HVRM's Picnic Train to La Crosse 6-29-30

Hot week here in North Judson. Not as hot as is out west, but had humidity.
Friday turned out to be a pretty decent day, if you weren't dodging rain showers.
 
6-28 I arrived early in the morning to start working on the Bessemer inside, but
wouldn't you know it, I did not have a key, so I went to work on the battery boxes
and generator motor, air tank, ground it all down, primed it, then after it dried
painted it black, looks better as someone just sprayed over rust  with a spray
can an it was turning white. On the J caboose, I ground down the new piece of
steel over the steps, primed and painted it black also. Cory showed up to load
some wood logs in a dumpster for removal on the wye. He started to mow grass,
but a pop-up lightning storm had him put the mower back in the shop. I went over
to grind an prime the end of the REA trailer, finished up just as the rain started.
Monday I hope to start painting the REA trailer, and the roof needs a coat of
silver aluminum house roof paint applied also.
 
Saturday, I had a late start and arrived at Fingerhut for breakfast at 8:15, just as
the local amateur radio group was finishing up. Got caught up on the local news,
plus had missed an aurora opening the night before, bummer. Got down to the
rail yard an EL 310 was pulling out the NKP caboose for todays run. Spent some
time down at Norwaynes getting paint chips to match the color of REA trailer. Matched
a chip up an had a gallon mixed up for mondays painting. Stopped at Hoppes an
had a key made for caboose locks. On the way back, we ran into John Pflatz, owner
of the PRR caboose. John flew out to take a look at the museum and ride the trains.
Was very impressed of HVRM's fleet of cabooses used in tourist trains. Crowds
seemed to be good on the tourist trains. The La Crosse train featured the Picnic
train, catered by Wooden Nickel. Almost 40 people came out to enjoy the train ride
and the wonderful meal by the Nickel. If you went away hungry, it was your fault, way
way too much food. Big thanks to Marcia and her kitchen crew for turning out a
great meal. Diane Bennett, Margret Cook, and Bob Barcus set up in the public
library room the food and some tables inside, lots of picnic tables outside under
cover too. Nice breeze to keep the mosquitoes away, but not on the trip back to
North Judson, open air car people took it hard with bugs an some rain.
 
John, Cory and Mark changed out 2 rotten ties on the display track in short order.
Bjarne Henderson showed up to make some last touch-ups on the troop car before
pullout next weekend. Bob Albert and Steve Hendrichs worked on the IC yellow
caboose inside walls Next weekend will be the grand pullout of the troop car
and dedication an thanks to the Bjarne crew.
 
Mark you calendars for end of July, 30/31st will be a special work day tearing out
road crossings in English lake and Toto road. Pavers will come the 1st of August
to pave crossings. Both crossings need to have rails taken out, ties replaced, new
ballast dumped and tamped. All materials will be supplied for crossing by county
and other sources, HVRM will just supply the labor intensive work.
 
Lets hope for good news this coming week on different things happening around
the museum.
 
Every one have a good week, drive safe.
 
Tom

Hot & Humid HVRM 6-22-2013

Hello to all,
 
The day after beginning of summer, sure kicked off in a hot fashion. Sweltering
temps an humidity to boot. Full moon is today with it being closest to earth for
the year. Take a look tonite if able to see it. 
 
I was pressed into riding the EL310  for the 3 runs of the day. A nice chage of pace
from working on some project. Fred Boyer was engineer for the day, Bob Barcus was
conductor on the first 2 runs, with Doug being on the 3rd. A couple of others were
trainees an I forgot their names. During the 2nd and 3rd run was guest engineer
throttle time project. Randall Downs was the docent for all three trips on the open
air car. For the tourist count on Fathers day weekend totaled about 200 both days,
today was close to 80 or so.
 
The EMD Model 40 had the train ride signs taken off during the week an later
in the day the manlift was moved from the shop to alongside the critter for painting
this coming next week.
 
Joe Baker continues working in Grasselli tower on the cast  iron radiators, grinding
and painting them for replacement along the wall.
 
Bjarne and son Lars Henderson continue working on the troop sleeper car in
the west shop area. Painting the underside was accomplished and now believe
the car is ready to be moved out back on the display track soon. A possible roll-out
will be conducted with a dedication ceremony with the boy scouts who helped
work on the car soon.
 
Cory Bennett has been attempting to replace/fix the bad tire on the back-hoe tractor.
Not much success as a couple of problems have arose with rims, hole size, and
many trips to La Crosse to attempt to get it fixed. The tire is foam filled and has been
coming apart litterally, needing to be replaced. Diane Bennett provide the lunch in
the kitchen car today, thanks much appreciate it.
 
The passing track has been cleared of boxcars, Metra cars for run around of the loco
on the La Crosse trips. A better turnaround time has been accomplished for the 2:45
pm run. On the last run of the day Doug had a trainee doing a lot of the manual labor
to qualify.  Due to a shortage of engine crews resulted in a longer time to put all
the locomotives away in the building. C&O 2789 had to be pushed inside with
the Erie 310 and the #11 was pushed into the building. By 6pm all was done.
A long hot day. I was given a break from Erie 310 an rode the Bessemer caboose
back from La Crosse enjoying the view from the cupola. Has been a while since I
rode the train all day.
 
Les Beckman came out on Thursday to work on the passenger car ends. He got
the grinding done on the west end an primed.
 
Remember next week will be the picnic train to La Crosse at 2:45pm, so return time
might be later than normal. Come on out an enjoy the train ride.
 
Everyone have a good week, drive safe, lots of wild weather out there.
 
Tom Travis

HVRM 25th Anniversary/Mint Fest Weekend/6/15-16 2013

Twenty Five years of HVRM was celebrated this past weekend. North Judson
holds the annual Mint Fest downtown annually on Fathers Day every year.
Weather was not the greatest on Saturday, rained most of the day and made
things not enjoyable. Sunday was nice, overcast, but did not rain.
 
Friday 6/14 was a work day down at HVRM. Mark and Cory put up two canopy
tents with picnic tables spread around. BTW, Diane Bennett took the time to
stain all the picnic benches to make them look  nice, Thanks much Diane.
Mark and Cory finished up putting ballast in the display track area. Ties have been
replaced now and the track is now ready for the display cars again.
 
Les and Tom got the manlift out of the shop to put up some rope on poles for
Tom's amateur radio special event station for the 25h Anniversay. More later on
that. After that Tom finished up grinding an priming the steel tool car on the south
side. Les shoveled lime stone that Bing had dropped a bucket full by the crossing
guard shack to cover up the concrete brick for the steps. Looks good.
 
Saturday 6/15 started out warm an cloudy. Tom unloaded radio equipment
into Grasseli Tower on the 2nd level. Pulled up the antenna with the ropes that
were put up yesterday. Even though the upper level is still in the painting phase,
Joe Baker cleaned up the floor area nicely, providing an area for a cardtable an
chair for the radio station. Electrical power is only about 96 volts, but good enough
to power up the radio. I had a birdseye view of the depot-signal area. It was nice
watching the semaphores work as the train passed over the track circuit near the
depot. Radio communications were poor due to static crashes and a high level
on noise.  It seemed not many ham radio operators were on Saturday. Sunday
was much better conditons an finally communicated with many radio stations
on the air waves. Steve Newland worked on a cabinet installing a large door on it
to mount the timeout grinders. Train ridership on Saturday was not all that much. I don't have a count for the day. The Erie Alco 310 was used on the tourist train, an had a
problem on the first run of the day. The relay was not working properly again an
the GE was fired up to pinch hit for the 310. After a slight delay the tourist train was
off. The Alco was pushed down to the shop area to get some service. The GE
provided power for the tourist train all day with no problems. A relay switch was
replaced with a new part and the Alco ran flawlessly after that. A couple of
test runs were made an all went well. Motor car rides were give on demand.
The UP motor car ran flawlessly all day providing many rides for visitors. At
4pm, a heavy rain was falling and wrapped up a dismal day.
 
Sunday 6/16 started out again overcast, but weather was looking to be on the good
side. The amateur radio station in Grasseli tower went very well all day. Lots of
curious visitors both asking a lot of questions about the tower an radio. Tourists
came to ride the train today. All the runs had nice turnouts. Before the train was pulled
out of the caboose trace, the EMD Model 40 was fetched from the IN10 spot an brought
back to the museum. It was placed on the Erie track near the interchange track as
not to foul the line for the motor car rides. GE 11 ran around later in the day to get on
the east end of the model 40 to push it to the caboose track. It was positioned
near the depot to have the plywood arrow boards taken off, broken windows removed
and possibly repainted soon. It is not going back out again, a billboard with a vinyl
banner may replace it, so it can be seen better from the highway both ways of travel.
A too do project. someday. Bjarne Henderson with his son Lars, both worked on the
Pullman troop sleeper both Saturday an Sunday applying lettering to the car. It is
getting close to being done soon and pulled out of the shop building. The 2789 got a
nice bath on Saturday to wash all the dust of it. Fred had mounted the classification
lights on the head end to make it look more complete, noted by the picture. The other
picture is of me in Grasseli tower at the radio looking hot, which it was getting up in
temps. Steve has got windows fixed so they open now, but no breeze yesterday.
 
Coming up June 29th is the first of a couple of picnic trains to La Crosse IN at 2:45pm,
cost 12 dollars in addition to the fare for the ride. Make reservations by June 23rd. Pay
at the depot.
 
Many thanks to all who helped out with both days of train operations.
 
Have a good week everyone
 
Tom   

Busy Week At HVRM 6-8-2013

Greetings to everyone. What a great week of activity down in North Judson getting ready
for the 25th Anniversary at HVRM. So on to the news.
 
Monday 6/3, Nice day, cool and good for painting. Myself and Les started priming and
painting the DRGW passenger car. Les got the manlift out of the shop area an drove it
over. Worked all day on the upper area both red priming an green. Some areas needed to be reprimed, left to dry overnight. Later in the day John showed up and
was getting ready for  some locomotive activity. He an Mark needed to move all the rotary dump cars so the weed sprayer truck could do it job later in the evening.
 
Tuesday 6/4. another nice day. Les used the manlift to paint the upper level green and I started with my scaffolding to do the lower level. A long day, but we got it done, cept for the widow frames and middle metal section, to be done later by Les as time permits.
The car needs to be split on both ends to permit access to the ends for painting later.
 
Two individuals showed up at the shop area, then Cory came along, it was the survey
people to survey the west leg of the wye. It is now completed and staked . Later
Cory and Bing both were on lawnmowers knocking down the high grass mostly everywhere on the properity. Mark showed up later in the day to spray weeds with his
portable sprayer around the buildings.
 
Friday 6/7, another fine day. I was not at North Judson, but took the day off to celebrate
my 64th birthday up in Chicago at the Blues Fest. A nice ride up on the South Shore
from Miller IN on the new bilevels and surprised on our trip back, the 5:58 train was
bilevels again. We sat in the very first car, front seat under the driver and a wonderful
clean window on the door to watch the miles whiz by. I stood the entire trip to Miller,
that was a great birthday present for me.
 
But work continued on down at HVRM, the track gang, Cory, Mark, John, David worked
on the display section of track getting all the ties replaced an spiked down. Some ballast was dumped on a section of track to make it look nice. At least the track is ready
for equipment again.
 
Saturday 6/8 started out with a board meeting in the depot at 8am. The big news a
newspaper article in the Chicago Tribune last week about driving a locomotive was
available down at HVRM. Well over 65 applied in a matter of days and reservations
made. Bob Barcus had to close it out, due to running the rest of summer every weekend and not enough slots available for all applicants. WOW what a response
from the Chicago area. Even Chicago railfans showed up for train ride today after
reading the article. A sizeable donation from a major railroad showed up at Bob's home mail yesterday. Bob had applied and they came thru with some money. More later from the museum on this donation. FYI, Leiters Ford Erie Depot has been moved from its present sight, to where is a question no one could answer.
 
I worked on the burnt out tool car, grinding on the south side, west end and priming
almost 90% of that area. It was a long 4 hours an I was under the gun to let Bjarne
use the lift after he finished the south side of the troop car inside. I got a good look at
the roof, I won't go up there, someone else will have to paint it. The entire roof is just
rust, no paint left.
 
Bjarne and son worked on the troop car today, working on the south side around to the
north sides. I did not even look at what he completed as I was completely wore out from grinding. It was reported at the meeting the troop car most likely will not be
ready for the weekend. 
 
Bob worked on the IC yellow caboose cutting plywood panels for the walls. He cut about 4 sheets and made some good headway on the inside walls.
 
Prior to getting the tourist train ready for operations, the C&O 2789 was pulled out side
to sit in the sun. Fred did some work on the front marker lamps for next weekend.
 
Joe Baker and Steve Henderson worked on Grasseli tower, Joe getting electric lights
to work and Steve painting an removing scaffolding used to paint walls and ceiling.
Still voltage is low, around 90 volts, but the CFM bulbs work okay.
 
Mark ran flag man for the tourist train to English lake. Last trip of the day was to La
Crosse. Doug was conductor, Joe a car attendent, Randall was on the open air
car. Doug held conductor classes after the board meeting for a few people.
 
Cory and Dave moved the new ties from the field to the south of the run around track
for most of the day.
 
Bob and Loretta were in the depot today. Margret and Judy worked the kitchen car
an gift car. I did not eat lunch, as tonight was fish fry down at the local volunteer fire
dept building. Large crowd turnout to this event.
 
Remember next weekend is Mint Fest weekend, HVRM's 25 Anniversary and I will be
operating a  special event amateur radio station in or near Grasseli tower for both
Saturday and Sunday using special callsign K9H.
 
Looking forward to next weekend and hope that you will stop by to visit and enjoy
the day at HVRM.
 
Tom

Steaming right along at HVRM 6-1-13

Greetings all!   First day of June and it was hard to beat the weather today with temp at about 77 degrees and a nice wind keeping things cool all day.  Some rain showers moved in about 2:30, but couldn't spoil this day!   Arrived about 8:00 a.m. to find the operating crew already at work.  The tender for the 2789 had not yet been moved from its winter siding location in to the Shop to couple up with the 2-8-4.    The tender was moved inside and left a short distance from the Kanawha's cab so that the two drawbars could be set into place.   After spotting the tender, the crew went back to get the train ready for the first passenger run.  Student brakeman (didn't catch his name...my bad) with John DeGan as Conductor and Doug Kosloske as Engineer.  Tom McKee later rode with Doug in the fireman's seat during the first two trips.  Joe Kingsbury, Bill Dauber and Randall Downs were car hosts.  Mark Knebel provided crossing protection.    The heavy rains that hit North Judson on Thursday and Friday apparently did a nice job of cleaning the Train Departure board so I found some chalk and wrote in the three scheduled train trains for the day.   Steve Henrichs was tossing out used lumber from the second floor of Grasselli Tower.  He, Joe Baker and Steve Newland worked in the Tower all day.  The ceiling of the Tower got its final coat of tan paint.  Looks real good!   Fred Boyer showed me the photo map diagram he is working on and asked for comments.  He has the diagram on the old desk that was once up in Grasselli Tower.  Two of the legs had been badly damaged during a move at Hoosier Valley and Fred set out to fix them.   I opened up the Mulberry Street watchman's shanty and was disappointed to see that the cinder blocks I had recently put in front of the door were "rocking" when stepped on; a dangerous condition for visitors.  So, took all the cinder blocks out and then started to fill in in front of the tower with the stone/dirt mixture.  Also put some ballast in to a low spot between two of the ties that the museums Gandy Dancers recently put in in the area in front of the shanty.  Spent most of the morning but it looks pretty decent now.  I asked Bing Risley to dump a load of pea gravel on the stone/dirt to provide a better walking surface.      Tom Travis managed to do some more grinding on the rust on C&EI  #A-1054 and painted those areas.  Tom had to leave early to attend a graduation party this afternoon.   Meanwhile, in the Shop, the boys trying to get the 2789 coupled to its tender were having difficulties.  The pin wouldn't drop.  Cory Bennett, Fred, John LaOrange, Dave Cook and Rich Warner were banging on it.  Apparently got it somewhat into position but not completely.  Then Cory pushed the tender forward and the pin dropped in on its own!  So much for grunt work!   Bjarne and Lars Henderson and a friend of Lars, were working on the Troop Sleeper.   After lunch, Cory got out the welder and finally welded the new studs on to the boiler front of the Kanawha.  After he finished, Fred bolted the classification lights into place.  The front of the 2-8-4 is looking better all the time.  Unfortunately, no camera so no photo.   Spent the afternoon fiddling around with the REA highway trailer.  The good news is that t he raised floor section in the back has now almost settled back in place.  The bad news is that the piece of metal I thought would fit for the rebuild of the side door, doesn't!  Rats!   Rain hit just before the departure of the train to La Crosse but most folks had already boarded.  Rained hard for about 5 minutes then slacked off to nothing.    I too had to leave early today, rolling out about 3:00 p.m.  All in all, a good day.  Progress continues to be made!   Enjoy your upcoming week!     Les