Gray all day at HVRM 5-25-13

Greetings -   Arrived a bit late today as my daughter and family were visiting from Wisconsin.  Temps in the 60's all day and no sun at all.  Still, a good day.   Tom Travis and I had been at the museum on Friday, May 24th, finishing the painting of the north roof on passenger coach # 899 which had been interupted by cold weather back in December of last year.   Mark Knebel, Tom Tittle and Bing Risley were also on hand with Mark and Bing doing some trackwork prep.  In the afternoon, a Chesapeake & Indiana freight train showed up with a number of rotary gondolas which the museum is going to store for the owner.  Not sure how many arrived; perhaps about 20.  The CKIN stuck them over on the interchange track.    Tom arrived earlier today and was already working on C&EI # A-1054.  This is the car that had a fire a while back leaving the car sides with blistered paint and a number of spots with heavy rust.  Tom had his grinder out and was hard at work with the wire wheel.  When he went to lunch, I took over the grinding.  Decided to get out the big ladder from the Shop and start in on rust areas near the top of the car.  When Tom returned, we decided that we needed to get the cleaned areas painted in primer otherwise any moisture would quickly bring the rust back.  So I went looking for Mark Knebel and he gave me some primer paint.  I told him we could get more done if we had another grinder and he got out the museums Makita for me to use.    Tom said that when he arrived this morning, the museums operating crew was pushing the storage rotary gons down to the end of the museums former Erie trackage.  They then made up the museum train for the day.  Crew consisted of John LaOrange as engineer, Fred Boyer as conductor and Steve Henrichs as student conductor.  Tom McKee also sat in as fireman on the passenger runs.   Other activities today included Joe Baker wire wheeling the radiators in the second floor of Grasselli Tower.  Some have been painted.   Crew working on the Pullman Troop Sleeper included Eagle Scout Lars Henderson assisted by Bjarne Henderson, Ed Wood and Mark Banfy.  They were sanding down the previously painted car sides to smooth out nicks and brush marks.  More Scouts were due to come down on Sunday to help out.   Joe Kingsbury was cutting grass all day.   In the afternoon, a track crew worked on putting in ties on the display track.  Looks like about 20-25 were put in place.   Not sure of the train count, but it looked pretty good.  We also had a Guest Engineer today.    Enjoy your holiday weekend everyone.  This Memorial Day, let's not forget all of those who made the supreme sacrifice in service of their country and remember all of those who have served through our long history to help protect our Freedom.     Les

Spring Arrives HVRM 5-18-2013

Greetings to all,
 
Nice weather yesterday in North Judson. Warmed up into the upper 70's.
Mosquito's abounded everywhere. Bring bug spray when you ride the
train.
 
Membership meeting started at 8am with Doug (VP) chairing the meeting.
Most note worthy item was concerning the possible acquisition on PRR 477768
caboose. Membership voted to counter the offer to 2000 dollars to NRHS. Caboose
is complete, would be a premium ride for special events. Will wait to see what
the results are later. Noted was the special train ride from school kids from Warsaw
IN, very well behaved, asking questions and just enjoying a school outing.
 
After meeting the Sons of American Legion were setting up for food. A full list
of items were offered, french fries, chili or cheese were great. They will be
the food vendor for most of the summer.
 
Tourist train was switched, taking the NKP, Erie cabooses, and NKP open air car off the train, putting it on the passing track. Keeps wear an tear of equipment down.
Richard had to recharge the A/C system on the LIRR car. Put stop leak in system
to hopefully seal the leaks. Car was comfortable for all 3 runs, no problems.
 
Loretta headed down to Kerstings Museum for motobike rally to sell tickets for
train ride in the morning. Les was left selling tickets during this time. Bob B was
also in the gift shop. Margret and Judy manned the kitchen car/gift car shop.
 
Steve an opened up Grasseli tower for painting. I went upstairs to see how painting
is progressing an noticed Rocky Racoon fecal matter on the floor. Checking out the
big hole in the floor, I heard strange noises in the wall, well a nest of little racoons
was found. They were quiet for most of the day, after I tapped on the wall. Plenty
of entrances for mother to come in after everyone clears out. Hope they are gone
in a couple of weeks.
 
Some shop work was done on the Troop car by Bjarne. No work done on the
yellow caboose.
 
Three tourist runs resulted in 78 people riding. Doug was conductor, John DeGan
brakeman, Fred engineer. Randall provided open air car presentaton. Bill Dauber
car hosted the passenger car.
 
Doug conducted conductor classes after the meeting.
 
Joe Baker has 4 tickets avail for the INDY 500 for free if anyone is interested.
I don't know his phone number, but sure that Bob or Loretta may have it.
 
Everyone have a good week
 
Tom

Off the beaten track at HVRM 5/11/2013

Greetings!   Arrived in time for the Board of Directors meeting at 8:00 a.m.   Gave an update on the Pennsy cabin car.  Also got permission to repaint the 50' Pennsy flat car as a TTX car.  Mark Knebel reported that more storage freight cars were on the way.  Bob Barcus stated the there was no news on the diesel donation.  There was an Executive Board meeting planned after the Directors meeting.    Steve Henrichs was continuing with the painting of the roof of Grasselli Tower's second floor.  He has a strip over the levers that remains undone and he told me that he had found some scaffolding in the Shop and asked if I could give him a hand in setting it up later in the day.  He had to take a break and go to Knox for his train crew physical.   Doug Kosloske conducted a training class for prospective Conductors.  I believe that there were 5 or 6 in attendance.   The train crew switched cars around and eventually made up the train for the passenger runs.  Locomotive was GE # 11, LIRR coach # 2937, MKT open flat car # 13833, EJ&E transfer caboose # 184 and B&LE cupola caboose # 1989.  John DeGan was engineer, Bob Albert conductor, Randall Downs, Bill Dauber and Joe Kingsbury were car hosts.  Both the 11:00 and 1:30 runs to English Lake, appeared to have decent passenger loads with Mom's getting half price off of their tickets and a carnation too boot!   Bob Barcus manned the gift shop and Loretta Kosloske handled ticket sales.  I asked Loretta about a pot of new growth sitting on the depots "back porch" and she told me that she thinks it was a pot of black-eyed susan flowers last year but is not sure if the new growth is the same, or if it is just weeds.  She asked me to plant it in one of our plant beds and we will see what develops.  I did that, and cut back the old dried growth from last year.   I looked over NKP camp car # X58538, which we have been using for years as our kitchen/eating car.  Mark advised me in an e-mail last week, that he had given the car a new coat of light gray paint as it had started looking rather "ratty" recently.  I had painted the reporting marks and car number after Mark had painted it the last time, and I guess I will eventually do it again, sometime later this year.     Diane Bennett grilled hamburgers and hot dogs outside for lunch.   Barcus received a number of nice tools from a former railroad signal maintainer and he and Mark unloaded the items from his pickup after lunch.   Steve Henrichs finally got back from Knox and we set up the scaffolding in the tower and managed to get the plastic sheets pulled back over the levers to boot to keep any paint drippings off of them!   Bjarne Henderson and Ed Keeler were painting the exterior of the Pullman Troop Sleeper and they needed the IC yellow caboose pulled up so that they could get to the ends.  So Doug Kosloske fired up Alco # 310 and with Steve as brakeman, they managed to couple up to the caboose and pull it forward about 3 feet to give Bjarne and Ed enough room to do their painting on the troop sleepers end.  After they had finished the move, Doug moved the 310 out in front of the shop so that is could be washed down for the summer and he and Steve were doing just that when I finally left for the day.   Steve Newland was working on the windows of Grasselli, putting a new roller for the ropes holding the weights used to raise and lower these heavy windows.  He then started putting the window locks in place.  These are the locks that we salvaged from Calumet Tower before the IHB tore the building down last month.  Steve had removed all of the old paint off of these locks and they now look wonderful in their original natural brass!   I went back and looked at the Railway Express Trailer.  The weight on the one section of buckled floor appears to be working and the buckled area has dropped quite a bit over the last week.  We shall see how it looks next week!  I did some searching for possible metal to use in the two ruined side doors of the trailer and possibly found some candidates.  Will need to have someone torch them to size.  Hopefully I can find someone to do it.  I also managed to remember my camera, and took a few photos of the ends of TTX 50' flat car # 475037, where we are considering eventually putting the REA trailer after it is restored.   A group from the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum located in Tennessee, had approached HVRM for a "rare mileage", off the beaten track" trip and the 2:45 run to La Crosse was extended up the old Pere Marquette to run to South Thomaston.  I'm not sure exactly how many folks made that trip, but I talked to a number of them during the day as they inspected our facilities while they waited for their run.  Folks came from a number of different places including Kansas, Pennsylvania, California, and the state of Washington, amongst other "far away" places.   Just before that scheduled departure, the cloudy but rather mild day, took a turn for the worse with a strong wind coming up and temps dropping down into the mid-50's, although the sun finally came out.   Well, today is Mother's Day.  Don't forget to at least call your Mom if you can.  Have a great week everyone!   Les

It's always somethin' at HVRM 5/6/13

Springtime Greetings Everyone!   What a day!  Temps in the 70's and sunshine.  Can't beat that for sure!   Started out by checking my paint supply for passenger car # 899.  I have enough to start on the roof again.   Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske were working in the depot today while Margrett Cook and Judy Boyer were in the NKP kitchen car.    Steve Henrichs was continuing his work of painting the roof of the second floor of Grasselli Tower.   John LaOrange and Mark Knebel were moving ties around with the Payloader.   I looked over the ex-South Shore, ex-NICTD flat car (now HVRM X1138) and the wood deck looks very good.  Plans are to use the X1138 as the boom car for our Purdue crane.   Checked out the Trailer Train, ex-Pennsy 50' flat car and there are some floor boards that need to be replaced.  Rest of the wood deck is just fair at best.   First train left behind GE 95-ton # 11 with a pretty decent passenger load.  Doug Kosloske was engineer and John DeGan conductor.  I saw Randall Downs was car host on the open air car, but not sure who else was on the crew.   I decided to try to do a little work on the Railway Express Trailer.  I measured  the length and the trailer is 28' long.  I put some weights on the buckled foor inside and finally managed to get the last roller into the track on the back door and then tackled removing the old rusted screws from the 6 hinges on the side doors.   John DeGan was making some emergency repairs on the one door on track 2 of the Shop building.   Fred Boyer was working on the IC yellow caboose trying to somewhat straighten out the wavy rusted out areas at the bottom of the car side sheets.   Meanwhile, Bjarne Henderson continued his work on our Pullman Troop Sleeper and later Joe Kingsbury came over and helped him with the Bondo on some of the holes in the cars lower steel panels.  Some Pullman Green paint had also been applied to the car.   Matt Lasko, with help from Steve Henrichs, put some additional screws in the back panel of Grasselli's model board.  The board had been leaning forward due to insufficient support.  Looks great now!   Second passenger train departed successfully for English Lake but upon arrival back at the depot, it was announced that the last train of the day to La Crosse was annulled due to mechanical issues with GE # 11.  Apparently a valve failed and the locomotive was losing diesel fuel.  Doug Kosloske says that the valve will be repaired and the GE should be fine for next weeks trains.   Some time ago, Jon and Pat DeGan donated a large EJ&E flag to the museum.  This flag was made for the J's 100th Anniversary back in 1988.  Steve Newland put the flag in a custom made cherrywood frame and the plan was to put the flag up on the wall in the museums depot building.  The flags frame was heavy and it took a number of us to finally figure out how to get it up on the wall above the G gauge train shelf.  Steve Newland, Steve Henrichs, Bob Barcus, Fred Boyer, Bob Albert and yours truly, finally managed to get the flag in place.  It weren't easy!  This flag honors a famous local railroad (now a part of the Canadian National system) and is a reminder of all the help and the various railroad items that the J gave to Hoosier Valley through the years.   Finally signed out at about 5:00 p.m.  Hope everyone has a wonderful week.     Les