Super Day at HVRM Weather Wise, Not So at Meeting

Folks -   Here is Tom Travis's museum report for August 27th.  I've added a few additional comments at the end.   Les --- On Sat, 8/27/11, Thomas Travis <wa9ngo@hotmail.com> wrote: Greetings to all,   It was a fine day at North Judson today. Started out cool for the most part and stayed in the mid-80's most of the day. Nice breeze for those working outside today. Perfect for making hay, which Richard Warner was doing all day, round bales and square bales. Weather on east coast is not looking good for all the rail fans and museums. Some of the prime tourist time is actually getting blasted by Hurricane Irene. Lets all hope the rail museums survive without much damage.   Arrived early for an anticipated special meeting, more of presentation by Ben Butterworth, President of Mid America Car. Let me cover happenings first.   The special trains during the week went off without any problems. One dinner train was well attended of dignitaries I believe of the local community. Marcia of the Wooden Nickel provided a wonderful dinner and plenty of food for all. As always, Marcia has the best broasted chicken in town.   Work in the east shop had a Mid America Car passenger car lifted up doing some work on a truck set. The massive lifts make lifting the car easy. Power from another dorm-baggage car was back fed (480 volts) to run the lifts, nice system. Ben has a good crew working for his company, knows their business.   Train crew did their expert job of running the tourist train today. John "Highball" DeGan was engineer, John LaOrange was co-engineer. Don't really know who was conductor. Seems all the trains had good attendence today. Bus load of Amish visitors showed for the 1:30 train, 50 or so rode to English lake and return.   The real working crew, tie replacers, were working down at the east end yard switch replacing two 16 foot switch ties. Cory on tractor, Mark on track, Tom, well stumbling around trying his darnest to fall down, managed to get two ties in with not much problem. The real test was getting the points to close tight. Finally Fred showed up and got us all in the right directions of fixing this small problem. Cory only made Fred take off 2 nuts, 2 or 3 times to finally get the bar that guages the points. Fred happy as ever, did what he was told and then Tom took off 2 big nuts and got the angled steel bar off to insert 1/2 inch washers to make the points fit tight. After reassembling that, throw the switch was tested. Well its sort of tight now, just stand back when pulling the switch lever, it springs real good and if it hits your midsection, you will have some pain for a couple of days. To get the switch locked, you might have to pull 3 or 4 times to get it. A nice 3 foot piece of pipe extension will help greatly. Actually it will be easier to throw once the outside rail to the switch is ground down some. It was a piece of bent rail to begin with and was never properly bent at the the points to give clearance. Either will have to stretch a long electrical cable, or use a generator, for power, I don't think the electrical cable will work for 1/4 mile. So it is back in service for the time being, till more tweaking can be done later.   Now for the presentation of Ben's Mid America Car proposal to HVRM board. MAC would like to make the following equipment storage, usage and display proposal to HVRM. Several passenger cars of MAC's heritage fleet would be displayed on a new storage track at the east end of the properity. In addition MAC will provide cars that can be operated for  use at HVRM in regular or seasonal events. MAC requests that any routine maintence, HVRM will provide, i.e. brakeshoes, fuel, cleaning etc. A joint effort of MAC & HVRM to up date former C&O Chessie dome observation car for exclusive use by HVRM for 3-5 years,  with Amtrak certification eventually. In exchange of furnishing equipment for display and operation with HVRM's current equipment fleet, MAC would like use of HVRM's facilities to inspect, maintain and upgrade our running fleet of cars.   The full equipment storage and usage proposal can be viewed by everyone by asking Mark Knebel for a copy. Maybe it could be put on-line in a pdf so the different types of passenger cars can be displayed and the entire general overview proposal page.   This presentation was only an announcement. Board meeting on 3 Sept at 8am in the depot will discuss this further. A general membership meeting will be 17 September at 8am in the depot. Further discussion will be held.   This proposal will be viewed under a microscope. All questions, impacts on HVRM, MAC's intent to invest, and the extent of what to expect, will be conducted.   I encourage every member of HVRM to take a look at this proposal. Ask questions, make sure contract proposals are carefully written, leaving no idea along the way. This will have a lasting effect on HVRM for years to come. PROs/CONs????? Hard to say. Its all up to you. Make your vote count what you think is right to do with the museum's future.   Attend the meetings PLEASE!!!!!!!!   Have a safe week to come, enjoy the Labor Day weekend, drive safe, days are getting shorter by minutes each day, watch out for school busses on the roads after Labor Day.   Tom   Addendum -   The 2:45 train today ran all the way into La Crosse.  This is the first train to operate from the museum into La Crosse since the track was fixed by HVRM track crews after the 765 derailment on the Memorial Day weekend.  So certainly a red letter day for the museum!   I believe that Elmer Mannen and Doug Kosloske shared conductor duties on the trains today.  Joe Kingsbury provided the crossing protection that was necessary on the two earlier English Lake runs.   I spent the day finishing the painting of the watchman's crossing shanty.  I think it looks pretty good in its new coat of light green paint with dark green trim.  Comments welcome, pro or con.   I told Tom that the ex-Santa Fe Geep that the elevator at Malden uses for switching there, is apparently under repair at the Chesapeake & Indiana diesel repair area at La Crosse and that ex-C&O SD-18 # 7311 is currently up at Malden.  I am not sure if 7311 has been leased to the elevator for them to use while the Santa Fe unit is being repaired, or if it was just moved there for storage.   There had been some switching around of equipment.  NKP caboose # 471 is back in the West Annex of the Shop for painting.  And MDT refrigerator car # 13385 has been moved onto the tail of the turntable lead track.  Unfortunately, the car is now in a location where Tom and I will not be able to work on it due to junk around the car.   Pat DeGan and Judy Boyer seemed pretty busy in the gift shop today, which is always good to see.   Have a good week.   Les

Super Day at HVRM Weather Wise, Not So at Meeting

Greetings to all,
 
It was a fine day at North Judson today. Started out cool for the most part and stayed in
the mid-80's most of the day. Nice breeze for those working outside today. Perfect for making
hay, which Richard Warner was doing all day, round bales and square bales. Weather on
east coast is not looking good for all the rail fans and museums. Some of the prime tourist
time is actually getting blasted by Hurricane Irene. Lets all hope the rail museums survive
without much damage.
 
Arrived early for an anticipated special meeting, more of presentation by Ben Butterworth,
President of Mid America Car. Let me cover happenings first.
 
The special trains during the week went off without any problems. One dinner train
was well attended of dignitaries I believe of the local community. Marcia of the
Wooden Nickel provided a wonderful dinner and plenty of food for all. As always,
Marcia has the best broasted chicken in town.
 
Work in the east shop had a Mid America Car passenger car lifted up doing some work
on a truck set. The massive lifts make lifting the car easy. Power from another dorm-baggage
car was back fed (480 volts) to run the lifts, nice system. Ben has a good crew working for
his company, knows their business.
 
Train crew did their expert job of running the tourist train today. John "Highball" DeGan was
engineer, John LaOrange was co-engineer. Don't really know who was conductor. Seems
all the trains had good attendence today. Bus load of Amish visitors showed for the 1:30
train, 50 or so rode to English lake and return.
 
The real working crew, tie replacers, were working down at the east end yard switch
replacing two 16 foot switch ties. Cory on tractor, Mark on track, Tom, well stumbling around
trying his darnest to fall down, managed to get two ties in with not much problem. The real
test was getting the points to close tight. Finally Fred showed up and got us all in the right
directions of fixing this small problem. Cory only made Fred take off 2 nuts, 2 or 3 times to
finally get the bar that guages the points. Fred happy as ever, did what he was told and then
Tom took off 2 big nuts and got the angled steel bar off to insert 1/2 inch washers to
make the points fit tight. After reassembling that, throw the switch was tested. Well its
sort of tight now, just stand back when pulling the switch lever, it springs real good and if
it hits your midsection, you will have some pain for a couple of days. To get the switch
locked, you might have to pull 3 or 4 times to get it. A nice 3 foot piece of pipe extension
will help greatly. Actually it will be easier to throw once the outside rail to the
switch is ground down some. It was a piece of bent rail to begin with and was never properly
bent at the the points to give clearance. Either will have to stretch a long electrical cable,
or use a generator, for power, I don't think the electrical cable will work for 1/4 mile.
So it is back in service for the time being, till more tweaking can be done later.
 
Now for the presentation of Ben's Mid America Car proposal to HVRM board. MAC would like
to make the following equipment storage, usage and display proposal to HVRM. Several
passenger cars of MAC's heritage fleet would be displayed on a new storage track at the
east end of the properity. In addition MAC will provide cars that can be operated for  use
at HVRM in regular or seasonal events. MAC requests that any routine maintence, HVRM
will provide, i.e. brakeshoes, fuel, cleaning etc. A joint effort of MAC & HVRM to up date
former C&O Chessie dome observation car for exclusive use by HVRM for 3-5 years,  with
Amtrak certification eventually. In exchange of furnishing equipment for display and operation
with HVRM's current equipment fleet, MAC would like use of HVRM's facilities to inspect,
maintain and upgrade our running fleet of cars.
 
The full equipment storage and usage proposal can be viewed by everyone by asking
Mark Kniebel for a copy. Maybe it could be put on-line in a pdf so the different types
of passenger cars can be displayed and the entire general overview proposal page.
 
This presentation was only an announcement. Board meeting on 3 Sept at 8am in the
depot will discuss this further. A general membership meeting will be 17 September at
8am in the depot. Further discussion will be held.
 
This proposal will be viewed under a microscope. All questions, impacts on HVRM,
MAC's intent to invest, and the extent of what to expect, will be conducted.
 
I encourage every member of HVRM to take a look at this proposal. Ask questions, make sure
contract proposals are carefully written, leaving no idea along the way. This will have a
lasting effect on HVRM for years to come. PROs/CONs????? Hard to say. Its all up to you.
Make your vote count what you think is right to do with the museum's future.
 
Attend the meetings PLEASE!!!!!!!!
 
Have a safe week to come, enjoy the Labor Day weekend, drive safe, days are getting
shorter by minutes each day, watch out for school busses on the roads after Labor Day.
 
Tom   

Sane Day, Rain Day at HVRM 8-20-11

Greetings!   Arrived at North Judson about 8:45 a.m. to find Bob Jachim hard at work removing flowers and weeds (mostly weeds fortunately) from one of the plant display areas.  These areas, which are boxed in with old railroad ties, were set up some years ago around the wood telephone poles in the museums parking lot.  Museum visitors had a tendency to back in to these wooden poles at times and the idea behind the plant displays and the ties was to protect the poles and make them more visible.  The idea has been a great success.  Most of the plants were put in over a period of time by former member Cheri Schultz, who used both native flowers and plants and also domesticated plants.  Unfortunately, these areas have become overgrown and unsightly these past few years.  Bob's "weeding" was most welcome.  Bob and I also moved around some of the old ties that form the parking spots in the parking area so that we were able to get another automobile spot set up.   Bob Barcus singlehandedly manned the gift shop and ticket sales, as the ladies in the normal crew all were unable to be at HVRM this morning.   I dropped off a newly purchased can of light green paint which is to be used for Grasselli Tower and also for the Mulberry Street watchman's crossing shanty that I am painting.  Although there was rain in the forecast for this afternoon, I decided to do some painting on the shanty anyway.  I noticed that Bing Risley had put some additional crushed stone around the outside of the shanty this past week, which is much appreciated.   Fred Boyer was picking up old track material in front of the Shop building an taking it over to the track supply area.  Fred then grabbed a bunch of old concrete blocks and took them over to Grasselli and, after knocking excess mortar off of them, stacked them in front of the lower door to the Tower as temorary stairs.   The train crew had done some spotting of cars and moved MDT refrigerator car # 13385 over to track 1 in front of the Shop so that the second side of the car can eventually be scrubbed down to remove road grime.  Hopefully the garden hose will reach over to the car when that project is started up again.  In addition, Penn Central boxcar # 153177 had been moved over to the track near the NKP kitchen car.  Presumably, this means that a restoration is to be soon undertaken including repainting the car back to Pennsylvania Railroad # 607627.       Steve Newland had worked earlier in the week on the stairway that leads up to the second floor door of Grasselli, and was doing some additional work on the stairs today.   Joe Kingsbury spent the morning cutting grass in the future roundhouse site space.   Bill Maloney of the Blackhawk Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society was a visitor at Hoosier Valley today.  It was good to see Bill and talk to him.  He had not been at the museum for a number of years and Fred took the opportunity to give Bill a tour of Grasselli.  Blackhawk has supported various projects at the museum in the past, including signal restoration and installation and the move of Grasselli Tower from East Chicago to North Judson.   Train crews were very busy today.  In addition to the forementioned switching, the four Mid-America passenger cars had to be sorted so that the Mohave and Keystone Grille could be separated from the other two Mid-America cars in prepartion for their scheduled assignment on the 4:00 p.m. dinner train run.  Train crew today included John DeGan, Andy Hershman, Doug Kosloske, Joe Kingsbury, Elmer Mannen, Bill Dauber and Randall Downs.  The regular 11:00 train headed for English Lake.   A very light rain started late in the morning so I packed up and put paint cans and brushes away for the day.  Loretta Kosloske arrived about this time to help Bob Barcus in the depot.   No lunch today, so members were on their own.  After lunch, the rain started in a bit harder, so Fred and I decided to join Bill Maloney in B&LE caboose # 1989 on the 1:30 p.m. train.  A nice ride, but the rain continued to increase, the wind picked up drastically and eventually the riders on the Katy open air flat car were forced to take cover in Long Island commuter coach # 2937.  Many of the riders got a good soaking.  Fortunately, the temp was still about 80 degrees, so the riders were not upset.  As we approached North Judson on the return trip, I noticed that the three headed ex-Erie searchlight signal just to the west of the tower displayed green over red over red.  This signal had long been displaying three reds, and Matt Lasayko, our signal guy, had been working on it last week to see if he could figure out what the problem was.  As EL 310 went by the signal today, the top green changed correctly to red and it was great to see that this signal is now working correctly.  Of course, Matt had just recently fixed the top semaphore blade on the ex-Erie TTO signal that is just to the east of Mulberry Street, and seeing that signal blade drop down to red as the 310 passed was also wonderful.     After arriving back at  the depot, I had the opportunity to talk to Cory Bennett for a few moments.  He and Mark Knebel had just gotten back from the tie work project and Cory reported that the rain had caught them as they were spiking the last 3 ties in and rather than leave, they worked in the downpour and finished the project.  He reported that 25 ties were put in today and 25 more yesterday (Friday) and an additional 8 ties were also put in north of State Route 8 in La Crosse.   Perhaps because of the inclement weather, there were no riders for the 2:45 English Lake train.  As the passengers began arriving for the dinner train, the weather started to clear up.  The crew pushed the caboose train cars back and dropped the Bessemer & Lake Erie caboose on the main near the Shop, then went east and placed the other cabooses and LIRR 2937 into the caboose track.  Then another trip back west to got ready to pull the Mohave and Keystone Grille out from in front of the shop.  There is apparently a freon leak in the air conditioning system on one of these two cars and Jason Annen, Andy Roeske and Steve got out the tank of freon and charged the system.  Finally the train crew was able to couple the two passenger cars and the caboose together and pull them up to the depot for loading.  Included in the dinner crew were Joe and Louise Kingsbury, Loretta K., Bill D., Jason A., Andy R., in addition to the folks that were catering the event.  Doug K. was the conductor, with Elmer M., John DeG. and Jason Jordan in the cab of the EL Alco.  Departure was at 4:07 p.m., only slightly off the advertised.   With that, I did some minor gardening work and then headed for home after a very active and sane day at HVRM!   Les

HVRM Saturday August 13, 2011

Greetings!   Arrived at the museum about 9:15 a.m. and was surprised to see 4 Mid-America passenger cars parked on the track on the north side of the Shop building.  I had heard reports that the Keystone Grill and Mohave were coming back, but didn't know about the coach and combine.  Interesting!    I signed in and then found Tom Travis already working on WCHX # 1114, the museums single dome tank car.  So I joined in as we attached missing lock washers and nuts to the bolts securing the wood running boards that circle the car.  Many of these bolts are located in hard to get to locations and a hot sun burning down on us, didn't help our efforts.  The weather report for the day called for storms to arrive in the afternoon, and we hoped for some clouds, but got nothing but bright blue skies all morning.   Bob Barcus and Pat DeGan manned a lighter-than-normal crew in the depot and gift shop.  Ticket sales for the day seemed to be doing okay for a hot summer day in August.   John DeGan and Fred Boyer switched between engineer and fireman in the cabo of EL Alco #310, Bob Albert was the conductor with Randall Downs, Bill Dauber and Chris Kosary rounded out the crew.  Elmer Mannen drew the job of driving out and flagging the various crossings when the train was pushing the consist outbound from the depot.   Steve Newland worked on putting additional primer on the railings of the Grasselli Tower staircase.  Steve had come down earlier in the week and started that part of the project.   Broke for lunch in the NKP kitchen car, which included barbequed ribs, sausage and noodles, various sandwiches, a watermelon/cantelope/grape fruit salad and a number of different deserts.   After lunch, Tom and I went back to the tank car to continue the last of the work on the bolts.  Then after finishing, we grabbed a paint can and brushes and started in on painting the crossing watchman's Mulberry Street shanty.  Again bright sun, and the small building only had two sides in the shade!  Bing Risley helped me shove the coal box away from the one side of the shanty so I could paint behind it.   In the meantime, the boys returned from putting ties in up near La Crosse.  Cory Bennett reported that 44 ties were tamped and 25 new ties installed.  He estimates that two more workdays should finish up the job.  Besides Cory, the tie crew consisted of Mark Knebel, John LaOrange, Dave Cook and I think Cory mentioned someone else, but I didn't catch who that other person was.   As Tom and I soldiered on in the sun (where are those clouds?), we got the usual comments about "it will start peeling next week" and "you missed a spot" and..., well, you get the idea.  The clouds finally arrived just after Tom left to take some scrap metal over to the scrap piles located behind the Shop building.  I walked down and put the can of light green paint back into the Shop then walked back to the shanty and grabbed the ladder and my paint brush and headed for the Erie building to clean up.  By the time I had finished, the sky was getting very ominous.  Signed out, and talked briefly with a couple of guys who had gotten permission to run their Milwaukee Road speeder over the museum trackage in North Judson.  I headed for home at 5:15 and wasn't more than two miles from the museum before the skies opened up!  Hope those guys in the motorcar didn't get too wet!      Have a good week everyone.  Schools are starting to go back, so be careful out there when driving.   Les

HVRM 8-6-2011 Saturday Report

Greetings to all from North Judson IN,
 
HOT & HUMID again, but good for corn and beans. Starting to smell like August also.
Coming down on IN39, the chickadas, little bugs that make one big noise, from the
Kankakee River to IN8, solid noise, thought it was my tires at first. Fall is around the
corner. Never seen the foliage so thick either, trees along the C&I need to trimmed
back, brushing against the train. Winter projects.
 
Track/tie gang, Cory, Mark, Matt, John and Dave made up the crew for Friday and
Saturday up near La Crosse. put in 50 ties Friday, 35 Saturday and tamped and spiked
all 85 on Saturday. To date 292 ties installed and tamped/spiked. The end is in
sight. This is very grueling work and will make old men out of these guys soon. Next
time you seen them, give them a handshake and tell them you wish you could be
there helping them, but football season is starting soon, watch out for a swing of the fist.
 
I rode the first train out to milepost 217 to clear brush and weeds away. The mile marker
is over further than normal, due to once a siding before English Lake bridge, so its now
is not as noticeable. It was quick work sawing down a couple of medium size trees and
throwing them into the ditch, weed wacking weeds down and the  train returned.
I have a couple of more trees to cut down, but can wait till cooler days. Reboarded
the Erie caboose and was just happy to sit down and enjoy the breeze.
 
After a Subway lunch, back to museum, got my car and drove down to tank car.
Report that nuts are gone from wood walk way, yes at least 5-6 nuts gone and
maybe a half dozen loose. Even the hand brake stand did not have nuts on
bolts. I believe this is a sabotoge act of some sort. Not that many nuts so close
to each other could all be loose and others as tight as could be tightened.
Strange, will put lock tight nuts on all bolts next week.
 
Les worked on Grasseli tower after being relieved by Loretta in the depot selling train
tickets. The car show did not pan out, so Loretta came back in the depot.
 
Don Baker worked on the electrical panel at kitchen car and rewiring the inside. Maybe
the light switch will now work properly, instead of tape over it to prevent being turned off.
Baileys has A/C units on sale right now and with heaters for winter, maybe we could
get some cool air in the kitchen car, hint to Dave and Margret Cook.
 
Steve and Fred were working on Grasseli tower.
 
I went to the shop and worked on the C&NW car truck, scrape wheels of oil and dirt
and dirt from the trucks.  I need to get a chipping hammer, as the dirt and oil chip right
off down to the steel, then a putty knife to smooth clean.
 
After the last train of the day, board meeting in the depot. One item to note, the NKP
wood tool car will be burned soon and steel scrapped. All interested persons in the
car did not pan out. I have some ideas what to do with the car. Fix the rotted wood
in the roof, reroof with rubber used on the open air cars. Take off the rotted wood
siding, replace with OSB board, cover with rubber covering, virtually sealing the car
to rain and snow. The frame is not rusted/rotted and all items under the floor is in
good shape. The car was originally a boxcar, so the ends were left on and doors put
in for access in and out. Replace the trucks, which by the way are very unusual in
construction, and replace with either the roller bearing trucks by the storage reefer
car shed, or kitchen/diesel car trucks brass journals. Return the car to a flat car, redeck
it, eventually putting the REA trailer on it for display only. Keep the original trucks
on the car. The car is still useable, could be used for signal car, freeing up the
NKP boxcar of valueable space. Whatever the outcome, it has its positive and negative
points.
 
Any responses should be directed to HVRM Board of Directors in a timely manner.
Time is short for this car. Contacts are avail at the HVRM web site.
 
Have a good week, school is starting soon, the big yellow busses will be back
on the road soon.
 
Tom