| Hello! Well, a day that got up into the 60's with ample sunshine but turning gray in the afternoon with temps dropping into the 50's. A bit more like Spring than our record breaking period of 70's and 80's over the last 2 weeks, but still well above average. Will the shoe still drop? A rather interesting day at Hoosier Valley with my fingers into a lot of different things. Went over to check out Joe Baker and Bob Jachim working next to the ex-ICRR cupola caboose. Turned out Joe was running an electrical line up into this yellow display car with intentions of powering both the caboose and the Pullman Troop Sleeper to which it is coupled. I ended up pushing the electric line from below up into the car while Joe tried to find out on what the line was hitting! Eventually we got the line up into the car and Joe said "thanks" and he "could take it from here!" I saw him later in the day and he advised me that both cars now had power. Good news! I walked over to the Shop where I found John LaOrange cutting wire rolls to size for use as rebar, with him and Dave Cook putting them into the forms where the concrete is to be poured this coming week for the new pads. Walked back to the West Shop Annex and found Joe Kingsbury and Fred Boyer working on EJ&E handicap accessible caboose # 184, trying to take apart one of the bad bus seats and using parts to make a new seat for the transfer cabooses interior. I pitched in and Fred soon complained that he could not find a phillips screwdriver anywhere in the Shop. Fortunately, I had one in my car and after a lot of effort, we were able to take the old bus seat apart. Then we tackled the good but seat, transfering the good parts so that we got one good interior seat. We had another good bus seat and decided to add it to the interior. But first, we broke for lunch! Margrett Cook provided the lunch with homemade chicken noodle soup, pizza, fresh salad, iced tea, coffee or pop with chocolate cake, blueberry muffins and banana muffins for desert. After lunch, we continued work on the EJ&E handicap caboose finally getting the second bus seat installed after much effort. By this time, the operating crew (Elmer Mannen, Doug Kosloske, John DeGan and others) had fired up the Alco, and used the S-1 to pull out GE #11. Brakes were checked on the Alco along with the newly installed horn. The new horn on the GE was tried using air from the Alco, but that did not work, so the GE was pushed back into the Shop and water put into the unit. Then it was pulled out again and eventually fired up successfully. Much dripping of water, but the horn worked! This was a time to kibitz a bit and I had a nice talk with Dan Siple as we kicked around some of the things that have happened at the museum over the last 20 years. Eventually, the museums signals lit up and I figured Matt Lasayko, our signal guy was around. I tracked him down and showed him a photo of a B&O "doll signal". Matt agreed that perhaps we needed to someday put those additions onto a couple of our signals. I then spent some time repairing some of the plastic covering the windows on the WP/D&RGW open window coach. It's been about a year since the plastic was installed to cover up some windows broken by some local kids, and it now finally showing some deterioration. After putting the ladder away, I walked over to the old ex-C&O building that Mark Knebel has been using for years as his office. There was a lot of water damage to this building over time and the structure has long needed a thorough rebuilding. Already jacked up, and floor removed, I spent the last hours of the day, trying to help Mark, Rich Warner, Dave Cook, Cory Bennett, John LaOrange and Steve Newland doing various items including removal of bad wood and then cutting some 2 x 6's to scab broken or damaged floor rafters. The job was far from finished by the end of the day, but progress had been made! Other folks were at the museum today doing various projects. Judy Boyer and Margrett did some work on the GTW transfer caboose preparatory to using it later this year to sell craft items. Mark Knebel drove out to Wade Tower in LaCrosse in the morning and took photos of the structure. Restoration is still needed. Bob Albert continued working on putting scrap into our dumpster. Loretta Kosloske continued work on the upcoming Easter train. Pat DeGan manned the Gift Shop. Steve Newland reported that he had put tarps over the levers in Graselli Tower so that when we start painting the interior, we will not "mess up" those cleaned levers. Others at the museum today included Bill Dauber, Randall Downs, Bing Risley and Tom Royce. There were other things going on besides what is listed here in this report, but I was not everywhere. Enjoy Spring! Les | 
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