Meetings and work at Hoosier Valley 3/19/16

Greetings!

A coolish day at HVRM today.  Not much sun and temps in the 40's.  The Board meeting, delayed from last week, was held at 8:00 this morning.  Then the regular bi-monthly Membership/Business meeting was held at 1:00 p.m.  Even with two meetings, we still managed to get things done today!

After the Board meeting, EL Alco #310 was fired up and a crew consisting of Doug Kosloske and Steve Henrichs came over to check out the equipment that is scheduled to be used next Saturday for the three Easter trains, which Loretta Kosloske advised, where virtually sold out! 

Dale Abbott was already hard at work repairing the center plate on the open car, MKT #13833.  The first photo shows Dale at work.  This was an all day job as Dale was still at it at 4:00 p.m. when I headed for home! 

The second photo shows Joe Baker working on another light fixture in the old Shop building.

Good to see Todd Flanigan at the museum today.

While the Erie Lackawanna Alco was being used today for the equipment check, another maintenance crew was hard at work on Interlake GE number 11.  Crew consisted of Rich Warner, Tom Rainford, John La Orange and Cory Bennett, with other members contributing at times during the day.

Tom Travis, Kevin Kennedy and I went down the rest stop area at State Route 10 and CR250W and cleaned up some downed branches and the third photo shows Tom carrying some of these branches over to a large pile.  We also grabbed a bag of trash for disposal over at the museum.

Bob Albert continued his work in Illinois Central display caboose #9914.  The next photo shows one of the recent conditions.  This is a Hiawatha emblem off of a Pullman car and is now in on of the display cabinets.  Bob is attempting to determine if marking on the back of this aluminum emblem might indicate that it might have been on a Pullman car named Lake Keechelus.  Time will tell!

Margett Cook had corned beef and cabbage for lunch for the HVRM crew today.

Mark Knebel has spent much of his time over the last six weeks or so, cutting brush along the right-of-way toward English Lake.  Today, he burned a couple of those resulting brush piles.  There are still quite a few though, left to be burned.

Joe Kingsbury and Bud Tibbie continued working in C&EI tool car #A-1054.  The fifth photo shows Bud at work.

Last week, a bad cold kept me at home and at that time, Steve Henrichs installed the new brick work on the second floor of Grasselli Tower.  His excellent handiwork is shown in the last two photos.

Enjoy the upcoming week everyone!  Spring officially arrives tomorrow and hopefully the weather will agree with the calendar!  Also, this is the spring break time of the year and different schools have their breaks at different times, but let's remember to use a bit of extra caution when driving in the upcoming days. 

Les

 

Cool day at HVRM 3/5/16

Hi!

Had some snow this week as winter continues to hang in.  Overcast all day today at Hoosier Valley with temps in the low 40's.

First photo shows Steve Henrichs building one of the forms for the new "brick" chimney in Grasselli Tower.  In the second photo, Steve is shown cutting some of the wall tongue and groove boards to make the first form fit.  By the end of the day, Steve had the forms all in place!

This third photo shows Joe Kingsbury getting set to nail one of the wall forms for C&EI tool car #A-1054 into place while Bud Tibbie holds the form in place.  Kevin Kennedy is in the background offering support. 

The air tank in the Shop building needed repair and in the fourth photo, Rich Warner is getting set to make the weld repair.  This photo was taken from the platform of ND&W Porter diesel number 5332 overlooking Rich's work as the air tank sat on the concrete floor of the West Annex of the Shop building.

In the fifth photo, Tom Rainford is show cutting a piece of steel.

Margrett Cook and Pat DeGan provided lunch today in the NKP kitchen car.

Fred Boyer was at the museum today saying his goodbyes as he and wife Judy are getting set to make their permanent move to a new home in Florida.  Good luck Fred and Judy!  Enjoy railroad preservation in the Sunshine State!

Finally, the FRA requires information on pedestrian crossings in addition to road crossings and the last two photos show Bob Albert and Tom Travis applying an info sign to the pedestrian crossing between the museums depot and the south parking lot.

Enjoy the week.  More spring like temps are supposedly on the horizon for this upcoming week!

 

Just a short add on, work continued on GE 11 today. Again I don't have an idea what

is happening, but again the crew filled the radiator with water, did some tweaking

on the engine an started it up, killing all the bugs in the building with white exhaust

an then moving it out side for more work. Rich Warner, Sparky, John LaOrange

an others I'm sure climbed all over the engine, including the hood area.

 

Mark Kniebel was heard out again on CKIN right of way clearing brush, a thankless,

noisy, job. Thanks Mark

 

Next Saturday is a board meeting in the depot at 8am. Easter train weekend is fast

approaching, check web site for availability of a seat.

 

Katy open air car still jacked up with truck rolled out. The welder will be back from a

motor cycle trip this week some time. Warmer weather is expected by next weekend.

 

Les  &  Tom

    

Up in the air at Hoosier Valley 2/27/16

Greetings -

After our blizzard this past mid-week with heavy snow and high winds, the day at HVRM was sunny, and with temps in the 40's, saw the melting of much snow and the making of a lot of slush!  One good thing about February, it's a short winter month! 

Rich Warner's new water tank for the cab of GE diesel #11 is shown in the first photo.

In the second photo, Fred Boyer is shown measuring the new end wall that Joe Kingsbury built for C&EI tool car # A-1054.  A tight fit, but Joe was eventually able to get the wall pounded into place.  The third photo shows Joe handing up some more 2 x 4's to Tom Travis in the A-1054 so Joe can start building the wall for the other end of the car.

Bud helped with framing  the other end of the tool car. The frame went in very smooth, not like the other end

where it had to be beat in with a BIG hammer.

Later in the day, Fred and I opened up Grasselli Tower and continued removing old paint from the levers.  They'll get done eventually!

Bob Albert continued his work on the displays in Illinois Central caboose # 9914. A conductor from the South

Shore freight side came down an donated 3 plastic crates of VHS train tapes, an cart full of reading material.

I did not get his name, sorry, but thanks for the GREAT donation.

Mark Knebel continued cutting brush and trees along the right-of-way toward English Lake. Drove by the piles

of trees on the way home, will be nice to pace the tourist train without your view blocked.

Bob Barcus manned the depot gift shop all day.

Good to see Andy Roeske at the museum today!

Katy flat car # 13833, converted by the museum into an open air car, had been jacked up (photo 4) to allow the bolster center plate to be repaired.  The slightly separated center plate (photo 5) needs to be welded back into place.  Unfortunately, the welder who was supposed to perform the repair was unable to make it to the museum today.  Will have to wait for another day to work on it.

Lunch was sausage pizza, fried chicken, rolls, coleslaw and potato wedges from the Wooden Nickel with Louise Kingsbury's homemade chocolate cup cakes for desert.

In the afternoon, Rich's water tank was tested for leaks.  The last photo shows Sparky Byers up on the cab of the GE, filling the tank.  The tank and system will need to be "tweaked".

Supposed to be near 60 degrees on Sunday, but some snow is due in next week.  Hang in there folks, spring is rumored to be right around the corner! Baseball Teams are manning up for spring training.

 

Remember the EASTER train an the big egg hunt.. Its filling up fast. Lets hope for good weather this year.

Check the HVRM web site for details.

Les