Busy pumpkin day at HVRM 10-20-2012

Greetings -   Rain ended last night and we had a cool day (about 60 degrees) with sun on and off all day at Hoosier Valley.   I showed up a little after 9:00 a.m.  Swept out the station a bit while Loretta Kosloske went after it with the depot vacuum cleaner.  Three "straw people" were put out on the depot bench seats and I decided to transfer them to folding chairs to clear space for passengers on the benches while they waited for the pumpkin trains to leave.  These "straw folks" lend a certain "harvest time" atmosphere to the station platform, but shouldn't use up space that riders can use.   I then wrote the train schedules on the depot information board.   Walked across Mulberry Street to Grasselli Tower where I found Steve Newland cleaning up some of the "junk" boards from the inside of the second floor while Steve Henrichs was priming the walls.  Mr. Henrichs says he is probably done with scrapping and painting under the eaves due to the cooler weather.  I've included a couple of photos of the tower that I took last week.  One shows Steve Newland putting up a support 2 x 4 while the other shows four of the new windows that he built and installed.   First train was at 11:00 a.m. and had over 150 riders.  The Long Island coach, Katy open car and the three cabooses (B&LE # 1989, EL # C345 and NKP # 471, all had their full share of passengers.  I collected tickets in EL C345 on this run, and the two subsequent trips.  There were about 180 riders on the 1:30 run and just over 100 for the final run.  All the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch out at State Route 10/39, were sold.   Lots of folks helped out today.  In the cab of EL S-1 Alco # 310 were John LaOrange and Fred Boyer while Doug Kosloske was the "skipper" all day.  A number of folks besides myself collected tickets.  Others helped put out pumpkins in the "patch", or acted as crossing guards or directed traffic or did various other jobs.  Thanks to all!      The gift shop in the depot seemed very busy and the display cars had a lot of visitors.   Didn't leave the museum until nearly 6:00 p.m.  A busy day for sure!   Have a wonderful week everyone.   Les