To Hot For A Shot at Hoosier Valley 6/11/16

Greetings -

Temps well into the 90's today which limited extracurricular activities at the museum.  I showed up a bit past 7:30 and passed out TEAM PORTER #6 caps to certain individuals.  These caps came courtesy of Sammy King in appreciation for help in moving 0-4-2T number 6 last year, from the museum to Colorado, where Sammy resides.

Board meeting with various items discussed.

After the meeting, I headed over to Grasselli Tower where I opened windows, turned on the fan and puttered about all day.   Hot, but out of the sun at least.  Steve Henrichs wanted me to put some photos up of Grasselli when it was still in East Chicago, Indiana.   Never got around to doing that, but the photos will eventually get put up.  One of them was very interesting; showed the tower in 1928 with a steam locomotive about to roll by.  What was interesting about that particular photo is that it showed three windows next to the second floor door, whereas Grasselli now has only two windows in that location.  From some blackened support 2 x 4's we found when the tower was apart during its move to North Judson, we know that there was a fire at one time.  Obviously it wasn't bad enough to lose the building, which was obviously repaired.  The three window arrangement was most likely replaced when the fire occurred and now we at least know that it happened some time after the 1928 photo.

Had a number of visitors during the day and between them and the heat, I never made it around the museum.  So not sure what else was going on.  I heard that John LaOrange continued his work on GE number 11.  And of course, we ran both trains with John Degan, Steve Henrichs and Bob Albert handling engineer/conductor duties with Tom Rainford and Randall Downs acting as car hosts.  There were also a couple of guest engineers in the morning.

Supposed to be a roller coaster temperature ride this week.  Enjoy, if you can, the summer temps that are coming in a little early!

Les