A prince of a day at HVRM 4-30-11

Greetings!   Arrived at the museum at 10:00 a.m. after considering staying home because of my 4th cold this winter/spring.  This is getting old!   After signing in, I walked over to the depot where Corey Bennett was doing some trackwork on the G gauge layout.   Mark Knebel asked Loretta Kosloske to watch the platform while the engine crew using Alco 310 brought the Kanawha's tender down to the Shop area.  Bob Jachim was flagging Mulberry Street for this backup move.   I was supposed to help Tom Travis get the side door off of the Railway Express Agency trailer, but I did not realize that he was already at the museum.  Tom told me later that the door gave him fits, but he was finally able to remove it and drop it on the ground.   I talked to Bob Jachim and he gave me the window frame for the 899 passenger car.  This was a project that Bob had started for me before the vandalism occurred last month.  I was able to put the new frame into one of the car windows and it fit very well.  Bob also gave me a quote from Norwayne Lumber to make additional frames as necessary, and install regular window glass in them.  Bob suggested that I check to see if the new frame would fit a couple of other windows on the car.   Joe Kingsbury reported that MKT flat car 13833 was not used on the Easter Bunny train last Saturday, because the car was not yet quite finished.  But this week, the roof was finished and the missing air brake was installed.  The car should be ready for train next week for Mothers Day.   Corey, Dave Cook and Mark Knebel were working on the Purdue crane which did not start this morning due to a dead battery.  The battery was replaced and the crane was back in operation in the afternoon.   Randall Downs came over and looked at the 899 and then walked over to see if lunch had arrived.  It had!   There were 3 Guest Engineers today at the museum, so the engine crew on the 310 was very busy.   I finally connected at lunch with Tom and he asked me to give him a hand trying to get the rear door up on the REA trailer.  This is a 7 panel sectional door made out of heavy plywood with the springs no longer in evidence.  The two of us could not lift that door!  So, Tom went and got a track jack and we started in on it, very slowly.  It took us close to two hours to finally get the door up against the ceiling.  Hopefully it will stay there a while.  We also moved the side door that Tom had removed in the morning, up into the trailer itself, where Tom will start in on the rebuild.   Todd and Kyle Flanigan were working on cleaning up the mess on the track in front of the east door of the Shop in the morning.  Later in the afternoon, the generator on LIRR 2937 was fired up, but the was no air conditioning coming out of the cars vents. I am not sure that the problem was fixed because after I finished helping Tom, I went down to the 899 where I tried to remove another window to see if the new frame would also fit.  After much work, I finally gave up on the first window I tried.  But I tried another window and successfully got the old window frame out.  The new frame also fit this window.   Todd told me that the stencils for the two boxcars that are going to be painted, have been cut.  Which is good news.  Mark Knebel had the NKP 15979 painted, and it looks fine.  So, the lettering will now have to be applied.   Someone pointed out that we had received 3 truckloads of coal from Ohio for 765 operations.   Joe Baker put some light green paint on Grasselli Tower at the section that Steve Newland repaired and primed last week.  Tower is looking good, but still needs the steps to the second floor finished.  Hopefully that will be done by Memorial Day weekend.     The cool morning turned nice in the afternoon after the sun had come out and the temp got up to 69 degrees.  Hopefully, Spring is here this time!   Locked up everything I worked on and departed the museum just after 5:00 p.m.   Enjoy your week folks!     Les

Easter Saturday HVRM April 24, 2011

What a glorious day at HVRM. Temps in the 70's, clear skys, brisk wind.
Overall turnout for the Easter trains numbered around 340 or so for 2 trains.
One train at 11:30am to English lake, then back to North Judson then to North
Judson park on IN10 for the egg hunt. Good time was had by everyone.
Same again at 1:30pm. The American Legion provided food to all the passengers
and did quite well.
 
Cory, Dave, Richard worked on the CAT back hoe tractor. Drained hydraulic fluid
that had water in the system, seemed to fix the problem. Changed buckets with
some difficulty, but after 30 minutes had it attached. A couple of problems were
noted and fixed, a fuel leak and valve cover gasket was leaking oil.
 
I worked on grinding on the REA trailer. I got all three sides close to done.
It was nice inside the shop, with a breeze blowing thru.
 
Steve was working on Grasseli tower, got boards replaced on west end and
primed.
 
LIRR 2937 looked good in new paint and windows. Heat seemed to work okay,
but the AC has some issues I heard. Did not go inside, but passengers seemed
to be enjoying the ride. Train included NKP caboose, EJ&E handicap car, NKP
open air car, and LIRR coach and B&LE caboose.
 
Things wrapped up fairly quick after the last train and mostly everyone
was gone by 4:30pm.