Man with beard again at HVRM 12-8-12

Greetings!   Santa put in his appearance at Hoosier Valley again today.  Losing his reindeer and sleigh, he hitched a ride on the 11:00 train to English Lake asking riders to "keep an eye out for my reindeer".  The kids spotted them and if the train hadn't been going so fast (?), he could have hopped off and rounded them up.  He tried again on the 1:30 train and more reindeer were seen.  Again, the breakneck speed of the train prevented Santa from taking off after them.  Since he was on  the trains anyway, he was able to visit with each child and pass out some goody bags.  Cookies and hot cocoa were available for one and all back at the depot.   Yours truly had Santa transportation duties today.  Most of the members were tied up with operating the two trains.   But Steve Henrichs managed to get some painting done on the inside roof of Grasselli Tower's second floor.  Steve Newland was also working on Grasselli.   Bing Risley found time to get the stone around the Hibbard building, future motor car shed smoothed out using his little Bobcat.  John LaOrange and Fred Boyer were in the cab of 310 with Doug Kosloske as conductor.  Joe Kingsbury and Bill Dauber collected tickets on the train.  Mark Knebel and Bob Jachim red flagged the various grade crossings.   Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske manned a very busy depot.  Other ladies helping out included Judy Boyer, Margrett Cook, Louise Kingsbury and Dianne Bennett.  Not sure who choreographed the deer scared up for each of the trains today, but I can only say "well done"!   Earlier in the week, when we had temps in the 60's and 70's (unlike the low-40's of today), I managed to get to HVRM on Tuesday and get about a third of the north side roof of passenger car 899 painted black.   Bob Jachim was working that day on the new wood porch for the Secretary's office which had been resided earlier this fall.  Saw today that Bob had managed to get the porch mostly finished except for spindles needed on the railings.   Loretta advised we had a total of 220 riders on both trains today using only Long Island coach 2937 on the train behind EL Alco 310.  Number 2937 was warm and toasty!   One more day of Santa trains next weekend.  Then we are done with train rider operations until next Spring.   Hope everyone has an enjoyable week.   Les