Greetings -
Hope that everyone had a wonderful Independence Day. I had a late arrival at the museum due to cleanup from the get together at our house on the 4th, as we enjoyed the local Crown Point parade. Hope other parades were as good as ours.
Bruce Emmons ran the gift shop and sold tickets today as Bob Barcus was a crewman on the trains, and Loretta and Doug were not in attendance. Others on the train included Bjarne Henderson and Steve Henrichs. John La Orange was engineer.
Mark Knebel, Cory Bennett and Dave Cook were "cleaning up" the right-of-way after spending their Fourth of July putting in ties at the switch out at the Main Street end of the property.
I painted the black lettering on the two concrete posts that were planted in the east flower bed last Saturday and then started removing loose paint from the "miniature" crossing bucks located at the crosswalk over the museums main line just to the west of the depot building.
Steve Henrichs and Steve Newland were talking outside of Grasselli Tower and I joined them and Fred Boyer up in the tower as we attempted to put in the first two long cast iron radiators along the south wall. Those mama's are heavy, but we managed to lift and position the first, and then the second radiator on the supports that Steve Newland had custom built. Steve then screwed both into place. We then moved one of the radiators laying against the north wall on to temporary supports so that Steve can attach the radiator supports to the wall on that side. So much for work on the tower this week!
Joe Baker reported that he had finished with the electrical work and that there is now power into the Troop Sleeper. Great job Joe! On another, non-museum item, but of interest locally, Joe reported that the move of the Grand Trunk Western depot in Valparaiso has begun. The station has been moved and rotated 90 degrees and this coming week, Canadian National will take down flashers and gates so that Dillabaugh can move the building across the CN (ex-GTW) tracks. After that is completed, the depot has to be turned another 90 degrees before moving into its final location. Nice that the historic station has been saved.
In the afternoon, I painted the crossing bucks mentioned earlier and then put a coat of white paint on the two concrete posts in the east flower bed. The photo included, shows the painted posts. Quite a difference from last week. By the way, the west flower bed can be seen in this photo off in the distance. These two flower beds were put in to protect the wooden electric poles that visitors had a habit of backing in to and have done the job! I then went over and touched up the black lettering on the crossing bucks. I neglected to mention last week that the C&EI Property Line concrete post had been donated to HVRM by Charles Graves back around January of 2003. So good that it has finally been put back in the ground!
By this time, the "gandy dancers" were finished with their track work and Mark Knebel came over and attached the green shade he had repainted for the light over his office (photo attached).
The La Crosse train again ran in a push out/pull in configuration as the switch on the wye in La Crosse is apparently still not repaired so that we want to take our train though that trackwork.
As the La Crosse train was arriving back in North Judson, I signed out and headed for home.
Enjoy the upcoming week everyone.
Les
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