Dismal day, but progress, at HVRM 4/25/15

Greetings!

Good day to celebrate an Anniversary (mine) but a horrible weather day in North Judson!  Temps in the 40's with a steady rain all morning slacking off to a light rain in the afternoon.  Good day to sit around and "chew the fat", but work continued at HVRM despite the weather.

Big event of the day was the firing up of Erie S1 #310 to do some switching.  The crew of the Alco consisted of John LaOrange at the throttle with Bob Albert and Mark Knebel on the ground to handle the switching chores.  After firing up the old 1947 unit, it was backed up and coupled to the dead GE 95 tonner #11 and then the C&EI tool car #A-1054, both of which were pulled out of the Shop and John and Bob moved them across Mulberry Street next to the HVRM depot.  Joe Kingsbury had fired up ND&W Porter #5332 and after the 310 and consist was in the clear, Joe and Mark ran the unit out of the Shop and into the track on the north side of the building and into the clear.  John then pushed number 11 and the A-1054 back into the Shop, uncoupling the tool car at the far west end of the West Annex Shop track., then pulled the GE clear.  Joe and Bob then ran the Notre Dame unit east, cleared the switch and went back into the Shop (first two photos in the sequence below showing ND&W 5332 ready to back into the Shop and then entering the Shop door).

The crew later in the day did some additional switching, as can be seen in the photo below of the 310 shoving N&W hopper #40639 west toward the yard.

I managed to get a few things done at the museum in the rain, including planting some new plants in one of the flower beds.

Bob Barcus ran the gift shop today.

Finally, as you are aware, a contractor has been putting new ties in the line between English Lake and the museum.  The final photo shows some of the results of this effort near CR650W with the old ties (marked earlier in green by Mark) and a new tie.  Work goes on!

Despite the lousy weather today, it's supposed to slowly improve each day with temps near 70 by the end of the week.  Next Saturday kicks off our regularly scheduled passenger carrying trains.  Help of all kinds is needed, and APPRECIATED!  Please give it your consideration!

Have a great week!

Les

Month of April Almost Gone 4-18-2015

Greetings to Everyone,
 
April has come an almost gone so fast that I just have not been able to keep up with the report. Between
driving school bus all day long, feeling bad on spring break, trying to get a few things done on spring break
has just zapped me, but things are looking up now. A lot has been going on down at HVRM the past month.
 
First I want to report on the Easter trains April 4th. A full train of cabooses an passenger car, everything was
used on a great spring day. Over 671 paying passengers rode the train on 3 trips. It was a very busy day of
trying to accommodate all the families was trying at times. Many thanks to Loretta an Bob for the ticketing
end of trip. Making sure all tickets were ready and already punched, made it easy for attendants to get
the folks on the right cars. The Easter Rabbit did a fine job of handing out treats to the children. Lines
moved fast to get the folks loaded back on the train. Everyone who participated in helping out on the
trains is greatly appreciated for their service. All train operations went off good, the standby GE #11
was ready for any emergency. The Alco Erie 310 ran fine after a winters worth of repairs on countless
cold days in the shop. Many thanks to all shop people also. Future operations should be just as good.

Gift shop sales were very good for the day also.

 

Some other things happened over the month of April. A semi truck load of used ties was bought at

$25 a piece. The ties have been unloaded along the HVRM side of the staging area.

 

The tie replacement  program is progressing along. Many ties have been placed along the C&I right of way

all the way from north of the Kankakee bridge to IN 10 switch. Ties remain to be placed along the passing

siding in the future. The crew has been called away for an emergency job, but will be back as time permits.

The C&I line will be open on weekends for tourist train operations. Some equipment is on the passing siding

across from the depot at HVRM. During the last couple of Saturdays, the yellow UP motor car an trailer

have be put on the tracks to go out on the mainline an pick up used spikes for sorting later. This coming

Saturday will provide an opportunity to ride the motor car out on the mainline to retrieve spikes along the

row. Come on out an help out, but weather calls for rain.

 

Many thanks to Les Beckman for supplying the photos taken on 4-18-2015 around the museum. First picture is

Joe Baker replacing the troublesome yard light on the east end of the shop building with a brand new LED

light with 35,000 hours of service from it. Bing will clear a path along the south side of the shop buildings

to be able to get to the west shop door on the south side for replacement with an LED light. The old yard

lights are beginning to give out from years of use. Joe has made this a priority project, as it is not much fun

to be up at the top of man lift swaying in the breeze.

 

The next pictures are from replacing ties along the main line from the C&I switch to Grasselli tower. 19

ties were taken out, replaced with some remaining new ties an 4 ties from the new used ties. These ties

should last at least 30 years or more. Spiking the ties was also accomplished by the hard working tie crew.

Bob Jachim, Dave Cook, Cory Bennett, John LaOrange, Mark Kniebel an myself at least not falling down.

Bing Ringsley and Corky manned the skid loader bringing in new ties an taking away rotten ties. Bing

cleaned up the edge of the row picking up bits an pieces of broken ties. Cleaned up nicely. Cory and

Richard Warner worked on the UP tamper machine. Some sort of air leak in a rubber hose.

 

Bob Albert is putting on the hand throw for the derailer that he had fixed by a Amish welder. He did a really

nice job on fixing all the cracks. Bob reinstalled the hand throw during the day.

 

Les Beckman worked on replacing some wood on the coal bin at the watchmans shanty. Over the winter

the wood has rotted due to water damage.

 

Some visitors were touring the shops an exhibits during the day. By 3pm the shop was closed up an locked.

 

It was not a real busy day at HVRM. Come on out an help pick up spikes with the motorcar this coming

Saturday.

 

Tom Travis

 
 
 

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