Weather holding and tasks performed at HVRM 11-17-12

Greetings!   Another fair weather day at North Judson yesterday.  Sun all day with temps in the low 50's.    Operations crew of Doug Kosloske, Fred Boyer and John DeGan spent the morning switching out the equipment on the caboose track.  Plan was to jack up cars and grease king pins.  Some of the equipment already had this done but others did not, thus the switching operation.  Cars were set down by the shop and then EL Alco 310 had its system drained of the water that was put in earlier in the day.  This is one of the problems of operating at this time of the year.  The diesels have to be drained to prevent freezing, but then must have water put into the system if the units are needed for use.   Steve Henrichs had the generator going outside of Grasselli Tower providing power for a portable heater in the second floor to take the chill out of that work space.  He and Steve Newland continue scraping and painting up there.   Because of the decent weather, I was able to get the wood door on the one end of coach 899 painted.  This is the door that I primed last Saturday.   Meanwhile, the gandy dancers went out and worked on the interchange switch on the old Erie Railroad mainline.  Mark Knebel told me later in the day that he and Cory Bennett had put 17 new switch ties under this turnout on Friday and today he, Cory, Dave Cook and John LaOrange tamped and spiked those ties in place.  One switch done!   Rich Warner brought in various goodies that his wife had made and also his famous Chili for lunch.   The bi-monthly membership meeting was held after lunch.  Details in the upcoming museum newsletter.   After lunch, Fred went down and worked on removing more stuff from the interior of C&EI A-1054, the old U.S. Army kitchen car.  He then went over and helped the gang doing the kingpin greasing.  This is not an easy job, to say the least!  An overhead crane in the Shop would make this job a lot easier than the jacking up one end of each car, but you do what you have to do to get necessary jobs done!   Joe Baker and Bob Jachim worked on removing the electrical connection for the ex-IC yellow caboose and the Pullman Troop Sleeper which will be moved into the Shop next week so that needed interior repairs can be made to the two cars.  Jon Oram brought down some tarps to be used to protect the N gauge display layout in the Troop Sleeper once these repairs are started.   I spent the afternoon trying to remove the painters tape from the edge of the many windows that I replaced on coach 899 during this year.  This tape was "baked" on and fun to remove.  After I finished, I managed to get the Manlift back over to the West Shop Annex and put away.  Always an exciting proposition!   Have a good week folks!  And a great Thanksgiving!     Les   This is a report on the Saturday "goings-on" at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum for those members not in attendance and for those who might have an interest.  Always willing to take your name off of the e-mail list by simply contacting me to do so.