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