The historic move of UP 4014 today to Colton CA 1-25-2014
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=467715&nseq=3
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=467715&nseq=3
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Threat of snow, meeting, fail to halt work at HVRM 1/18/14
Greetings!
Threat of snow ignored as work at Hoosier Valley continued today.
I arrived at 9:00 a.m. and did a bit of sweeping of the depot platform. Pulled a bad wooden board from the coal bin next
to the watchman's shanty, but failed to find the same style in the Shop. Bob Jachim later told me that the old wood pile
that he used to build the bin, is now gone.
In the Shop, Sparky Byers, John LaOrange, Ben Byers and Jacob Byers were working on getting the bent coupler out from
the front end of the ND&W Porter diesel. After much work, they finally got it done! Ben and Jacob put it on a cart and
wheeled it out to the Shop's east entrance, where Bing Risley used his loader to put it in the bed of John's truck. A repair
will be attempted.
Meanwhile, Cory Bennett used the green man lift to take down the lightweight blue fiberglass separating curtain between
the original old McGill Shop and the newer West Annex. He then put up the old canvas tarp, which should supply a better
temperature protection between the insulated West end and the original Shop.
Fred Boyer continued applying Bondo to the yellow IC caboose. Bjarne Henderson showed up with the lettering diagrams
for this caboose, which were recently sent to him by the Illinois Central Historical Society. Bjarne had been waiting for these
for some time and its great to hear the they have finally been received. The diagrams are for Illinois Central lettering with
the "Main Line of Mid-America" slogan and the IC "split rail" herald. These will eventually applied to the caboose, which
will be repainted orange. We will have to figure out what number to put on the car since we have never found the original
IC road number.
The forementioned canvas curtain works, but there was a gap of a few inches, so Dave Cook, Bjarne, Tom Travis and
yours truly helped as Cory attached a separate canvas strip to the bottom edge of the tarp.
After lunch, the Annual meeting of the museum was held at the North Judson Public Library. A good attendance for the
meeting, even though a good snow was forecast, and had started to fall just before the meeting commenced. All of the
incumbents, President Bennett, Treasurer Bob Barcus and Directors LaOrange and Joe Kingsbury, were re-elected.
Supposed to be some frigid temps coming in next week, so stay warm everyone!
Les
HVRM's Annual Meeting 1-18-2014
Greetings,
Today again dawned to another cold day. Only 19 this morning with colder
temps to come in the next week. By this afternoon snow was coming down
again, just making the driving slippery. One spin-out was noted on the
way home from North Judson, just not slowing down early and braking at
the last moment makes for scarey moments for some.
Did not get down to the museum till about 11am, due to a late night basketball
charter to Chesterton, I slept in. When I walked in, a coupler with a bent
shaft was on a roller cart. John LaOrange and Joe Kingsbury has taken out
the east end coupler on the ND&W 5332 Porter diesel. John is going to take
it to a shop to have it straighted with an extremely large press, as its going to
take some omph to get r done. Much of the morning it took to get it out, hopefully
it will go back in faster.
The tarp that was up between the middle and west shops was back up with
a new improved rope system to open an close. Not being long enough,
Cory, Dave, Bjarne were tacking another piece on the bottom with brass
grommets. Cory had acquired the grommet package at a truck stop, not
a bad idea, but since he is a trucker, and tarps do rip at times. So now a
nice bottom tarp dragger is on the bottom to keep out the cold air the west shop.
The electric man lift in the west shop was used to string up the
tarp along the top rafter.
Fred Boyer was again working on the IC yellow caboose. A couple of salamanders
were keeping the air temp above 40 or so. Bjanrne Henderson has received the
lettering from the ICHS group. So he will be able to letter the caboose once painted.
After lunch, the group moved down to the North Judson library basement for the
years annual meeting starting at 1pm. 30 members were present. Reports from
secretary and treasurer where given. Election ballots were handed out and
counted. Cory Bennett retained the president postion, Bob Barcus, treasurer,
John LaOrange, Joe Kingsbury directors. Much discussion on the subject of
heating the west shop building was held. Many ideas were discussed and all
will be investigated for cost of type an installation. Heating sources from
wood stoves, LP gas, natural gas, kerosene salamanders were brought up.
Heat is needed in the shop if equipment is to be painted in the winter period.
Certain paints now require a certain temp for it to go on the steel surface correctly.
A new LP gas heater will be bought an installed in the kitchen car shortly, paid
by the lunch money fund. Concrete pad will be poured as soon as it warms up
some in the shop area, as all preps are made for pouring.
John LaOrange reported that buildings need to be repaired soon, the payloader
shed, motor car shed, all needing work on roofs and walls. Shop buildings
continue to leak water from the roofs onto the floors.
ND&W 5332 to be blue carded, most likely will cost a couple of thousand
dollars to accomplish, and take maybe 2 years to get ready for operation.
Having low hour, low used Cummins engines, with parts available, antifreeze
fluid added to system, will make this a year round engine available for switching
duties. The Whitcomb was evaluated and costs just exceeded what was resonable
for HVRM. With CAT engines, no parts are available, so if one goes down, it is
sidelined. A spare CAT engine remains on a NKP flatcar in the rail yard. The
Whitcomb is slated for display.
After the meeting, drove directly home, as not much else was going to happen
for the day. Take care, have a good week everyone.
Today again dawned to another cold day. Only 19 this morning with colder
temps to come in the next week. By this afternoon snow was coming down
again, just making the driving slippery. One spin-out was noted on the
way home from North Judson, just not slowing down early and braking at
the last moment makes for scarey moments for some.
Did not get down to the museum till about 11am, due to a late night basketball
charter to Chesterton, I slept in. When I walked in, a coupler with a bent
shaft was on a roller cart. John LaOrange and Joe Kingsbury has taken out
the east end coupler on the ND&W 5332 Porter diesel. John is going to take
it to a shop to have it straighted with an extremely large press, as its going to
take some omph to get r done. Much of the morning it took to get it out, hopefully
it will go back in faster.
The tarp that was up between the middle and west shops was back up with
a new improved rope system to open an close. Not being long enough,
Cory, Dave, Bjarne were tacking another piece on the bottom with brass
grommets. Cory had acquired the grommet package at a truck stop, not
a bad idea, but since he is a trucker, and tarps do rip at times. So now a
nice bottom tarp dragger is on the bottom to keep out the cold air the west shop.
The electric man lift in the west shop was used to string up the
tarp along the top rafter.
Fred Boyer was again working on the IC yellow caboose. A couple of salamanders
were keeping the air temp above 40 or so. Bjanrne Henderson has received the
lettering from the ICHS group. So he will be able to letter the caboose once painted.
After lunch, the group moved down to the North Judson library basement for the
years annual meeting starting at 1pm. 30 members were present. Reports from
secretary and treasurer where given. Election ballots were handed out and
counted. Cory Bennett retained the president postion, Bob Barcus, treasurer,
John LaOrange, Joe Kingsbury directors. Much discussion on the subject of
heating the west shop building was held. Many ideas were discussed and all
will be investigated for cost of type an installation. Heating sources from
wood stoves, LP gas, natural gas, kerosene salamanders were brought up.
Heat is needed in the shop if equipment is to be painted in the winter period.
Certain paints now require a certain temp for it to go on the steel surface correctly.
A new LP gas heater will be bought an installed in the kitchen car shortly, paid
by the lunch money fund. Concrete pad will be poured as soon as it warms up
some in the shop area, as all preps are made for pouring.
John LaOrange reported that buildings need to be repaired soon, the payloader
shed, motor car shed, all needing work on roofs and walls. Shop buildings
continue to leak water from the roofs onto the floors.
ND&W 5332 to be blue carded, most likely will cost a couple of thousand
dollars to accomplish, and take maybe 2 years to get ready for operation.
Having low hour, low used Cummins engines, with parts available, antifreeze
fluid added to system, will make this a year round engine available for switching
duties. The Whitcomb was evaluated and costs just exceeded what was resonable
for HVRM. With CAT engines, no parts are available, so if one goes down, it is
sidelined. A spare CAT engine remains on a NKP flatcar in the rail yard. The
Whitcomb is slated for display.
After the meeting, drove directly home, as not much else was going to happen
for the day. Take care, have a good week everyone.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
A New Year, In Comes the Cold & Snow, 1-11-2014
Greetings to All,
Well 2014 is here, it came in with cold an snow last week. The two
week school vacation stretched into another 3 days with very frigid weather,
and lots of blowing snow. All we could do was just stay inside for an
extra couple of days. Thursday, the 9th was the first day back to school.
La Porte was lucky, INDY and Ft Wayne both had no school all week,
but the warmup came friday, temps almost to 40 degrees plus over an
inch of rain. Now its flood watches on the Kankakee River. The reappearing
lake in the parking lot at HVRM was again full, might not go down anytime
soon due to frozen ground.
For some late late news on the Santa trains of 12-14-2013, total count
of riders was 260. Again it was a lot of fun for everyone. Things went well
and everyone had a good time with Santa.
01-04-2014, was not much of a work day for anyone. Cold buildings
made it hard to work in. Only a couple of workers showed up and most
of the operations were over by noon.
01-11-2013. Started off with a board meeting in the depot. The regular reports
were given by the board. A couple of items was for heat in the west building, cost
estimates for a wood/coal burning stove with forced heat vents to various areas
of the building were to be investigated. Another item was the large door at the
west end of the building, for installation of door opener. Roof problems continue
to give us fits, leaking and freezing on the floor. Concrete is still in the works
for the west building, only when the crew finds time to pour on a Saturday. The forms
are ready and sand has already been put down.
The one an only big job for the day was putting batterys in the ND&W diesel. After
the board meeting, John LaOrange headed to the shop to put water in the Erie 310
and get some heat on the engine block. After getting the diesel started, and filling
the shop with exhaust, the Whitcomb and Porter were pulled outside the building.
Richard Warner brought his John Deere tractor with hay forks on the bucket
down to the museum to lift the big batterys one at a time into the battery boxes of
the Porter ND&W engine. The old batterys were taken out earlier, as they were
empty of fluid and some had large cracks in the cases. The eight batterys were taken
out of the Whitcomb, filled with water, an were put in the ND&W diesel. These
batterys are only about 5 years old, so should get a couple more years of use
out of them. Joe Kingsbury will or has connected all the batterys so charging can
begin. Joe can't even do simple testing of electrical circuits without any power,
so this should help. The battery boxes were cleaned out, scraped and painted.
This job was accomplished before noon. Diesels were pushed back inside
the building an the ND&W was positioned over the pit for access to the traction
motors. Erie 310 sat outside for a couple of hours idling to charge up batterys.
Other activity on the IC caboose was Fred Boyer working on bondo the south side
of the caboose. More places need bondo all the time. Ed Keeler did floor repairs
to the rotted wood in the caboose.
Bob Albert brought up the subject of the Wabash 4th Sub, Gary IN to Montpelier OH,
book is now complete an printed. Cost is about 45 dollars and Bob Barcus has
ordered at least 5 or more copies, with 2 already spoken for. If you desire a copy,
please contact Bob Barcus so he can save you a copy. Bob Albert has high praise
for the new book already.
Next Saturday, 01-18-2014, 1PM at the North Judson town library for the museums
annual meeting and election. Please try to attend an vote for candidates for various
offices in the museum. Wish Elmer Mannen a Happy Birthday also, actually it was
today, but he was not at the museum today.
Big your ideas an comments for the Annual meeting, new ideas are always
welcome.
Have a good week, days are getting longer each day, yeah, but still not over
with the cold an snow just yet.
Tom Travis
Well 2014 is here, it came in with cold an snow last week. The two
week school vacation stretched into another 3 days with very frigid weather,
and lots of blowing snow. All we could do was just stay inside for an
extra couple of days. Thursday, the 9th was the first day back to school.
La Porte was lucky, INDY and Ft Wayne both had no school all week,
but the warmup came friday, temps almost to 40 degrees plus over an
inch of rain. Now its flood watches on the Kankakee River. The reappearing
lake in the parking lot at HVRM was again full, might not go down anytime
soon due to frozen ground.
For some late late news on the Santa trains of 12-14-2013, total count
of riders was 260. Again it was a lot of fun for everyone. Things went well
and everyone had a good time with Santa.
01-04-2014, was not much of a work day for anyone. Cold buildings
made it hard to work in. Only a couple of workers showed up and most
of the operations were over by noon.
01-11-2013. Started off with a board meeting in the depot. The regular reports
were given by the board. A couple of items was for heat in the west building, cost
estimates for a wood/coal burning stove with forced heat vents to various areas
of the building were to be investigated. Another item was the large door at the
west end of the building, for installation of door opener. Roof problems continue
to give us fits, leaking and freezing on the floor. Concrete is still in the works
for the west building, only when the crew finds time to pour on a Saturday. The forms
are ready and sand has already been put down.
The one an only big job for the day was putting batterys in the ND&W diesel. After
the board meeting, John LaOrange headed to the shop to put water in the Erie 310
and get some heat on the engine block. After getting the diesel started, and filling
the shop with exhaust, the Whitcomb and Porter were pulled outside the building.
Richard Warner brought his John Deere tractor with hay forks on the bucket
down to the museum to lift the big batterys one at a time into the battery boxes of
the Porter ND&W engine. The old batterys were taken out earlier, as they were
empty of fluid and some had large cracks in the cases. The eight batterys were taken
out of the Whitcomb, filled with water, an were put in the ND&W diesel. These
batterys are only about 5 years old, so should get a couple more years of use
out of them. Joe Kingsbury will or has connected all the batterys so charging can
begin. Joe can't even do simple testing of electrical circuits without any power,
so this should help. The battery boxes were cleaned out, scraped and painted.
This job was accomplished before noon. Diesels were pushed back inside
the building an the ND&W was positioned over the pit for access to the traction
motors. Erie 310 sat outside for a couple of hours idling to charge up batterys.
Other activity on the IC caboose was Fred Boyer working on bondo the south side
of the caboose. More places need bondo all the time. Ed Keeler did floor repairs
to the rotted wood in the caboose.
Bob Albert brought up the subject of the Wabash 4th Sub, Gary IN to Montpelier OH,
book is now complete an printed. Cost is about 45 dollars and Bob Barcus has
ordered at least 5 or more copies, with 2 already spoken for. If you desire a copy,
please contact Bob Barcus so he can save you a copy. Bob Albert has high praise
for the new book already.
Next Saturday, 01-18-2014, 1PM at the North Judson town library for the museums
annual meeting and election. Please try to attend an vote for candidates for various
offices in the museum. Wish Elmer Mannen a Happy Birthday also, actually it was
today, but he was not at the museum today.
Big your ideas an comments for the Annual meeting, new ideas are always
welcome.
Have a good week, days are getting longer each day, yeah, but still not over
with the cold an snow just yet.
Tom Travis
Frigid temps fail to stop Santa at HVRM 12/7/13
Greetings everyone -
Sun, but temps in 20's all day at North Judson.
Most of the members today were involved with moving the three Santa trains out over the line to English Lake.
Santa visited each and every kiddie in Long Island passenger coach while the Bessemer & Lake Erie caboose
provided lights and horn on the westbound runs with the EL 310 at the head end eastbound. Both LIRR #2937
and B&LE #1989 were toasty and warm!
Too many folks to mention who supported the runs today but all 3 trains were operated at capacity with a total
of 339 passengers on board. And we will do it all again next Saturday!
A few other things were done at the museum today including Steve Newland painting parts for Grasselli Tower
and Bob Albert working to repair a broken vice in the wood shop.
Thanks to all who helped out today! It's very much appreciated.
Les
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