| Greetings! Another report by a member of the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum of some of the days activities at the museum. Typed up for absent members and other interested folks. As always, if not interested in future reports, a simple note to the writer will spare you future notes. Got to the museum shortly after 9:00 a.m. Temp started out in the upper 30's and moved into the mid-40's in the afternoon. After the Halloween train of last Saturday, our last scheduled runs for the season except for Santa trains on two Saturdays in December, guest engineers were at the throttle of Erie Lackawanna # 310 today. Five different folks forked over their money for the privilege of having a bit of time running the old S-1 Alco. One additional guest engineer is scheduled for next week. Steve Henrichs was busy again scrapping loose paint off of the walls and ceiling of the second floor of Grasselli Tower. Steve said he needed some of the old cast iron radiators moved around so that he could get his ladder into certain places. These radiators carried steam heat from the old first floor boiler when the tower was built in the early 1900's. Although the radiators will not be used in the future, they will be put back on the walls so that the towers appearance will be the same as when it was built. I told Steve I would give him a hand with the radiators later when more helped showed up. They are heavy! Steve said he was ready to go for a cup of coffee, so we walked over to grab a cup in the kitchen car. Margrett Cook had finished putting heavy plastic film over the windows on the inside of NKP camp car # X58538, which the museum uses as its members-only kitchen and eating car. Margett said she had a heavy piece of plastic to go over the end door of the car, but needed someone to put it up on the outside of the door. I volunteered. Needed to scrounge some lumber from the Shop and cut it to length. Then spent about two hours getting everything nailed into place. Hope it holds up for the winter. When in the shop, I noticed that the recently donated motor car trailer EJ&W # G1 had been moved onto the end of the track in the West annex of the shop. Good to see it sitting on rails again. Joe Kingsbury pointed out the spots where he repairied the roof of the museums motor car # 591. Joe has done a great job and that car is really looking good. Todd Flanigan was working on Interlake Steel # 11, finally getting the GE fired up and running. Kyle Flanigan had one of his classmates from high school at the museum showing him around. Kyle didn't realize until recently, that his friend also had an interest in trains. We keep one of our baggage wagons on the depot platform as a display during the summer and Bing Risley brought his little Bobcat over and picked it up and moved it into the storage shed to get it out of the coming cold weather. Dave Cook recently returned from a Canadian fishing trips and he and Margrett prepared a fish dinner for the members for lunch. Diane Bennett also brought a caserole in for lunch. Whenever someone signs up for the guest engineer program, they usually bring friends and family along. Today was no exception, and I showed some of these folks around the museum displays. The Troop Sleeper with its rows of triple bunks and the N gauge layout of North Judson proved popular subjects. Some of these visitors also toured Grasselli where Steve Henrichs, Steve Newland and Joe Baker acted as hosts. Our gandy dancer crew of Cory Bennett, Mark Knebel, Rich Warner and Dave Cook worked on the switch that leads into the caboose track. There is a minor problem with the points and they were working on it to try to find the problem. I went over to help with moving the radiators in the tower, only to find out that the two Steves and Joe Baker had already done it. Good timing on my part I must say! Hope everyone has a great week. Les | 
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