| Greetings! Happy New Year everyone! Missed last Saturday at Hoosier Valley but the boys were busy. Work had gone forward on C&EI #A-1054, the ex-U.S. Army kitchen car. This is the car that is planned to be used as an extension to the NKP camp car that HVRM uses for its members lunchtime meals. A number of steel shelves and other metal items needed to be removed and last Saturday, these items were torched out. Around 2:00 on Sunday morning, Bing Risley's dog Corky, woke Bing up with loud barking. Bing's is the first house north of the museums Shop building and Bing looked out to see flames reflected off the metal sides of the Shop. He quickly called 9-1-1 and the North Judson fire department arrived to find the C&EI in flames! Heroic work by the NJFD saved the body of the car, but all of the wood interior walls and ceiling were completely destroyed. So much for the question about how much of the interior should be removed from the car for the upcoming work. With that background, I arrived at the museum today for a short work day. Saw a number of folks working on removing debris from the C&EI car. This included Dave Cook, Doug Kosloske, Cory Bennett, Steve Henrichs and John LaOrange. There may have been others, but I stayed out of their way. Instead, went inside the Shop where I found Fred Boyer, Mark Knebel, Bob Jachim and Bill Dauber working on the CIND, ex-IC, yellow display caboose. This is one of the display cars that is planned to be worked on over the winter. All of the previous displays that were in the car had been removed. The car previously had a fire (BEFORE it came to Hoosier Valley) that caused much damage, especially to the cupola area and the roof. Years ago, a restoration was undertaken before displays were moved in, but the car has recently developed a number of bad leaks, especially in the cupola, and the plan is to try to rebuild the cupola windows, and also the leaking body windows. I got up on the roof and started trying to remove the cupola windows on the long roof end of the car. Although these windows have developed leaks, the are very difficult to remove. Much hammering and crowbar work! I should feel this tomorrow! Meanwhile, other things were also ongoing at the museum. Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske continued work on the museum passenger schedules for 2013. There were also some visitors, including a family from Watseka, Illinois! Joe Kingsbury was working on the LIRR commuter coach, trying to find out the reason behind heating problems in the car. Steve Newland worked on cutting new shelves for the extension on the G gauge layout in the museums depot building. After lunch, I decided to go over and look at the C&EI car. Steve Henrich's asked me if I wanted to give him a hand with the one side center door of the car. The firemen had jammed it, trying to get it open, eventually getting in through the door on the other side of the car by taking it off of its track. Steve managed to get the bolts out of the door, we worked to get it unjammed and we then moved it back in the car, setting it up against the side. We then knocked out the boards that were behind the door, which were the last of the burnt wood. The car is now down to the bare metal on the inside and work can now commence on restoration. Finished up doing some more work on the yellow IC caboose and headed for home about 1:30. A short, but eventful day. Hope the week goes well for everyone. Les | 
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