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