash caboose 2834 on the freight train which was pulled by the two CN FPA4's.  Lots of tank cars still stored on MRM tracks, so this run was limited as to its length.   I walked out to the shop to look around and then rode the "caboose hop" back to the Nelson's Crossing depot.  Power was the Milwaukee Road NW2 pulling the little IT wood transfer caboose.  Nice touch!   I managed to get a number of photos of the 2-8-0 during the day, and maybe one or two of them might even turn out!   Some surprises:   A gentleman had his 1-1/2" scale Mogul fired up and running on a table with rollers under the drivers!  So the engine never went anywhere!  A WONDERFUL idea.   It's been a while I guess, since I was last at MRM, because they have a two track covered train shed just to the east of the Nelson's Crossing depot.   But the MOST surprising thing there today, was the lady who was at the throttle of number 401 on some of her afternoon runs.  That was TERRIFIC!  She really could make the Consolidation talk!   All in all, a most wonderful way to spend a September afternoon!   Les

Cool, rain, sun, clouds at HVRM 9-18-10

Greetings!   Little bit of everything weatherwise today at Hoosier Valley.  In fact, the outdoor general membership bi-monthly meeting was cut off due to rain starting up!    Despite the generally gray day, I heard that we had about 100 riders, including 60 for the afternoon train to LaCrosse.  Andy Hershman and John LaOrange handled the chores in 310's cab, while Fred Boyer was conductor today.  A number of folks carhosted including Joe Kingsbury, Bill Dauber, Randall Downs, Loretta Kosloske, Mark Anderson and Mark Knebel.  I probably missed a few others on the crew.   Loretta and Margret Cook worked in the gift shop.   A neighbor on Lincoln Street on the north side of the museum had approached Mark requesting some help, if possible, in putting up a pole on his property for a new electrical service connection.  So, Cory Bennett and Dave Cook used the payloader to set the pole.  Got to keep good relations with our neighobors!   Mike Koehler was working on cleaning up his ex-Long Island RS-1 diesel and asked a couple of us if we wanted a "look see" in the cab.  Mike moved some stuff around after we entered and found a "present"; about a three foot long snake skin.  A few minutes later, Mike found another skin!  But no live snakes.  At least, not this time!  Later in the afternoon, Mike was busy working on the one vestibule end of LIRR coach 2937.   Steve Newland had finished painting the rest of the north side of Grasselli Tower this past week, so now both the north and east sides of Grasselli are in light green paint.  The rain forced Steve to abandon plans to continue painting on the south side of the tower so he was working inside the Shop on various replacement board that have to be fitted in to that side.   Joe and Louise Kingsbury had finished lettering the NKP 15797 boxcar this week.  Looks great!  So two of our boxcars have been done this year.   Jason Annen and Andy Roeske were making minor repairs on GE # 11 during the afternoon.  The 95-tonner was fired up and moved back and forth in the Shop.   The train crew told Tom Travis and I that they were going to have to pull GTW transfer caboose 75072 off of the rounhouse lead track on the north side of the shop building as the car was needed in the train.  Tom and I already had all our tools on the car but had to wait to start working on the interior seats.  We managed to start work after the 75072 was switched into the train and actually worked on the seats while the car was in motion and passengers were riding on the seats outside on the platform on the morning trip to EngIish Lake.  After retuning. we had to run to Hoppe's hardware for some bolts, then had to wait while the train was pulled down and the 310 ran around to get ready for the afternoon run to LaCrosse.  Still managed to get two seats bolted down to the floor after the membership meeting.  Tom then had to take off at 1:30 for an afternoon-evening schoolbus charter, but when the train returned and the cabooses were put away on the caboose track, I was finally able to get the two seats bolted into the side wall of the GTW.   A number of other folks were around the museum today doing various tasks.  I know that Bob Jachim showed a number of folks around the Shop.  And Andy Hershman's fiance helped in the gift shop.   Have a good week folks.   Les

HVRM Report for 9-11-10

After a beautiful week of nice weather, guess what, it rained all morning long here
in NW IN. Certainly a bummer for the town of North Judson that had big plans for
today for yard sales, etc. I did not go down to NJ till about 11AM since our activities
were outside today. Les made it down earlier and had wet shoes to prove it.
 
Les made busy work on the GTW caboose, making window frames and caulking the
cracks. One thing that the rain did prove, its not leaking in the caboose, as all the
window were dry, no leaks near the ceiling either. While Les worked on the windows,
I made busy work of dragging the 2 coach seats back into the GTW. Les made me aware
of another wall seat buried in the stuff along the south wall of the shop. I brought it over
and grabbed a couple of 4x4's for the legs to set on, these are the short leg seats. By then
we made a trip over to Metra 1502 to retrieve seats that were stored in side the car.
Took my van over and we loaded it up, just coming out, Ross Robinson showed up.
Ross is on way back from Iowa to Ottawa and stopped by for a visit. We loaded up and
went to lunch at the Wooden Nickel for some some catch up time. Returning to the GTW,
unloaded the van and put seats inside. Made a visit to the D&RGW coach to attempt to
remove a marker bracket from the end of the car. It was finally removed after about an
hour of drilling out screws and good old fashion pounding. Surprise, the brackets are made out
of brass. Ross will have new brackets made in the Renfrew foundry someday.
 
Another old friend and member also showed up today, Bruce Emmons, who looks good
and is doing well. Annabelle was out yard sale shopping, but everything was wet. Bruce came
over to pull some T-shirts of the hangers for the Griffith Rail weekend that HVRM has a booth,
so come out and help man the booth. Good to see Bruce and Annabelle.
 
Mark Kniebel has the final coat of paint on the NKP boxcar and Joe Kingsbury is doing a
great job of lettering it. Wonder what the next project will be. BTW, Mark painted the
kerosene tank aluminum  and it looks great.
 
Train ridership today was on the low side, most likely due to the rain this morning.
 
Bob Albert/Steve Newland worked on scrap pile and some boards for Grasseli tower.
 
2 tank cars were cut out after train rides for interchange.
 
Nothing else to report, have a good week everyone.

GTW caboose work

I did drive to North Judson today.  Spent about 4 and a half hours there.  Knebel had sprayed the finish coat of paint on the NKP boxcar that's over by the kitchen car.  Looks great!  Now Joe has to letter it I guess.  He and Bob Jachim were the only other ones at the museum.  Bob opened the troop car so I could get into Metra 1529.  Mark went down and sanded the rust off of the new storage tank that is going to be used for kerosene.  Then he painted it with aluminum paint.  Looks real good.   I checked out the inside dimensions for seats from the Metra cars.  We can put a row of side seats on one side (8 seats, maybe 10 if we can squeeze in a regular seat on the end).   Then 6 or 8 seats on the other side.  That will cover the 16 seats on the end platform.   I checked underneath the car and it is very close as to whether the bolts will go through the wood floor without hitting the first steel beam that runs the length of the car.  We can drill a test hole to see if it makes it.  Then bolting the other end to the side of the car would be easy.  But, we would have to put some wood blocks under those side seats to raise them up about 4 or 5 inches.  There is some great wood back by the wood furnace in the Shop if we want to go that way.  There are enough orange side seats upstairs in the 1529.  Or we could use the dark blue seats from the 1502 as an alternate.   I then started on the south side window.  You will recall that used the oak wood that you furnished to make the new frame for the north side window, but never did the south side window as the car has always been in the caboose train.  Had a hell of a time breaking that "temporary" chip wood frame that I put on the south side window, but was finally able to get it removed.   Went through the wood back by the furnace in the shop and found three pieces.  I just had enough to make a new frame.  It is put in and looks good.  I need to put a bit of wood putty in a couple of nail holes, then sand two small spots, caulk the edges and prime the frame and paint both frames orange.  This is the side window that Dauber complained about water pouring in.  This should solve most of that problem I hope.  Still need to check the roof over both windows for possible holes.  There may be some; maybe not.   Number of folks stopped by; most just gawking, but a few came over to look in the Shop.  I tried to stay busy but talked to a couple of them.  Finally put everything away and locked everything up (Mark was long gone by this time) and pulled out of there at about 4:15.    Les

FW: Touch of Autumn at HVRM 9-4-10

Howdy!   Well, although it's not yet quite Labor Day, the weather at North Judson today (low 70's with a brisk wind) gave us a hint of what is to come.  Quite a refreshing change from our summer of 90 degree temps!   Board of Directors meeting in the morning.  Special runs are planned for this October and the museum website will reflect those special operations.   Big story today was attendance on our trains.  Both the morning run to English Lake and the afternoon run to LaCrosse carried just over 100 riders (total was 206).  Utilization of all of the 5 cabooses and NKP open flat car # 1946 was necessary to handle the large crowd.  Because of the large amount of passengers, I ended up acting as car host on both runs.  We also had guest engineers today!   There was an electrical problem with EL Alco #310 in the morning, but Mitch Montgomery and Jason Annen troubleshot the problem and the morning run left only about 20 minutes late.    Work continued on GE # 11, and a 92 day inspection was planned for later in the day after work with # 310 was completed.   Steve Newland continued work on Grasselli Tower.   NKP boxcar # 15797 had its ends painted black earlier in the week.  Mark Knebel states that he hopes to have the roof and sides painted boxcar red this coming week.   Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day weekend everyone and have a great week!   Les