Greetings -
Board meeting at 8:00 a.m. today at the museum. Treasurer Bob Barcus was one of the conductors on the train today, so was a late arrival.
GE #11 was on the passenger train today. My daughter donated a couple of Iris plants, so I took a few minutes to plant them in one of the flower beds. Trying to make the grounds a bit more beautiful!
Mark Knebel, Tom Travis, Dave Cook and John LaOrange spent the day working on replacing 8 or 10 old switch ties with new ones out near Main Street. The day started out misty and cloudy but soon turned sunny and humid. Hard hot work for those guys today! Ties pulled out were really in poor shape, so the change was necessary.
Tom and I had visited Illinois Railway Museum last Sunday where we spotted a Trailer Train flat car with some bridge plates, similar to the ones that I've been working on at Hoosier Valley. Tom noted that the smooth side (side where the truck were move over) were actually painted white. I got a confirmation on this from Jim Panza, so I decided that our two bridge plates had to be so painted. Bob Albert told me that there was a container of non-skid sand in the shop, so I added some to the paint before I painted the plates. The photo included is of the one bridge plate repainted, before I started in on the second one.
Work at Grasselli Tower was ongoing. Fred Boyer painted the window sills on the two second floor east windows. Later in the day, Fred told me that he had put the two timers we have back up on wall of the tower. I didn't see them, but will check it out next week.
Also, Steve Newland primed the six radiator braces he built. This brings to 22, the total number of braces which means we can start installing the cast iron radiators themselves. Finally, attached is a photo of Steve painted some of the chair rails that go under the windows on the towers interior. Steve started out hatless, but when that sun came out, he needed the protection from its rays!
I talked to a few visitors in the Troop Sleeper today and noted that the N gauge Pennsy train had derailed on the Erie diamonds. Need to call out the wrecker, or perhaps Jon Oram.
Tom and I noted last Saturday at the museum, that the sign that stands at the Mulberry Street entrance, was starting to look a bit ragged. So, after lunch, I found some old black latex paint, and rolled over the wonderful sign that Joe had made. On the deep letter cut-in from the router that Joe Kingsbury had used for the name of the museum, the roller worked well. But not so on the smaller lettering, which had a shallower cut. So had to find some paint to touch up those letters. During that effort, clouds and rain clouds moved in and I did a hurry-up job. Rain finally came, but not heavy, despite the thunder. Probably rained heavier after the museum was closed up for the day.
The last run of the passenger train of the day was another push-all-the way to La Crosse. Apparently, there was another problem with the wye up there, and it was not available for the GE to run around it and get on the front end for the trip back to the museum.
Rich Warner, Joe and I moved the benches off of the platform and in to the depot. With that, I called it a day.
Have a good week.
Les
No comments:
Post a Comment