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