Short day, short report HVRM 2-4-12

Greetings -   Arrived at Hoosier Valley today at 10 o'clock.  Gray day after some snow last night, but temps in 40's as our "mild" winter continues.   Signed in on the attendance sheet in the NKP kitchen car where I found the wall between the kitchen and eating areas removed by Bob Jachim and Joe Baker.  Looks different!   Started out in the depot, putting a single section of Lionel track with roadbed on the shelf behind the gift shop counter.  This shelf has two O scale donated Troop cars and I wanted to see if the O scale non-powered Indiana Harbor Belt 0-8-0 sitting in the back of a display case in the depot waiting room, would look good with those two cars.  Had a heck of a time raising the top of the display case, but finally managed to do it.  Put the 0-8-0 on the new section of track and I think that the combination looks terrific.  Those of you who see this new display, please let me know what you think.  I can always return the steamer to the display case.   About this time, I was asked by Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske if I could stick around the gift shop while they made a visit to the library in La Crosse to check the activities room there to see if it could be used as a backup to a proposed Picnic train to possibly be run during the upcoming passenger train season at HVRM.   Doug Kosloske stopped by the depot and told me that they had sent the valves for EL Alco #310 to Pittsburgh Air Brake for normal inspection and maintenance.   Bob and Loretta returned and I eventually went over to the kitchen car for a cup of java.  Upon return to the depot, I was delighted to see Harold Lambirth there with his family.  Harold was instrumental in securing our crane from Purdue University in 1992, shortly after it had been retired.  Harold started his career on the coal crew at Purdue about 1945, the same year that Orton built the crane for the university.   Had some other visitors today with some modest gift shop sales.  Also had one visitor join the museum.  Bob reports good internet sales of museum items.   Because of the time in the depot, I never did make it over to the Shop building so not sure what was going on there.  I did however, go over to the Milk Station where I found Bob Albert, Bruce Fingerhut, Fred Boyer, Steve Newland, John LaOrange and Ryan Kertis continuing with their efforts to clean out the building.  I spent time giving them a hand in loading the dumpster with junk and throwing burnable items onto the fire they had going.  Ryan reported that the roof of the structure continues to sink and it won't be long before it totally collapses.   I left the boys to their work, and headed for home at about 3:15.   Les