HOT HOT HOT at HVRM 5/31/14

Greetings!

Despite temps edging into the 90's today, we had another good day at Hoosier Valley.

I arrived a bit after 9:00 a.m. and found the train crew already hard at work.  Turns out

Alco #310 had a fuel supply problem so after some attempts were made for a fix, it was

finally decided to use GE #11 for the day.  Since EJ&E #184 had to be switched in to

the consist, and because the crew was running a bit behind, there was no time left to

pull C&O 2-8-4 #2789 out of the Shop building for outside inspection and photographs.

Engineer was John DeGan with John Kimsey as conductor.  Others in the crew included

Doug Kosloske, Joe Kingsbury, Bill Dauber, Randall Downs and possibly others.

I noticed Fred Boyer working up in Grasselli Tower, so I went up to see what he was

doing and found him cleaning the end sills on the two windows on the east side of the

tower over the stairs.  After cleaning, he was going  to apply a number of coats of a

product that will bond to the porous wood, fill in the cracks and end up with new solid

wood.  I took a couple of photos of Fred doing his thing!  Also, there is a photo of the

new brackets built by Steve Newland so that the steam radiators can be reinstalled in

the tower. 

When I was in the depot, I noticed only one of the New York Central Historical Society

2014 calendars was still on the counter and I asked Bob Barcus if we had sold all of

the others and he stated that yes, we had.  A very nice calendar!  

My main project for the day was to get the two bridge plates for TTX 475037 painted

and I'll try to include a photo of the two plates; one after painting and one still in primer.

I did also get the second one painted so the next time I'm at the museum I'll turn them

both over and finish the painting on the other side.

Lots of visitors came down and wandered around the shop today and after a futile search

for a "Wet Paint" sign, I finally made my own!

When I was looking for the paint for the bridge plates, I went down to the east end of the

museum property to ask Mark Knebel if we had any cans of it still around.  While there,

I got a quick photo of the "gandy dancers" in the process of installing a number of new

ties on the museums main line.  In the photo are Mark, Dave Cook, John LaOrange and,

in the cab of the backhoe, Cory Bennett.  Hard work on a hot day!  In the afternoon, the

crew took the tamper down and tamped around the installed ties.

Bjarne Henderson was repairing some peeling paint on the south side of the windows on

the Troop Sleeper and I've included a photo of Bjarne as Fred came by to check on his

progress.

Also, Bob Albert was cleaning out items from the inside of the orange (no longer yellow)

display caboose; IC # 9914.

Rich Warner did some welding on the John Deere tractor.  Rich has just recently returned

from Cheyenne, Wyoming where he got a tour of the Union Pacific and its efforts to restore

Big Boy 4-8-8-4 # 4014.

I did some miscellaneous fix-up items in the Shop and one thing I found was the key to the

locks on the IC double deck commuter cars.  I had wanted to put correct train numbers in

the number boards on IC #1529 ever since I had put train number 754 in the boards on IC

#1502, but couldn't gain access to the cab end of the 1529 because the sliding double doors

are quite unoperable!   Finding the key, allowed me to get a ladder out and unlock the end

door from the outside.  I managed to twist the dials and get number 757 put in the one number

board, but when I unlocked the cab, I found out that the middle number on that side of the

car won't turn and is stuck on zero (0).  I now have to find an IC (Metra) commuter train

number that has a zero as the middle number!  Got to find a timetable I guess!

Harold Lambirth and his family stopped by the museum in the afternoon.  Harold looks great

and tells me that he rapidly approaching his 90th birthday!

The heat drained me so I left for home a little after 3:00 p.m.  Have a great week folks!

Les  

 

Beauty is where you find it at the museum - May 22, 2014

Greetings to All,
 
Saturday 24th is the start of a wonderful weekend of many things, cookouts,
family get togethers, travel, but most of all it is Memorial Day Weekend. Parades
honoring our military fallen servicemen who have died. Graveyards are a sea
of red, white and blue US flags waving in the breeze. I stopped last night on the way
home from HVRM to visit the Union Mills cemetary where an old friend is now
buried and a WWII veterean, Alvin J Bishop, a Baltimore & Ohio railroader that
worked as an operator in the Wellsboro depot for years, using the handkey to
pass reports to other operators up an down the lines of the B&O and GTW.
Bish was a telegrapher operator in WWII for communications. I just can't believe he
has been gone since 1997, time passes so quickly now days. Take time to
enjoy life while we have it. God Bless all our servicemen serving the United States.
 
Many thanks to Les Beckman for the picture of the glads in the flower bed across
from the depot and newly repainted IC caboose an Troop sleeper. Thanks to who
ever cleaned up the flower bed of weeds, looks nice.
 
Driving in on IN 10 yesterday, the tie crew had started work at the IN 10 RR crossing.
So I stopped an joined in for a full day of doing mostly everything physically demanding
work, plain old grunt work.  Cory had just turned the air compressor around facing
west an planned on started putting spike in ties. The compressor refused to turn
over. Tinkering with everything electrical did no good. So manual spiking began.
A long day. All the remaining ties were inserted into the roadbed, spiked, and later
in the afternoon Cory brought down the tie tamper machine and tamped an leveled
the last of new ties. The air compressor's new starter went bad and taken back
to Napa to get another starter ordered, delievery around Wednesday. Crew was
Cory, John, Mark, Steve Hendrics and myself. Very sore this morning, but feel better
now.
 
Bob Albert and Steve Newland cut up scrap metal into smaller sizes. Last week
scrapping out two old newspaper machines, Steve found a total of almost 51 dollars
in change in the money box. Guess it was overlooked when taken out of service.
HVRM's gain.
 
Les cleaned up the plates for the TTX car and primed them to keep them from rusting.
 
EJ&E 184 brakes were dragging on the first run of the day, so it was set out
on the caboose tracks for evaluation. Cory let the brake link one spot and they
did not drag. The air cylinder extended an retracted correctly. Nothing was noted
really wrong.  Will be put back into train service next week.
 
Loretta said that the North Judson-San Pierre 3rd grade school kids had at
train ride on Friday and had a wonderful time. Looks like a yearly thing now.
 
Wooden Nickel pizza's were the main staple for lunch. Loretta provided just
picked lettuce from her garden that came up from last year. Was very popular
dish with everyone.
 
Bruce Emmons worked the gift shop yesterday. Looks goods and is progressing
nicely after his stomach surgery. Showed some pictures of his new house
in the Phillipines, windows were being installed.
 
Joe Baker was around doing odd jobs around the museum.
 
Earlier in the week at La Crosse a semi caught the top of the rail at the crossing
north of La Crosse on US 421, destroying a big section of rail. Les reported
on his way home Saturday it looked like temporary repairs have been made.
Hopefully the crossing will be replaced soon, as it is extremely rough to cross.
Any speed results in lots of bumps.
 
Everyone have a nice weekend, drive safely out there this weekend.
Hope to see you next work session at HVRM.
 
Tom Travis

 

Caboose Identification - A long Shot

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34607&sid=375ca6e1a3ddf04adc5c95c95ac359e5
 
This is the lead into the IC Caboose from start to finish
 
Tom

Paint/no paint at HVRM on May 10, 2014

 

Greetings!

The complete story on the numbering an painting for the Illinois Central caboose

is on RYPN, intechange, Caboose Identification - A long shot.

 

Give good details on its progress and completion.

 

Arrived at the museum about 8:00 a.m. just after the Board of Director meeting had started.  I mentioned

that Richard Vetter of RISX had delivered two new bridge plates for TTX 475037, but otherwise I remained

quiet.  Doug Kosloske mentioned that both GE #11 and Alco #310 were available for passenger runs.

EL 310 was the motive power for the days train operations.

Tom Travis advised me earlier in the week of the big news that IC display caboose #9914 was moved

out of the Shop and over to the display track across from the depot.  The floor of the car still has to be

sanded down and treated and the interior displays still have to then be placed into the car, but this was

certainly a move in the right direction.  The car certainly looks great (see photo) and the museum members

who worked on it, should feel very proud of their efforts.

My plan for the day was to get the bridge plates for the TTX flatcar cleaned with lacquer thinner and

then painted.  I wasn't sure if I could get the top bridge plate off of the bottom one due to the weight, but

after I scrounged around the Shop and managed to find a couple of additional pallets, I was able to just

slide the top bridge plate over to the other pallets.  They cleaned up and I found some primer and painted

both of them.  My plan was to come back in the afternoon and try to get the two plates turned over if possible

and then clean and put primer on the other sides.  Never got to that point as the primer didn't completely

dry, probably due to the humidity.  The temp was in the mid-70's all day with sun most of the time.  Anyway,

that part of my plan will have to wait until the next day at the museum.

My other planned project for the day was to get a finish coat of light green paint on the lid of the coal bin

located next to the watchman's crossing shanty, and also on some spots of peeling paint on the shanty

itself.  Unfortunately, when I opened the can of paint, I found it looked like cottage cheese.  Apparently it

had froze over our tough winter.  One more plan scratched until Steve Newland can get a new can of the

paint from Sherwin-Williams.

Speaking of Steve, he had the brackets made for the re-installation of the cast iron radiators in Grasselli

Tower and was giving them a coating of primer.   

Other jobs going on at Hoosier Valley today included some work on the far end, although I never made

it down there to see exactly what was going on.  I know that Cory Bennett had the Backhoe pulled out and

was using it down there in the morning and that after lunch, they fired up the U.P. tamper in the afternoon

and it appeared to be over near the State Route 39 crossing.  Odds are that some kind of trackwork was

being done.

Passenger train had John LaOrange as engineer with Bob Albert, John Kimsey and Steve Henrichs as the

crew.  Randall Downs and Bill Dauber were the car hosts in the Katy open car and the LIRR coach.  The last

run of the day was to La Crosse, which normally has the diesel locomotive on the front end out of North Judson

and then turned on the wye at La Crosse to get to the other end of the train so that it is again on the front end

for the return trip.  Strange to see the Alco S-1 pushing the train from the museum, which is what is normally

only done for the shorter runs to English Lake.  Turns out that the C&I had some type of a problem with the wye

and therefore it was not available to the HVRM train crew to use.  Thus the push all the way to La Crosse!

In the afternoon, with my planned painting projects not available, I found a long piece of 3/4" outside diameter

pipe to see if it would go through the holes on the deck of TTX 475037 where the bridge plates will eventually

by installed.  Quickly found out that it wouldn't due to some rough material on the inside of these holes.  Did

some work on them, and finally got all four of these cleaned out enough on both ends so that I managed to

work the pipe through.  I've included a photo of these holes on one end of the flat car to exhibit what I am

talking about.

Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 #765 was running on Norfolk Southern's old NKP line through Knox on Saturday

and a few HVRM museum members "snuck out" to go over to see it.  We also had a few visitors who stopped

by after they had photographed the Employees Special as it went through northern Indiana.  Memories of

the Berks visits to HVRM in 2009 and 2011!

Probably missed a few things going on today.  Sorry about that!  Hope everyone has a great week.

Les  

 

47 Ties Inserted on Erie Main Line 5-3-2014

Greetings,
 
First day of tourist operation at HVRM North Judson for the season. A nice
day in the low 60's but a very strong wind out of the west, which made it very
cool.
 
I arrived early down in North Judson, stopped at Fingerhut for breakfast with
the locals. Not a big crowd today, maybe getting an early start on yard work.
 
Arriving at 8am at the depot, a group was headed out to the Erie main
line with the payloader, 22 ties, back hoe and Marks truck with a load of tools for
track work. Cory, David, John, Mark and myself got started taking out bad ties
an inserting new ties. Before noon 22 ties were inserted before lunch, after lunch
25 more ties were put in before 4 pm, for a total of 47 ties. Spiking will come after
the rest of the ties are replaced, then the tie tamper can be brought down to
tamp and level the track. Rotten ties were picked up and put in a pile, so to
keep the trail neat an clean.
 
The tourist train took most of the remaining people to run. John DeGan, Doug,
Joe Kingsbury, trainee Bjarne Henderson, Jim an a couple others I didn't know
ran the train. Things seem to go well, no major problems. Not record crowds,
but is early in the season. Everyone who rode seemed pleased.
 
Steve Hendrics moved some furniture from the shop back to Grasselli tower,
after painting it. Some items required help by Les Beckman an others to take
it up the stairs. The tower is really beginning to look really great. Floor is painted,
walls are painted, fixtures are being replaced an painted. Slowly replacing
windows by Steve Newland on a not to interfer basis working. Steve took an
old door over to get repainted also.
 
Now for the big news, the plates for the TTX car were brought over by Rich Vetter
from Joliet IL yesterday. Rich owns RISX, Railway, Industrial Services, a rail
equipment repair facility. Jim Panza notified Les earlier in the week that the drive
over plates were done and needed to be transported to North Judson, A note
was received Friday that the plates were to be brought to HVRM Saturday. The
two plates weight almost 400 pounds an Bing Ringsley with his skid loader
got the plates off the pickup and put in the west shop. Many thanks to Jim Panza
and Richard Vetter for this great donation. I'm hoping that Les will write up an
article to post about the making of these plates an what it took to get it done.
Priming the steel is needed to be done to prevent rusting, as it may take
a while to get them installed. Some modification will have to be done to the mounts
on the TTX car for it be connected. Missing is a spring that makes it easy to put into
the upright positon, but beind a display only, it wil be in the upright position. 200
pounds is a lot to lift by one person.
 
Next Saturday is National Train Day, I will be going to Chicago, Union Station
to see the displays. I went last year an really enjoyed myself an plan on riding
the South Shore. My yearly pilgramage to Chicago, not too hot, nor too cold.
Cept for the Blue Fest, which this year is on Fathers day weekend is going to
be a challenge to get to with so much scheduled for that weekend.
 
Amazing how the trees are changing so fast, only 2 weeks ago you could clearly
see thru the wood an spot interesting things, but now is slowly being covered
up. Some brush trimming needs to be done, earlier in the week the rail lines
were sprayed for weeds an grass in the right of the way. So the mainline
will look nice for the summer season. Now we have to look forward to the bees
and yellow jackets nesting anywhere in the rail equipment.
 
Next week is board meeting at 8am, with the membership meeting on May 17th
at 8AM, due to tourist train operations. Expect for short meetings.
 
The wye continues to be be cleaned up with brush piled high. A couple more truck
load of wood was picked up and brought to the west end of the shop for spliting
and stacking done by Mark Kniebel. A very big pile is now at the west end.
 
Les painted the IC symbol on the platform diesel with 1 Spot paint. Its now
a completed project.
 
Richard Warner is headed west to Wyoming this week for the arrival of UP 4014
in Cheyenne and chasing it the last couple of miles into town. Have a good time
Richard. I wonder what Richard will do for the museum on this trip, maybe a
hopper ballast car?
 
Everyone have a good week, days are longer now, more to get done outside
but don't over do it. I did yesterday and feeling the pain this morning. Five more
weeks of school, with extended school days again starting the 12th for 6 days to
make up for a snow day..
 
Tom