Greetings to all,
What a week weather wise it has been in NW IN. From blistering heat in the upper 90's
to lows of 58 today. Scorching sun, monsoon rains, fog, you name it, we had it. But at
least it cooled off today.
Thursday I had drove to North Judson to pick a cake at Fingerhut, stopped at Gary
Rosemond to chat, and on leaving I made my way thru HVRM. Mark was at his building
and I stopped to talk. Friday morning a crew was headed up to La Crosse to put in new
ties from CR 875 West towards La Crosse. I declined as I had prior commitments. Friday
started out with thunder/lightning/rain and stayed around most of the morning. Don't
think it was good working weather, but yes they did manage to put in new ties. Saturday,
I went thru Wellsboro over to US421 and down to La Crosse. Drove to 875W and could see
them but no way could I drive to them, you have to come in at the crossing on IN8 in
La Crosse. So I parked an walked down to the crew. Cory, backhoe operator, John L,
Dave C, Mark K, Matt track workers. Felix had marked 357 ties needing replacing on the
old siding, jointed rail. Tie replacement started at 875 West and continued west. The crew
has replaced 68 ties as of this afternoon. Still a lot of manual work, but the back hoe attachment
makes things a lot easier removing and installing ties. Figured about 20% completed. Those
68 ties were spiked down, tamped with the big air compressor. The ties were monsters,
but Monday more ties are arriving, a more normal size tie. Don't know when the
crew will return, back hoe was stored in La Crosse and rest of the equipment brought
back to North Judson in the afternoon.
Today was truck and tractor day at the museum. Good turnout for the displays,
including a semi truck and trailer housing a display of small models of trucks. Lots
of International/John Deere tractors were on display.
Grasseli tower has the steps and railings on all the way to the top platform. Painting still
needs to be done and would be nice to help Steve out with this small project.
C&O 2789 was pulled outside the shop by Interlake diesel for display.
NKP 765 people were doing some maintenance on the engine inside the shop area.
Not much else to report, but I did get the train crew to move the MDT reefers to
the end of the string of cars on the east end for painting Monday and cleanup of car
sides. At least the south side is in the clear now, not blocked by the other line of
cars on the next siding.
Attended the annual North Judson fish fry at the new fire station, great fish and lots
of patato salad, cole slaw, bread, buttter and 3 choices of beverages. Excellent dinner
and the fish refills was hot and plenty. Good to see a lot of people from the area show up
prior to the Mint Festival next weekend, 17 18 19 of June.
Come on out and help out on the train crew, car hosting, selling tickets, or just
stand around and somebody will have something for you to do. Track crew is desparate
need of bodies to complete this tie project in a timely manner. Yes its hard work, but just
removing spikes and ties plates helps, not a real difficult job. Shoveling, tamping spikes,
and tamping ballast is hard dirty work. But if you can relieve the person for 5-10 minutes
it gives them a break to get a drink of water or cool off.
Take care, drive safe and have a good summer riding trains.
Tom
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