Miserable Day with high points at HVRM 10-13-12

Greetings!   Well, temps were forecast today to approach 70 degrees with rain on and off.  Instead, we had rain prettty much all day with temps barely reaching 60 in the afternoon.  Only one train today; a fall foliage special at 1:30 p.m. going all the way to La Crosse.  Reserved ticket sales approached 100 but the bad weather kept walk-up sales to a minimum.  I worked as a car host on the Bessemer & Lake Erie caboose, so not sure of what else was going on at the musuem today.    One thing that was happening is that Steve Newland was working on the wood trim on the second floor of Grasselli Tower this morning.  But, Steve was pressed into service as a car host for the train, stopping that work for the day.   Other car hosts besides Steve and myself were Joe Kingsbury, Doug Kosloske, Mark Knebel and Randall Downs.  John DeGan and Fred Boyer shared the throttle while Bob Albert was conductor.  Speaking of the throttle, we also had a guest engineer this morning.   It was good to see Elmer Mannen at lunch.  Elmer recently had open heart surgery and says he is doing well.  Unfortunately, he also has a lung problem, so more surgey may be upcoming in the future.   A rider on the B&LE caboose asked me about HVRM member Dan Siple.  I told him I knew Dan and he then asked about Dan's big brother Bob who used to cook in that very Bessemer caboose when the guy was a member of Hoosier Valley years ago.  I told him that brother Bob had, unfortunately, passed away a while back but that I remembered those meals in the B&LE caboose too.  Turned out the rider was Andy Wilson who had moved to Texas way back in 1992, not too long after I joined the museum.  It was good to see Andy and his wife and two kids and talk about the way things were back then!  A lot has changed since those days.  And next year, the museum celebrates its 25th Anniversary at North Judson.     There was a Board meeting this morning and the plans are to move the two display cars (ex-IC caboose and Pullman Troop Sleeper) into the West Shop Annex this winter for restoration once the passenger train season ends.   C&EI maintenance-of-way car # A-1054 is going to be completely gutted and restored for use next to NKP kitchen car #X58538.  That project also will be done this winter.   Arrival of the train back at North Judson was on-time at 3:30 p.m.  The rain stopped shortly thereafter.   Have a good week folks!     Les