Cold greets last Santa trains of season 12/19/15

Hi folks!

Bright sun but cold temps and bitter wind at Hoosier Valley today.  Temps in 20's and low 30's all day and the wind made it feel much colder.  All three Santa trains sold out with a lot of kiddies meeting Mr. Claus and telling him of their Christmas wishes.

John LaOrange was engineer on EL Alco # 310 today with Doug Kosloske as conductor.  Greeting riders in their authentic railroad uniforms were Joe Kingsbury and Bud Tibbie (see first photo; that's Joe on the right).

Bob Jachim and I shared flagman duties at the Mulberry Street crossing today, with Steve Henrichs the flagman out at the other road crossings up to English Lake.

In last weeks report, I included a couple of photos of the efforts being done to put the sand dome back on Kanawha # 2789 but wasn't around to see the final result.  Since John DeGan had GE diesel #11 fired up and idling today as it served as the back up unit for number 310, I asked John if he would pull the 2-8-4 out of the Shop for some photos.  John, with Steve acting as conductor, pulled the locomotive out and I got a photo (see number 2 below).

Managed to make it into the Shop and found the boys hard at work on C&EI tool car #A-1054.  In the third photo, Dave Cook is shown cutting a new piece of steel to replace a rusted out section.  The next photo shows Tom Rainford trying out a new window for the A-1054 to see how it fits (that's Rich Warner behind Tom).  And then we see Rich in the next photo, welding the window frame itself into place. The next shot shows Cory Bennett cutting off a piece of rusted out steel on the end of the car.  And then we have Tom trying to straighten out a different window frame on the car.  Tom looked in the Shop for a heavy C clamp, and actually found the one in the photo.  There has been a lot of the new floor put into this car too, and this work should probably move ahead more quickly now that the last passenger trains have run this season.

Finally, the radiator on GE #11 has been leaking badly and the decision to pull it and send it out for a rebuild has been made.  As the last Santa train was on its way back to North Judson, John DeGan was preparing to drain the water from the unit.  The last photo shows him dragging some of the excess water hose back into the East Annex of the Shop.  There are days that will seem to drag this winter.  One way to overcome that feeling is to come out on a Saturday and spend a few hours helping out at HVRM.  Skill is not necessary.  We WILL find something for you to do!  Give it your consideration.

And now, as we enter Christmas week, I want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas.  Have a great one!

Les  

         

Big move at HVRM 12/12/15

Greetings!

Old man winter is apparently still on vacation as the above average temps continued at Hoosier Valley this past Saturday.  Got up to 63 degrees according to the thermometer on the Road Crossing Shanty!

Speaking of the Shanty, the nice weather enabled me to work on the second section of the lettering on the door (see the first photo).

Paul Bunyan, er, correction....Mark Knebel, continued cutting down trees along the right of way northwest of Arlington Street between the track and English Lake Road.

Santa trains continued and all 3 trains were sold out again.  Motive power was EL Alco # 310, with John DeGan at the throttle and Bob Albert the conductor.  Bud Tibbie and Joe Kingsbury in their conductor uniforms, handled the crowd in Long Island passenger coach 2937, assisted by Rich Warner.  Santa of course, was there too.  Loretta says a few spaces are available for just one of the trains next Saturday, and those will probably be gone early this week.

Since I was working on the Shanty lettering, I didn't get a chance to take any photos although I did walk back to the West Annex of the Shop and noticed that there was work going on in C&EI tool car #A-1054 on the floor and that the center section of concrete had been poured earlier in the week between the rails on the track section.  Photos coming in the future.

Later in the afternoon, I noticed activity down around out in front of the east side of the Shop.  First, GE diesel #11 had pulled number 2789 outside.  Then Cory Bennett and John LaOrange were working with the payloader on a steel light pole.  And then when I looked down there...holy cow!  Grabbed the camera, and the results are shown in the other photos.   The one on the left shows the sand dome being lifted up onto the boiler with John LaOrange on the running board and Scott Griffith up on top and Cory at the controls of the payloader.  At this time, it was realized that the brackets holding the sand dome in place, needed to be put on.  Not remembering this is not surprising because I have been at Hoosier Valley since 1991 and the dome has been off of the Kanawha's boiler all of this time!  A search found the missing brackets, bolts were unscrewed and in the second photo, Scott is shown putting one of the bottom dome brackets on.  Finally in the last photo, Scott is shown on the top of the boiler putting one of the domes side brackets in place while John LaOrange and Matt Lasayko work on other parts and Steve Newland is shown climbing up the steps to help out while Cory and Tom Travis watch from the ground.  I had to get back to my lettering at this time to try to finish up, but it's my understanding that the sand dome was successfully put into place.  A long time coming, this is great news for the continued cosmetic restoration of the Chesapeake & Ohio 2-8-4. 

Have a great week everyone.  Supposed to get back to winter temps by the end of this week.

Les

      

First day of Santa trains at Hoosier Valley 12/5/15

Greetings!

Cold day for the first Saturday of Santa trains at HVRM.  Never got much above the mid-30's all day.  All three trains were sold out; the museum using only LIRR coach # 2937 for passengers.  EJ&E 184, our handicap accessible caboose was in the consist but not needed.  Motive power was Erie S-1 # 310, with the 95-ton GE fired up and acting as stand-by power.

Although the Santa trains were the main source of attention today, there were a few other things going on at the museum.  The first photo shows Bob Jachim giving a talk on C&O 2-8-4 # 2789 to some of the riders.  The second photo shows that a crew spread sand for the other portion of the concrete pour for the floor in the back end of the West Annex.  The wire mesh was not put down because this coming week, concrete will be delivered to cover the track itself between the rails.  The part with the forms and sand will have concrete installed a bit later. 

Mark Knebel recently sent out an e-mail showing museum members in Watervliet, Michigan, dismantling track that had been donated to Hoosier Valley. That got me to thinking about all of the places we have done similar operations through the years.  Mark filled me in on a couple that I didn't know about or had forgotten.  Since the activity at HVRM was a little light today, I thought I would recap these places where we secure rail and components in this museum report.  Here is the list:

1.   Leroy, Indiana (grain elevator spur off of the old Pennsylvania Railroad)

2.   Cravens plant siding (North Judson off of New York Central)

3.   Vanek Elevator siding track (North Judson off of New York Central)

4.   Hammond, Indiana (storage yard tracks off of the old Nickel Plate Road)

5.   Monticello, Indiana (Toledo, Peoria & Western 1600' siding)

6.   Chicago, Illinois (one or two semi-loads of rail from ACME Steel)

7.   Monticello, Indiana (NIPSCO siding)

8.   Wanatah, Indiana (Packaging Corp. of America spur off of old Pennsylvania Railroad)

9.   West Lafayette, Indiana (13 sticks of 90# rail from Purdue University)

10. Watervliet, Michigan (from closed paper plant)

11. Kingsbury, Indiana (industrial park unused track)

12. South Bend, Indiana (Studebaker plant building)

Some of these were small donations but others were quite large.   HVRM has been quite blessed to have received these donations through the years of the museums existence.  It is always looking for more track, and especially for switches (turnouts) at this time.  If anyone knows about abandoned track that might be available, please let the museum know about it.

Thanks.  And have a great week.

Les  

 

     

A Rube Goldberg type "invention" highlights HVRM 11/28/15

Greeting to All,
 
Photos were provided by Les Beckman. Pretty well shows the activities of the past week an this
past Saturday. Les came up with the Rube Goldberg saying. Its an idea of using a furnace fan to
help move the heat at the ceiling around the buildings lower levels.

Photo 1 - New concrete pad in the West Annex-Was poured last Tuesday. Approx 7.5

yards was used. Workers were Cory, Dave, John an unknown other person.

Photo 2 - Dave Cook and Cory Bennett at work on the "invention" in the West Annex over the wood furnace.

Photo 3 - Cory and Dave set the "invention" (blower) in place.

Photo 4 - By gum, it works!  Congrats to Cory and Dave!

Photo 5 - Oil tank beneath C&EI tool car #A-1054 which needs to be removed. While the floor

is open, torching off the old kerosene or fuel oil tank was performed. Could be used to store

fuel for some machines.

Photo 6 - Cory with torch, cutting off the supports for said tank.

Joe Kingsbury worked on the tool car floor putting floor supports in. Every one needs to be

cut to the profile of the metal in the car. A very tedious job. Some of the flooring is down,

providing a stable place to stand on.

 

Bob Barcus & Bob Jachim were her early to open up the depot, Margret provide lunch for

the workers.

 

Next weekend will be busy, the Santa Claus Trains will  start. I'm sure a lot of members will show

up to provide assistance. Come on out an enjoy the Christmas spirt at HVRM

 

Everyone have a good week. Hard to go back to work after being off for 5 days, but it

will be a short 3 weeks till Christmas vacation for school workers.

 

Tom Travis

Green light for snow at HVRM 11/21/15

Greetings!

Tough going to get to Hoosier Valley today.  Had to keep the speed down due to the first big snow of 2015 coming in late last night and this morning!  Would guess over 6 inches on the ground.  Depot platform was shoveled at least three times that I know of, one of which I did after I finally arrived.

Needless to say, the snow curtailed outside museum activities although Mark Knebel was out cutting wood into chunks for the wood furnace in the West Annex of the Shop.  Speaking of which, the inside temp of the Main Shop/East Annex was at 41 degrees each time I walked by the thermometer.  In the meantime, the temp in the insulated West Annex stood at a nice comfy 60 degrees!

In the depot this morning, Loretta Kosloske, Louis Kingsbury and daughter and granddaughter, and Margaret Cook and granddaughters, were working on Christmas decorations to use for our upcoming Santa trains which will be operated the first thsree Saturdays in December.  Loretta talked Bob Albert into drilling some holes in the hats of some small ceramic Santa's so that string could be pushed through their hats!  I gave Bob a hand on one of the displays he is setting up in ICRR caboose # 9914.  He has about half of the displays for the car planned. 

Bob Barcus was manning the depot gift shop this morning and pointed out that someone had apparently dropped to O gauge scale model of our Pullman Troop Sleeper damaging one end.  Bob is looking for someone who might be able to do a repair to the car.  Wish I could help.  The Troop Sleeper is paired with a U.S. Army Kitchen Car and our O gauge Indiana Harbor Belt 0-8-0 as a display in the gift shop.  

Todays snowfall is shown in the first photo looking east with our Erie searchlight signal 908.2 showing a high green.  The green is an indication of the museums future!  The Bi-monthly membership/business meeting was held this afternoon and the snowfall didn't stop members from attending.  Lots of interesting things discussed including the operator of our short line connecting railroad.  Other info will be in the upcoming museum newsletter.

I was looking for something else up in the storage shelved in the East Annex of the Shop and was surprised to find three glass number boards in steel frames.  Could these possibly be three of the missing number board from our Whitcomb diesel?  Walked over from the Shop to where Whitcomb # 509 was parked and yes, the whole fit the studs exactly!  These studs are all broken off and will have to be drilled out and new steel studs installed.  Not a job for a winter snowfall day!  Not sure where the fourth number board is; my guess is that it's probably missing.

The second photo shows the area prepared for a concrete pour in the north side of the West Annex.  Discussing the upcoming pour are (from left to right) Cory Bennett, Bud Tibbie, Fred Boyer, Jeff "Heff" Back and Dave Cook.  The concrete truck is due early next week.  After this section is poured, then the section on the other side of the track will be next and then finally, the cement over the track itself.

The next three pictures show work going on inside of the C&EI tool car #A-1054.  The first of the three photos shows Doug Kosloske taking some measurements for the new floor joists while Dave looks on.  The second photo shows Joe Kingsbury hammering a plywood section over to make a tight fit, and the last shot shows Rich Warner (in the window) discussing with Cory, the new steel window frame he made.  I believe there are 14 windows in the car and Rich wanted to make sure that the frames would work.

Although the temps tonight are supposed to drop into the teens and highs will only be in the 20's tomorrow (Sunday), a warm up is due next week with 60's in the forecast.  So the snow WILL melt.  At least this one!

Have a great week everyone.  And have a most enjoyable Thanksgiving!

Les   

HVRM Moves NKP 344 to Shop, 14 Nov, 2015

 Greetings to All,

 

Pictures were taken of the move of car NKP 344 down to the roundhouse track for

easy access. Scott Griffith is going to start putting appliances back on the C&O 2789.

The last picture is Fred Boyer moving the motor car back into the shop area. The gas

tank was filled up by Cory, an some members took a ride down to IN 10 on the C&O line.

Believe it is the first time used by HVRM since tie replacement program over the summer.

 

Did not attend the board meeting, but arrived to help fill batteries on the GE with distilled

water. The engine crew moved the LIRR coach back down to the tourist train track. Work

continues on the air conditioner/heating unit.

 

Mark called into the Wooden Nickel for a lunch of broasted chicken, cole slaw, potato slices,

an biscuits. Joe Kingsbury brought a cake for desert.

 

Engine crew in record time, moved the NKP 344 to near the shop area. Done by 2:30pm.

 

The track diamond has been situated near the tower on ballast, for display.

 

The day started out cold, 25 degrees, but warmed into the 60's by afternoon, nice for sitting

in the sun on the depot deck. Of course, a couple of people showed up for a train ride, but instead

just looked around the grounds. At least they got to see some train action.

 

Next week is membership meeting at 1pm 21 November in the depot. Last chance to sign up

for a board member position  5 December.

 

Hope to see you at the meeting.

 

Tom Travis

November 7, 2015 HVRM Small Projects

Greetings to All,
 

---

Here are  the photos from today.  First one shows Cory and Dave (partially hidden) working on door in NKP kitchen car.  Second is of Joe Baker working on electric at NKP kitchen car.  The

third is of Fred Boyer grinding off old paint on levers in Grasselli Tower.  Last is C&EI tool car #A-1054 with Rich Warner using torch to cut off rusted steel with Joe Kinsbury in the background working on putting insulation in between new floor joists.

 

Thanks to Les Beckman for taking pictures yesterday.

 

I sort of got down to HVRM later in the morning, upon arrival, in the shop, a crew

had taken off the old west end door on the kitchen car. I think John LaOrange

donated a uses door an it was being sized up to the old kitchen door. After many

ideas, a 2x4 was added to the bottom to extend the door length. Door brought back

to the kitchen car, inserted to see how it fit, exactly right. Now came chiseling out

wood for the hinges. With the door now attached, it still would not close, so shaving

off some of the other edge finally got the door to close. Installing the outer board

was much more difficult. The steel was extremely tough to drill thru, resulting in

broken drills. After what should only took 10 minutes, resulting over an hour

trying to get screws into the wood to the steel plate. Finally got it closed up.

 

Joe Baker got another LED light up to 16 foot outside of the kitchen car.

 

Fred Boyer an Les worked on grinding paint off the switch levers in the tower.

A slow tedious project.

 

Joe Kingsbury an Richard Warner worked on the LIRR coach electrical system

for the upcoming Santa trains. After lunch, they worked on the tool car in the shop

working on the floor insulation panels.

 

Just sort of a catch up day on little projects around the museum. Next Saturday

morning will be the monthly board meeting. The following Saturday will be the

membership meeting at 1pm in the depot.

 

The engineer program had at least 5 or 6 drivers for the day.

 

Take care, have a good week.

Les & Tom

Fall Harvest at HVRM on a Rainy Day 10-31-2015

Happy Halloween to All,
 
Saturday was not a good day at HVRM, rainy, cold, an downright miserable outside. But most
of the work was all inside today. A good crowd showed up to do some sort of inside work.
Train crew consisted of Steve Hendrics, engineer, John LaOrange, Bjarne Henderson, conductor.
Bob Barcus an Loretta Koslovske manned the depot selling tickets an gift shop items. A guest
engineer started out the morning runs, an the 12:30 train to English Lake had 55 riders. The
2pm train had not quite 20 to La Crosse for a quick turnaround due to the rainy conditions
outside.
 
Les Beckman worked in Grasselli tower giving tours to visitors an painting the numbers
on the switch levers. 
 
Track work inside the west building went on with tamping ballast, getting sand inside the

building for a base for the concrete. Cory, David, Tom T an Tom, Mark worked on the

project. Bud was around, but his knee was giving him problems again, so he went home.

 

Fred worked on the tool car doing some grinding an sweeping the floor.

 

Not exactly a great day, but some things were worked on. Its getting that time of year when

the days get shorter an colder, so the wood stove will be fired up soon to warm the building.

 

No trains till December, for 3 weekends Santa will do his thing.

 

Have a good week. 
 
 

Night ride and other stuff at HVRM on 10/24/15

Hello folks!

Board meeting at Hoosier Valley this morning.  Interesting discussions and reports.

We had a special Guest Engineer after the meeting.

Tom Travis, Bud Tibbie and I moved the new screen doors that Ross Robinson has built for B&LE caboose #1989 into the GTW caboose for safekeeping.  We will try to work on these after the Bessemer caboose is taken out of service once the passenger train season ends in December.

I tried to repair some of the brick in the pathway leading into the Erie shed.  Worked out okay, except I have to spread some sand in between the various reworked brick.

I did some more lettering on the door of the Road Crossing Watchman's Shanty.  The day had been mild but cloudy and threatening all day and then all of a sudden, the sky opened up and we got a very heavy shower for a good 10 minutes.  We need the rain.  With things now wet, I wandered down to the Shop and found work ongoing on the track at the back end of the West Annex of the Shop.  The first photo shows Dave Cook (left) and Tom Rainford, spreading stone amongst the now leveled track while Tom Travis looks on.  The second shot shows Cory Bennett in the Payloader getting set to pick up the stone and move it toward the back wall for the boys to get to it easier.  In the third photo, Tom is getting a shovel full out of the bucket while the others spread theirs in between the ties.  Next job to be done before adding the cement floor will be to tamp the ballast down between the ties.

Bob Barcus was Conductor for the Halloween Train to La Crosse today and he got ahold of some of us to try to find some car hosts for the run.  I ended up hosting folks in the B&LE caboose.  Others similarly employed included Tom Travis, Bud Tibbie, Joe Kingsbury, Randall Downs, Matt Downs and Richard Warner.  Doug Kosloske was engineer with Bob Albert as fireman/front end brakeman.  John DeGan fired up Alco # 310 as standby motive power.  This train is our only train of the day and leaves at 4:00 p.m. with a special live animal show outside of the La Crosse Library for riders.  Departure from La Crosse is about 6:00 which means a night ride back to the museum.  Doug lights up his kerosene marker lights on the caboose for the return trip and I tried to get a shot of those markers after our arrival back at the North Judson depot (photo 4).   Also tried to get a shot looking down the track toward Grasselli Tower, the Shop building and some of our signals, the results of which are shown in the last photo.

Have a great week everyone!

Les

   

Pumpkins Trains 10-17-2015

Greetings,

A cool but beautiful day Saturday for the end of a very successful Pumpkin Train event. A total
of over 480 plus people rode the train for Saturday. Many happy  riders with the best pumpkins
for last.
 
Trains crew consisted of John LaOrange as engineer, Bob Albert conductor. Tom Travis EJ&E car, Randall
Down & Matt Downs in the MKT open  air car, Joe Kingsbury Richard Warner LIRR coach, Bud Erie caboose,
Tom NKP caboose.  In the depot were Bob Barcus an Loretta Kosloske. Margret  Cook provide lunch. Cory
Bennitt, David Cook, Mark Kniebel set up an put out pumpkins at the park. Mark Kniebel provided road
crossing guard, Bob Jachim provided crossing guard at museum & IN 10 & 39 crossing.
 
Fred Boyer came over only to look around after having bypass surgery some 10 days ago, looks good.
Elmer Manning had a hospital visit an has an inner ear infection, send him a greeting at elm.mm3@comcast.net

to cheer him up.
 
A group of 14 HVRM workers got together at the Wooden Nickel for dinner Saturday evening, good  time
had by everyone.
 
Next week at 8am is monthly board meeting in the depot. November is monthly membership meeting
is now at 1 pm on November 21st.
 
Everyone have a good week, enjoy the last nice days of summer, on November 1st fall back 1 hour at 2am.
 
Tom Travis  

Pumpkin Train Attendance Great on 10-10-2015

Greetings,
 
Saturday dawned downright cold here at North Judson. But it  warmed up to comfortable
temps by noon. Not a cloud in the sky, made it a great day for the pumpkin patch.
 
I arrived late Saturday morning for the 10am train, having slept in a bit longer than normal.
The train was pulling out of the station as I arrived. Went to have a cup of coffee in the
kitchen car an a bite to eat, then into the depot to see what was going on. Helped Bob
Barcus with tickets an orange tickets for pumpkins an putting them into a box for later
retrieval. Soon people started to show up for the 12:30pm train an handed out prepaid
tickets packets. Kept the ticket lines down to a minimum. About 12:15 a request for a
car host on the EJ&E handicap car went out, I volunteered in a flash. Ran the wheel
chair lift for a number of folks during the afternoon. Enjoyed the nice train ride up to
English Lake an out to the park area. Unloading an loading have been speeded up with
newly dumped gravel spotted for steps on all cars. The train was unloaded in record time.
 
Cory, David, Mark were busy at the park with placing pumpkins on the grass. Mark provided
crossing protection at grade crossing. A larger force for IN 10 grade crossing was in effect
during the day, plus signals worked great also.
 
Bob, Loretta worked in the gift shop/ticket areas. The G guage train ran for the crowds of
kids inside the depot. Plenty of pottys spotted out back of the depot  helped in keeping long
lines inside to a minimum.
 
The monthly board meeting has been moved to October 24th at 8am, due to on going
operations on the 10th. Next weekend will have 3 more pumpkin trains. A count of just
over 500 people was reported for Saturday. A membership meeting will be held November
21st at 1pm in the depot. Nominations for President, Treasurer, 2 director positions are
up for vote in January. Sign up sheet is in the kitchen car. Saw Joe Baker working near
 Tom  Tittles storage van putting in an electrical panel an possibly a yard light on a wood
pole. Engineer was John DeGan, Conductor was Steve Hendrics. A number of other members
were car hosts on different cars for the day. Richard Warner, Joe Kingsbury, Randall Downs,
Bud, Bob Albert made up the car hosts. Not much of anything else was done for the day.
 
See you next week for the pumpkin trains.
 
Tom Travis 
           

Identities restored at HVRM 10/7/15

Greetings!

Had an opportunity to go to Hoosier Valley today, a rather rare Wednesday happening.  I wanted to try to finish the renumbering on the cab sides of our historic 44-ton Whitcomb after Mark Knebel recently painted the unit.  As you can see from the first photo, I managed to get the job done!  A word about the number.  For years, the Whitcomb has carried the number 27.  This is not a number that the unit wore in regular service, but at the time, we did not have the units history.  We now know that history and one of the numbers she carried was 509 which is the number used in this repainting.  Mark has asked me to put some protection in the four number board on the units hoods to help prevent water from entering.  A project for the near future!

Another recent Knebel project was the repainting of a couple of EJ&E artifacts; a Fairmont Boom Car and a push car with an installed tool box for supplies.  Mark painted these in blue and they look sharp sitting on display.  He added the old EJ&E lettering except omitted the EJ&E number of the push car.  I added this number (G1) a few weeks ago but since I didn't have a roman letter style "G", I used an "O".  Looked pretty crappy I must admit.  Today I touched up that letter, and the second photo shows one of those revised letters.  I think it looks a bit better now.  You may think differently!

Great weather today.  Sunny and in the 70's.  Had a visitor while I was working and was able to show him the Shop and Grasselli Tower in between these projects.  Lots of minor stuff like this at the museum that doesn't take a heck of a lot of work but which adds enjoyment for those who visit.  If you've ever thought of coming out, we can always find something for you to do! 

Les   

Cool wind blows summer away at Hoosier Valley 10/3/15

Gents -

Not a long report today as most of the museum members were working the first Saturday of Pumpkin trains.  I was ticket collector and host in

B&LE caboose #1989.  Temps were in the low 50's with a brisk wind blowing.  Not many riders chose the open air car today. 

Joe Baker did some additional electrical work.

Bud Tibbie planted some mums that Loretta Kosloske secured earlier in the week (see photo).

Tom Travis represented the museum at a train show in Plymouth, Indiana today.

Jon Oram has recently add a new farm field to the N scale display layout in the Pullman Troop Sleeper.

Good to see Dan and Dee Siple, who rode the second train today.

I've also included a photo of folks on the second of the three trains as they picked up their pumpkins out at the pumpkin patch.  New gravel was

recently put down in an effort to make unloading of the cars a bit easier and some of that effort is visible in this photo.  

Have a great week!

Les

Late summer day at Monticello

Gents -

Went to the Monticello Railway Museum today for Railroad Days and took this late afternoon shot of Southern Railway #401 departing Nelson's Crossing for the Monticello,

Illinois depot.  Nice weather today and an enjoyable time riding, viewing and photographing, the various trains and venues at MRM.

Les 

Different work goes on at HVRM 9/19/15

Folks -

Lots of different things going on at Hoosier Valley today, not everything as planned.  Which is normal!  No membership meeting today account lacking a quorum.

Day started out with drizzle and temps around 60, but guest engineers were in evidence as usual.  Steve Henrichs and John DeGan in the cab with Bob Albert as conductor.  I helped Tom Travis move the new screen doors that Ross Robinson made up in Canada for B&LE caboose #1989.  Ross is down in the U.S. for vacation and dropped the doors off at Tom's.  Terrific work by Ross!  Since the B&LE caboose is currently not running, we'll have a bit of time to put the doors in place.

Tom and I then went over to Fingerhut Bakery where Mr. Travis purchased a dozen donuts for the guys.  Yum!  Thank you Tom!

As the drizzle faded away, I moved out the last piece of furniture that had been in GTW transfer caboose #75072 and Mark Knebel and I hauled it down to C&NW box car #284 for storage.

Mark wanted to put our old equipment stencils into the now nearly vacant 75072 but noticed that there had been some leakage in the side wall of the car.  Turns out that the bucket that covered the stove opening had cracked and water was getting in.  I put the man lift over to the caboose and took off the bucket and spent the day, on and off, putting the old smoke jack back on.  The two photos show the before and after shots of the caboose, the first with the white bucket in place and the second showing the smoke jack, back where it belongs.

On one of my trips back to the Shop for parts, I found that the boys were working on putting ties and rails in the second bay of the West Annex.  A number of folks worked on this at times, but my photo shows David Cook in the foreground and Tom Rainford down at the back end of the track.

This work was delayed for a while due to some folks coming in to pick up some surplus oil in barrels that had been sold to them.

Fred Boyer was doing some needle scaling on C&EI tool car A-1054 (see fourth photo).

Mark moved some tables into GTW 75072 and laid out the stencils on them.  He is going to hang some of them from nails in the caboose walls.

Joe Baker was doing some electrical work on the NKP kitchen car (see fifth photo).

Good to see Ron Marquardt and Tom Kepshire at the museum today.  Ron is a retired Monon and L&N locomotive engineer and Tom runs the Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society website.  Bob Albert asked if I could car host the trip to La Crosse, and so I took time to do that.  By this time the sun had come out, temp moved into the 70's and a nice crowd had showed up to ride both of the museum train trips.  I took time to take a shot of some of the crowd reloading in La Crosse (last photo).

Have a good week everyone!

Les