Heavy work and some light at Hoosier Valley on 1/30/16

Greetings -

El Nino gave us another unseasonably warm day at HVRM today.  Temps into the upper 40's and even peeks at the sun at times.  This gave the museum an opportunity to do some work on the equipment including greasing the center plates on some of the cars.

The first photo shows John LaOrange and Tom Rainford getting the air jack set up to lift the end of Erie Lackawanna caboose # C345.  Note the museums air compressor in the background.  After the car is lifted slightly to expose the center plate, blocking is set in place to make sure that the car remains elevated in place.

The second photo shows John under NKP flat car #1946, setting the graphite disk into the center plate depression while Mark Knebel is shown in the 3rd photo checking the car body for soundness.  This visual inspection includes checking for any cracks that might have occurred.  Nickel Plate Road # 1946 is one of the flat cars that has been converted by the museum into an open air car for use in passenger service.

There has been some seepage into the interior of one end of display caboose IC # 9914 and Bob Albert made some gutters to move water sliding down from the roof away from the windows on that end of the car.  The fourth and fifth shots show Bob applying one of those gutters onto the car side.  Hopefully this will solve the problem.  Meanwhile on the interior of the car, Joe Baker shows one of the new 4' long LED lights that replaces one of the old fluorescent tubes.  Joe has put two of these in the caboose already, and will install more.

The radiator on the museums 95 ton General Electric diesel was recently removed and delivered to a company in Valparaiso, Indiana for rebuilding.  The company advised that the work was done and Cory Bennett and Rich Warner drove up to Valpo to pick it up, returning to the museum right at lunchtime.  The next four photos show the afternoon work beginning with the boom removing the radiator from Rich's pickup truck, then Fred Boyer (at left) and Tom Travis putting bolts in the framework, then Cory Bennet operating the payloader/boom lifting the radiator up while in the last photo, John LaOrange guides it into place in the compartment at the front of the unit.  At this point, I had to leave for the day although the actual rebolting of the radiator into its place was not to be done until next Saturday.

Supposed to get cold next week.  Enjoy the mild temps while you can!

Les 

           

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Meeting day at HVRM 1/16/16

Greetings!

Annual Hoosier Valley meeting today in the North Judson Library.  But work continued at the museum nevertheless.

Cory Bennett welded pieces in the end door frame of C&EI tool car # A-1054 to replace rusted out sections.  Looks real good!  Meanwhile, Joe Kingsbury, David Cook and Fred Boyer also continued working on the car.  Getting closer all the time to being our eating car for lunches at the museum!

Bob Jachim continued work on the restoration of the "Governor's Desk".  Bob can be seen working on the desk in the first photo, which also shows the newest section of concrete that was poured this past Monday.  This completes the back 1/3rd of the north side of the West Annex of the Shop.

John DeGan put new handles on a number of shovels at the museum.  The second photo shows John hard at work on that job.

Tom Rainford put a brace on a shelf in the West Annex that had been sagging.

Steve Henrichs finished painting the lockers that will eventually be installed up in the second floor of Grasselli Tower (the lockers can be seen in the first photo). 

I took some measurements on the cabooses today for a possible project.  Nickel Plate caboose # 471 looked so good sitting in the sun outside the Shop, that I took a photo of it.

Certain folks have told me that I quite often neglect to mention the folks who work in our museum depot, and I admit that I have been guilty.  Well, photo 4 is a shot of museum Treasurer Bob Barcus at his computer in the depot, working on museum business.  Bob's Treasurer's report later was a highlight of the Annual Meeting!

Finally, the last photo is a bit dark and my apologies for it.  But it shows that the crew has recently reattached the Porter bell onto the hood of Notre Dame & Western diesel #5332.  In response to my question, Joe Kingsbury rang the bell.  Sounded wonderful!

Temps are supposed to take a dip starting tonight.  Stay warm folks!

Les

 

Wet day at Hoosier Valley 1/9/16

Greetings to all!

Steady light rain at the museum today with temps in low 40's.  Supposed to change over to snow this evening.  We shall see.

Board meeting this morning with interesting discussion including the budget for 2016.

I gave Bob Albert a bit of a hand today in the IC display caboose by painting the numbers and trim on the number plate for C&O 2-8-2 #1165.  Results are shown in photo 1.  Bob has been working hard in this caboose as shown in the next two photos.  The second photo shows the display for the crossing gate controls for West Pullman, Illinois with a shot of the West Pullman, Illinois tower and the track diagram for the tower which controlled the crossing of the Pennsylvania's Panhandle line (the one that ran though North Judson) and the Illinois Central's electrified Blue Island branch on the far south side of Chicago.  The third photo is of Bob putting some finishing work on the display for the Plymouth, Indiana interlocking tower showing the Plymouth sign and the model board that was once in the tower.  Bob is also going to be adding some photos to this display.

Also being done today was John LaOrange and Tom Rainford removing a tank from the frame of GE diesel number 11. 

Bob Jachim was working on the Governor's Desk in the Shop building as shown in the 4th photo.

Joe Kingsbury, Cory Bennett, Fred Boyer and David Cook continued their work on C&EI tool car #A-1054.  Recently we showed photos of the window frames being put in in this car.  Good to report that all the windows have now being finished and a set of three on one end of the car is shown in the 5th photo.  These windows can be opened and the middle window is shown in the partially opened position.

This coming Monday, the concrete pour for the last rear section in the West Annex of the Shop will be done.  The final photo shows this area ready for the concrete.

Despite all of the rain and dismal conditions, we actually had some visitors walking around at the end of the day.  One gentleman explained that his father worked on both Metra (Illinois Central) Highliner's number 1502 and 1509 at the museum.  He made a suggestion as to how they could be put into service as passenger cars; something to consider.    

Next week is the museum's annual meeting.  Elections will be held.  It's encouraged that all try to make it to the museum for the meeting.  It will be held at the North Judson Library at 1:00 p.m. and all members can vote if they meet the requirements of an active membership for the last 6 months. 

Cold January-like weather is supposedly on the agenda for the coming week.  Stay warm everyone!

Les 

     

New Year at Hoosier Valley, January 2, 2016

Greetings -

Understandably, on the day after New Years Day, the attendance at the museum was light today.  Seems like we were all going in slow motion.  Still, there was activity!

I tried to repair the O gauge U.S. Army kitchen car that is displayed in the museum's gift shop, but whomever dropped it, damaged it pretty severely.  Parts are needed to make repairs, or perhaps a new O gauge car could take its place.  Anyone got one just laying around?

Cory used the Payloader to move some items around the property.

Bob Jachim and I discussed the possibility of making new cab windows for the Kanawha.  Bob asked me if the slots for these sliding windows were still in place in the 2789's cab and I climbed up and checked and determined that yes, they were.  If we can get the drawings for the windows, this might be a future winter project!  

Bob Albert continues to work on the displays for Illinois Central caboose # 9914.  Some of the results are pictured here:

Photo 1 shows a reproduction of the builders plate for ALCO built Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 # 713, with photos of the Berkshire displayed below the builders plate.

The second photo displays the number plate off of Chesapeake & Ohio 2-8-2 # 1165 with some action photos of the Mikado show below the number plate.

The third photo shows the number plate off of SLSF Baldwin diesel switcher # 232 with photos of the diesel in both of the paint schemes it wore when in service for the Frisco.

The next shot shows Bob trimming some explanation tags that he made up and which Bob Barcus had laminated earlier in the museums gift shop.

And the fifth photo shows Mr. Albert tacking one of the information tags up under the number plate for the St. Louis-San Francisco diesel.

And there was some other things going on around the museum today too:

Steve Henrichs is shown in sixth photo applying green paint to the lockers that will eventually be moved up to the second floor of Grasselli Tower.

The 7th photo shows Bob Albert and Bob Jachim discussing what needs to be done for the restoration of the donated "Governor's desk" which will eventually go into the depot. 

The final picture shows Fred Boyer applying foam insulation sheets into the floor of C&EI tool car # A-1054.

So, although we were probably all still had the "holiday doldrums" today, things still got done!  And now as we move into 2016, my wish is that everyone has a wonderful, very healthy and most prosperous New Year!

Les