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.