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
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