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
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