Spring sweeps in at Hoosier Valley 4-12-14

Greetings!

A windy day brought in a great Spring day with temps in the mid to upper 70's.  Supposed to be storms tomorrow,

so really happy with todays great weather!

Board meeting this morning but I arrived late.  One thing decided was to put a full train in place (three cabooses,

handicap caboose, two open cars and LIRR passenger car) for the Easter Egg operation next Saturday.  New gaskets

were put on the heads of EL Alco #310 and then the cars were switched around so that the consist was in the correct

order for next week.  Fred Boyer was engineer of 310 with other members of the operating crew participating.

Joe Baker put new electrical boxes in the Shop this past week, which should make it easier to control the various

banks of light.  Thumbs up Joe!

Bob Albert took some cracked boards off of a couple of the benches that sit in and around the depot and put in new

slats and Loretta Kosloske painted the repaired benches later in the afternoon.

Steve Henrichs reported that he finished the last of the painting on the cast iron steam radiators that will go back up

in Grasselli Tower.  Good news to say the least!

Tom Travis and yours truly worked on the lettering on the Purdue crane in the morning and then we put black paint

on certain parts of the little diesel that sits on the depot platform.  Getting close to finishing that project.

Big news was that Bjarne Henderson, assisted by Joe Kingsbury, started in on the lettering for the Illinois Central

caboose (see photo).  They finished up just around lunch and the caboose really looks good. 

Track crew put four new ties in place out near Main Street in the afternoon.

Tom and I tried to put a couple of new boards on the lid of the coal bin that sits next to the Mulberry Street crossing

shanty.  A temporary fix at best.

Matt Lasayko worked on the museum signals. 

Forgot to mention that Jon Oram recently put a couple of new structures on the North Judson N gauge display layout

that is located in the Pullman Troop Sleeper.  When photos of the structures were noted in a couple of photos of Erie

Railroad 2-8-4's that the museum has on display in the depot, it was decided that the two little buildings needed to go

on the 1952-themed layout.  Jon did a lot of research and a fantastic job of scratch building the two C&O structures.

Take a look at them, and the display layout itself, the next time you are at the museum.  

Have a good week folks!

Les