Lazy days of summer not quite over at HVRM 9-24-11

Folks -   Well, the calendar told us the Autumn started this week.  But despite a forecast of rain and possible storms and maybe even hail, we got a sunny day in the mid-60's at HVRM today!   Tom Travis brought down a wood stove and managed to talk a few of "the boys" into giving him a hand unloading it.  Tom says its now in the center aisle of the original Shop building.   I got to Hoosier Valley at 9:00 a.m., too late to help Tom unload the stove.  What could be interpreted as smart planning on my part was really just a case of being too lazy this morning to get an early start.  So upon arrival in North Judson, I unloaded some items for the NKP kitchen car.   It was good to see Bob Jachim up and around and cutting down weeds in one of the flower beds.  Bob had some minor surgery the week before last.   Plans to start on the Main Street road crossing rebuild, were apparently put on hold for the weekend.  A number of folks planning on working on the project, were not at the museum this day.  I had ideas to take a motor car out to Wade Tower and do some cleaning up around the structure, but again the C&I had covered hopper car parked on the main line between the La Crosse wye and Wade, so no way to get there.  Speaking of covered hoppers, the C&I had about 20 of them parked just east of Main Street on their old Cheapeake & Ohio line, apparently stored awaiting the fall harvest to come in to the elevators.  Some of the local farmers have just started harvesting corn.   Tom and I finally hooked up and since I had some plumbing items to unload at the old Erie Railroad storage building, Tom took the bull by the horns and started some cleaning up including emptying the overflowing garbage can.  We managed to make a good spot for the new plumbing arrival, and made the old items a heck of a lot neater!  Elmer Mannen had Metra (ex-ICRR) Highliner # 1502 open and we joined him to see what he was doing.  There is some desire to turn at least a portion of this car into extra seating for the kitchen car.  We left Elmer to his calculations and  then headed down to the old NKP wooden double sheathed tool car # X50110.  We managed to get into the car and look it over.  This car needs a lot of work, and there is a big question as to whether a restoration will ever be attempted.  I pointed out to Tom that, earlier in the year during a very heavy rainfall, the car remained dry except for a couple of holes in the side of the roof where the old tarp donated by Tom McKee and put on for protection, had finally just rotted away.  After we were done, it was time for coffee and doughnuts!   The 11:00 train departed on time, with some riders.  The recertification of engineers continued for those who could not be at the museum last Saturday.  The train was made up of B&LE caboose 1989, EJ&E handicap car (transfer caboose) 184, the MKT open flat car 13833, LIRR coach 2937 and EL bay window caboose C345, with EL Alco 310 pushing out and then pulling back to the museum.   Pat DeGan manned the gift shop in the depot with Loretta Kosloske selling tickets.  Loretta also was guest engineer, running the 310 after the 11:00 train returned.    At lunch, I put up the new flag on our pole since it now appeared that the rain forecast for the day, wasn't going to materialize.  Then after lunch, Tom decided that we should ride EJ&E # 184 on the 1:30 p.m. train and he pulled out two chairs (a directors chair for him and a folding chair for me) and we sat on the platform and enjoyed the beautiful early fall day.  A very nice ride.  The only other passengers rode in the Bessemer caboose.  Tom pointed out the brush that he had cut around milepost marker 217 on a recent Saturday.  A nice job.  Tom said that after our arrival back at the museum, he was going to call it a day since his shoulder was bothering him.  l felt I should try to do something at least, and as we pulled past the Shop, I noticed that the red indicator board on the turnout had faded to an almost brown color.  Here is something I could do with the rest of this lazy day.  So, after deboarding I eventually wandered back to the Erie building and found a can of bright red paint, a brush and a paint stick.  Packed it all up and drove over to the Shop, walking to the west side of the Shop where the switch was located.  Waited for the 2:45 train to La Crosse to run through the switch before I started on the red portion of the target.  Apparently the train load was very light, because instead of taking all of the cars mentioned previously, the train was made up of only 310 and the B&LE caboose.  After they headed west, I opened the can, stirred the paint and with a bit of dilligent work, the two sides of the banner were soon finished.  Looked good!   Had to go around to the front of the Shop and decided to check those turnouts out there.  One looked okay.  Another didn't.  More paint!  Continued walking east, paint can and brush in hand.  Some indicators are green and yellow.  No paint for these.  Another turnout east of Mulberry Street.  Done!  Continued east, passing the Erie building and found a high switchstand throw necessitating walking back to the Erie building for scrapper, wire brush and most importantly, a ladder.  As I worked on this one, Bing Risley came up and we talked a bit.  Bing said  that he had just come back from giving Mark Knebel and John LaOrange a hand with track work out past State Route 10.  Finished that switchstand and continued walking east.  Bing asked about the ladder and I replied that the next switch throw was low and I would put the ladder back upon my return.  The next indicator soon bore a new coat of red.  There were a few more down on the east end near Main Street.  Red indicators?  The first two proved yellow and green, but what about the very last one?  The one that had recently had new switch ties put in and which is the very first turnout that the museum installed after the move to North Judson in the late 1980's?  As I walked over to the side, it looked green and yellow!  But no, not yellow, just a VERY faded red.  This turnout has a very high target; one I would need the ladder for.  A long walk back to the switch I had left the ladder by, and then an  even longer walk back to the Erie building after I was finished.  And that is a wood ladder that is very heavy.  I would also be at the east end of the museum with my car back at the west end at the Shop.  Decided since I would have to eventually walk back to the Shop anyway, I might as well do it now and then come back with the car, picking up the ladder on the way.  When I finally got back to the east end switch, with car and ladder, there was some scrapping and wire brushing before all four sections of the indicator was painted.  Steve Newland gave me a wave from his pickup as I worked.  By this time, I heard the 310 blowing for the crossings as it made its way back toward the depot.   Finished up.  Much better!  There were some of these targets that would need green paint too, but that was going to be for another day!    As I put the ladder back at the Erie building, I saw Mark and asked him how they had done on track work.  He said that the managed to get all of the ties that were put in last week, spiked down.  I don't believe that they had the compressor running, so these were probably put in the old-fashioned way; just driving them home!   Managed to get everything packed away and signed out at 5:00.  A lazy day had turned out quite well after all.   Have a good week everyone.  Enjoy the autumn weather.   Les

That old snake-in-the-grass at HVRM 9/17/11

Greetings!   After 3 days where the temps did not get up to 60 degrees, old Mother Nature told us today that summer ain't quite over yet as we had a beautiful sunny day with temps in the low 70's!  Hurrah!   Started out the day at 8:00 a.m. by attending the general membership bi-monthly business meeting.  A number of things discussed including the FRA inspection of GE # 11; Mid-America Railcar's proposal to bring passenger equipment to HVRM; the lease of Mike Koehler's Long Island commuter coach # 2937; the monetary results of NKP 2-8-4 # 765's visit earlier this year; tie replacement; the Erie Monterey depot, NKP RPO # 356 and various other items.  Too much to recap here.  I direct your attention to Mark Knebel's Secretary page in the upcoming museum newsletter for further info.   After the meeting, I had hoped to go out to Wade Tower and do some general cleanup, hopefully using a motorcar to make the trip.  Unfortunately. I was told that the C&I had four covered hoppers parked east of Wade which would prevent getting the putt-putt out there.  There doesn't seem to be any way to drive to the location.  Elmer Mannen did tell me that they had run out to the tower last week on the trip to La Crosse and decided that they could unload the folks from the Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society who will be visiting Hoosier Valley and riding the train out to Wade at the beginning of October.   Tom Travis and I looked over Penn Central boxcar #153177, which Mark and Joe Baker had worked on during this last week as we prepare to eventually reletter it as Pennsylvania Railroad # 607627.  The car had one side almost completely primed with only the narrow ladder area to the roof not finished.  Tom decided to do some grinding to remove rust and flaking paint on the other side of the car, but was not able to get the manlift to start.  So he decided to go down and work on tie replacement on the east end of the museum, but put up our new flag before he left.  It is good to see the flag flying over the depot and museum.   Meanwhile, I searched for Steve Newland who told me the "secret" to starting the manlift and I was able to finally get it going.  Decided that since it was now running, I would remove the light rust and paint the remaining portion of that one side of the car, which I spent the morning doing.     Meanwhile, the passenger train schedule began with the museums engineers undergoing recertification during the operations.  Not sure of the passenger count for the day, but all three runs had a fair amount of people.  Randall Downs, Bill Dauber and Joe Kinsbury, were carhosts today.  John DeGan, Elmer, Doug Kosloske, Jason Annen and Fred Boyer were in the cab and some of the guys also acted as conductors.  I may have missed some of these guys.     I broke for lunch, in the NKP kitchen car.  Many goodies although I confined myself to soup and the smoked sausage/cabbage combo.  Good!   Margett Cook and Pat DeGan worked in the depot gift shop today while Loretta Kosloske sold tickets.   After lunch, I decided to head out to check on the tie replacement gang who started again replacing ties between SR 10 and CR 250W, near the old highway rest stop.  This is now the parking area for the Erie Monterey Trail.  Tom said he was glad I showed up as he was getting tired and decided to head back to work on the PC boxcar now that the manlift was going.  I took over for him, pushing the little railroad hand cart as Cory Bennett on the backhoe, Dave Cook and Mark, put in new ties under rail joints, replacing those that the Erie had put in years ago, all of which were in pretty horrible shape.  Mark pointed out to me a little brown and white banded snake that had slithered out from under one of the ties they were working on and which made its way into the crack of another tie a little further up the line.  Is that one of the poisonous ones that make Indiana their home?  Probably not, but I made sure I kept my eye on the little critter the whole time we were in the vicinity of that particular tie!   Mark pointed out an Erie tie that had a date nail of 57 (for 1957) and another one for 39.  I was able to dig out the 57 nail and gave it to Mark, but we left the other one in the tie, which was still in pretty remarkable condition for being put in by the Erie in 1939.  As Cory said, they must have made a good batch of creosote that year!  The quality of the wood, might have had something to do with it too.   Cory, Mark and Dave eventually ran out of replacement ties, and we then went back and put tie plates under as many of the replacements as we could.  Still have to spike them, but that is for another day!   After we picked up the tools and the hand cart and put it in Mark's pickup, I headed back to the museum where I found that Tom had cleaned a nice patch of the PC (PRR) boxcar.  We were both pretty tired by this time, so took a little break for water and cookies in the kitchen car.  Finally, we realized we had to get some paint on the cleaned area otherwise it would rust with the rain due to hit the area Sunday night.   Managed to get that done.  About this time, the train from La Crosse was heard coming in so we called it a day.    I'm pretty tired right now.  Lots of physical activity today.  Will be plenty sore tomorrow!   Hope everyone has a great week.  Enjoy what's left of summer!   Les

Foreign Visitors from "eh land" at HVRM 10 Sept 2011

Greetings to all foreign and domestic readers,
 
Wonderful day at HVRM, sun was somewhat hot, but clouds cooled it down quickly. HVRM had
two special visitors for Canada today, Ross and Gee Robinson stopped by for a quick visit and
dinner at the Wooden Nickel. Returning from a quick visit to Tipton IA, on way back to Ottawa
ONT, Ross stopped to exchange latest and greatest news from the Ottawa area. A very crowded
Nickel, due to a memorial motorcycle run, it was busy and smokey. Maureen and Brianne joined
us for dinner. All of us left full and feeling good after a wonderful meal.
 
I arrived somewhat late in the morning to the east end switch, where the "tie crew" was busy
at work. Cory, Mark, Dave, Seth, Doug were all trying to replace 4 ties and get the switch
points tight against the rail. After a lot of effort, time for a break down at the train loading
area for hot dogs and drinks. A quick trip down to the west side of town at Osinki's auction
to see what was for sale, Cory had his eye on a small disc, but bids did not meet the price
required for a sale, so back to work. After doing some more shimming with flat washers,
a working medium was acchieved throwing the points to a tight position. Then putting spikes
in the 4 ties installed earlier and getting the guage correct. Finally driving in the spikes, was a
slow process. Next week it shoud be easier to install an spike ties without so much extra work.
Seth reported only 57 ties in the main line need replacing, should be a piece of cake to do.
Come on out and help out, needed spike pullers, tie plate placers and handing out spikes.
 
After the train departure at 2:45pm, the GE locomotive was brought out for some final
adjustments prior to the FRA coming out and inspecting it on Friday next week. All looks
good.
 
The MDT reefer and short NKP open air car are now locacted on track 3 at the east end
shop, to get in with the manlift to do some TSP'ing on the MDT car. Cooler weather will
make it easier to work in. C&NW boxcar is on track 1 inside the east shop being worked
on. NKP bay window caboose is still in the west shop for repainting. PC boxcar is
located across from the kitchen car, ready for grinding and priming. DT&I #122 will be
coming to  HVRM in the near future from Mishawaka IN Wendt Cranes.
 
Train riders today was at moderate level.
 
Sept 17th, next saturday morning at 8am in the depot, is the general membership meeting.
Come on out, download for the NKP 765 event, proposal discussion for the Mid America Car
request, and other important items. Get there early, seating is limited.. Like to paint, plenty
of things to paint, grinding, tie replacing, mowing grass, cleaning out the Erie shed, cleaning
bathroom in shop area, picking up trash around the grounds. Lots of jobs to work at,
some easy, some more effort required.
 
Until next week, be careful driving, getting dark earlier. May all your signals be green....
 
Tom