| Greetings! Started out this morning at 61 degrees and moved up to 74 mid-afternoon. A very nice, warm, spring day in North Judson! Tom Travis had reported last week that 50 tank cars had been delivered or were on the way for storage at the museum. But no sign of them today! Turns out the 50 cars were pulled back out of storage after just 7 days. A short time, but HVRM still welcomes the income. After signing in at 9:00 a.m., I remarked to Margrett Cook in the NKP kitchen car, that the plastic should be taken off the windows to allow a breeze to enter the car. I then noticed that the end door was open, but still covered with the plastic I put on last fall. So went over to the Erie building for a ladder and dug out a crowbar and large screwdriver and tackled the removal. Finally managed to get the wood strips and nails off. Surprising that it held up all winter considering that it was yours truly that put it up. Steve Henrichs came over for a cup of Joe, and Steve explained his plan to move the "Octopus" furnace in the first floor of Grasselli Tower over to one side so that future visitors have access to the back 2/3rds of the building. I told Steve I'd come over later and see what his idea was all about. After the coffee break, I walked back behind the Shop to take a look at TTX flat car # 475037. The car is currently acting as the boom car to our Purdue crane, but the future plan was to repaint this car into its original Pennsy paint scheme and put our REA trailer up on it as an example of early piggyback service. I have had some second thoughts on this lately, and I wanted to check the car out. Then walked back to Grasselli and Steve Henrichs was painting a couple of electrical boxes on the second floor. This whole area is really looking good in its tan paint trimmed in dark brown. We then went downstairs and he explained his plan for the old furnace. I told him I liked the idea. Tom Travis came over and we talked about Tom's plan to have a special ham radio event up in the second floor of Grasselli during the Mint Fest. Steve said that by then, he should have all the walls repainted and the floor too! Ed Keeler and Bjarne Henderson continued with their work on the Pullman Troop Sleeper. There were 3 guest engineers for the day. Crew included Andy Hershmann, Bob Albert and Fred Boyer. Train made up of EL Alco # 310, NKP bay window caboose # 471 and B&LE cupola caboose # 1989. Steve Newland worked on the windows in the tower. The tree that had fallen last week, had taken down some wires on the old C&O telephone/telegraph poles, and a crew worked all morning, cutting up wire into short segments for scrap and disposal. I worked on the watchman's crossing shanty roof, nailing the flashing back in place, including a piece that had come completely loose. Homemade bratwurst for lunch, bean soup, salad, various other goodies with pie and ice cream for desert. In the afternoon, I cleared one of the flower areas around one of our wood power poles on dried weeds. These areas are made of old wood ties with the idea that they prevent visitors who park in the area from running into the poles, which was a rather common occurence before the flower areas were put in some years ago. Unfortunately, these areas are not usually taken care of, and thus can get "scraggly" during the summer, which is what happened to this particular one. I put the old dried weed debris into a nice pile and set the pile on fire as I stood by with a shovel for control as it burned itself out. Just then the North Judson police car drove up and we started talking about the tree that had fallen last week. When I turned around a minute later, the flower area itself was burning! So much for control! I monitored it closely while all of the remaining dried weeds burned and then I went and got some buckets of water to make sure that the wood pole itself, did not catch fire. The "wire crew" moved over to the old Erie wye area in the afternoon, and started removing debris there. These guys worked hard at this all day. Crew at times included Mark Knebel, Bob Jachim, Dave Cook, John LaOrange, Bing Risley, Cory Bennett and Tom Travis. Had a number of visitors during the day, besides the guest engineer family and friends. Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske were busy in the gift shop all day. Headed for home at 4:00 p.m. Enjoy the Spring weather everyone! Les | 
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