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