Greetings to all,
Hope everyone is enjoying some spring type weather. Yes it will snow near Chicago tomorrow, but won't last
long with 60's coming Wednesday. Another busy week for driving school bus, up to close to 40 hours a week
for the past 3 months, but that will slack off soon an be able to get some projects done around the house.
A very welcome guest showed up Monday afternoon, Jeff & Cathy Jacobs from Bath Maine for an evening of
dinner an long time catch up news. They are on cross country trip in a Winnebago camper an visiting sights
of interest, from Florida to California. Jeff & Cathy wanted to tour Kentucky and the southern states before
returning to Maine in a couple of weeks. Jeff was able to glimpse the ballast cleaning Tuesday an movement
of equipment to the passing siding in preparation for rail equipment coming in for tie replacement soon.
Arriving late to North Judson on Saturday was viewing the ballast cleaning operation. This project has
gone on all week an estimates of 700 tons of ballast has been cleaned an piled up along the rail line. Some
slight setbacks early in the week, the payloader's waterpump broke a shaft an took 24 hours to replace,
Many helped all week, Cory Bennitt, John LaOrange, Joe Kingsbury, Dave Cook, Bing Ringsley, Corky,
Richard Warner, Bob Jachim,may of missed some, but a lot of ballast was cleaned for tie replacement
project an for future projects. Fines (dirt, small stones, etc) what the machine extracted an piled along
the C&I ROW, will be removed by Troike Farms for use in some projects. It makes good base for roads,
filling in potholes etc. Thanks very much to all for a intense work week. Ballast cleaning concluded
Saturday afternoon and next week the machine will be removed. Special thanks to Mark Kniebel
for the endless time an effort of walking the 6 miles marking ties an calculating exactly where ties
are needed.. Years of effort have gone into this project, along with the help of the City of North Judson,
countless delays, mountains of paperwork involved, Government issues, it has finally come to
this point. WELL DONE to everyone involved.
During the week, 4500 ties, including switch ties, were brought in by semi truck, unloaded an stacked
along the C&I passing siding for the tie crew. Shortly rail equipment will be brought in an unloaded on
the street crossing and stored next to the shop building. Four day weeks, 10 hours a day, for however
amount of time it will take to replace ties, ballast, spike, tamp, level will be allotted. Work will start
at the English Lake end an work towards end of line at North Judson. Rail equipment will be stored
each night at the shop under watchful security. The rail line on weekends will be open for museum
operations of tourist trains.
Most of the shop activity was Joe Kingsbury an Richard Warner working on the ND&W 5332 diesel
tracing wiring in the cab. Fred Boyer and someone else painted primer on the outside of the tool
car.
After lunch, the HVRM general membership meeting was held in the depot waiting area. A large crowd
was in attendance. Reports were given an updates given on all projects. Big discussion was about the
crowd expected at the Easter trains on April 4th. All trains are maxed out with riders. Open air cars,
cabooses. handicap car will be used the train. Weather will play a big part on riders on the open
air cars, filling up the cabooses. Trains will run in all type of weather, no exceptions. A new policy
for future excursions in iffy weather periods will be in use for the Christmas trains for 2015.
Riders an workers are expected to dress accordingly for the weather. First come, first serve is
the policy. It will be a very very busy day for HVRM workers. Please come out an help if possible.
Remember safety is paramount around the museum equipment. Everyone needs to be extra vigilant
to riders on the train, loading an unloading at the depot an Easter egg location. Visit the HVRM
website for further information on ride times an events for the upcoming season. Guest engineers
and throttle time will be a big draw during the summer season.
Please be safe on the roads and watch those railroad crossings, always expect a train at any time.
Stop, look & listen if need be. Too many large accidents that were avoidable with a call on the
railroad crossing posts could of prevented some, along with loss of life, wrecks costing millions of
dollars to Amtrak and host railroads. Watch out for school busses also, in the last 2 weeks, two
wrecks with a head on near Hebron IN, killing 2 people in the pickup truck. One drunk driver at
3:30pm in the afternoon in La Porte IN ran a stop sign, hitting a rear dual tire, shaking up a lot
of kids being transported home from school. Put a school bus out of operation for a couple of
days. The driver was booked into LP County jail, charged with a number of offenses and WILL
spend time in jail plus a large fine eventually, plus court costs an a lawyer, be smart, don't
drive drunk.
Tom Travis La Porte IN
