Howdy!
One of those great early fall days! Lots of sunshine, with temps in the mid-50's moving up to the low 60's by the end of the day.
Only one train today, departing at 1:30 p.m. for La Crosse. This enabled some switching of equipment after the early morning
Board meeting concluded. Student engineer John Kimsey was at the throttle much of the day under the watchful eye of
engineer John DeGan, with Bob Albert as Conductor. Doug Kosloske was also in the crew. Car hosts included Randall Downs,
Joe Kingsbury and Steve Newland. Motive power was Interlake Steel GE #11.
Mark Knebel needed to use the Orton crane along with NKP gondola car 45622, so the crew pulled out the three cars in front
of the crane and set them over on the main line. Then down to dig out the gon from the storage track on the east end. Mark
got the crane fired up while this was all going on, then ran down east past the depot while the train crew pushed the cars to
be used on the La Crosse train back into the caboose siding so that the crane could squeeze by for the east end. After the
crane was in the clear, the crew pulled out the 6 cars to be used on the Lacrosse train and then ran back west and coupled
on to the 3 cars still sitting on the main line. These were pulled east, with number 11 having no problems with the 9 cars. After
the 3 cars were put back, the train ran back east past the depot and parked.
Doug needed to do the 92 day inspection on the EL Alco, so he fired the unit up so that it could be moved over to the inspection
pit on Track 2 of the Shop. Also started up was the U.P. tamper. The tamper moved out of Track 2 into the clear, the Alco came
out of Track 1 and switched over to Track 2. Then the tamper moved back in to the Shop, ahead of the Alco. Lots of interesting
movements for some of our guests who were catching everything with their cameras.
Bob Barcus found a heavy duty peg board in great condition and this was moved into IC display caboose #9914 by Bob, Steve
Newland, Joe Baker and myself.
Meanwhile, Fred Boyer was working on sanding the repaired windowsills up on the second floor of Grasselli Tower (see photo
at left at the end of this report). Lots of visitors arrived early for the train, so Fred also provided information on the tower itself.
I provided some information to visitors who ventured into the troop sleeper. Later in the morning, Steve and Fred started in on
one of the towers first floor windows. This is the first concentrated effort to work on the first floor windows. Steve is shown in
the photo below, taking the rotten windowsill out. Needless to say, although rotten, the windowsill didn't want to come out! Then
in the afternoon, Fred cut a new sill out of very heavy wood stock, and I helped him move it into place with Fred giving it a coat
of primer paint to protect it.
The new galvanized gutters for the tower have arrived. Hopefully, they will be installed sometime before winter sets in.
The third photo shows the Orton Purdue crane at work taking the old ballast/dirt out of the gondola and putting it into the pile
next to Main Street. At this point, Mark was in the gon supervising the dropping of the clamshell, with Cory Bennett at the controls.
Also working on this project, was Dave Cook who was operating the Payloader and keeping the ballast/dirt piles in reasonable
order!
There seemed to be a good crowd on the train today, although I don't have an actual count of passengers. There were also
quite a few visitors who toured the grounds, but did not ride the train. This is okay, as we are a museum and an educational
organization and always glad to show visitors around. The signals all worked today. Erie semaphore 921.1 has been a bit balky
in the past, but performed perfectly today. It too, must have been enjoying the great weather!
Others working at the museum today included Loretta Kosloske selling tickets and later riding the train and Bob Barcus handling
gift shop duties in the depot. Bob Jachim was flagman and Margret Cook and Diane Bennett provided lunch. Bing Risley was
cutting grass on his riding lawn mower.
Hoping the weather holds and that everyone has a great week!
Les
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