Getting it done at Hoosier Valley July 30, 2016!

 

Greetings!

Still muggy today, but temps a bit more tolerable.  Number of things got accomplished.

Two guest engineers this morning.  Passenger train total for the 12:30 train looked very good, but a light load for 2:00 train.

I saw that Steve Henrichs was working up in Grasselli Tower, so I went up there.  Steve needed help getting a couple of the levers moved back so he could paint another one, so we tried to figure out how to do it.  After many attempts, we were finally successful!  The first photo shows Steve finally starting to paint the lever.  Gotta start at the bottom!

Steve had applied the Indiana Harbor Belt herald to the area above the lockers (see photos 2 and 3) earlier in the morning.  This herald had come as a plaque on a piece of Masonite, and I had recently cut around it so it could be applied as shown.  There's another IHB herald installed in the tower, but forgot to take a photo of it.  Also note the photos of Grasselli that were recently put up on the wall.  Steve nailed another one up today that Bob Albert had given him; this one showing the tower being put back together at North Judson.

Decided to go over to the shop, and on the way, I found the boys draining the fuel tank on the John Deere tractor.  That's Dave Cook to the left in the fourth photo, with Tom Rainford holding the compressor hose into the tank.  Apparently, some one had put lubricating oil into the tank by mistake.  Note the hose into the white bucket with oil streaming out.  Eventually, they were successful and with diesel added, they successfully moved the Deere!    

Finally made it into the Shop and found the ties laid out for the next section of the north track in the West Annex (see photo 5).  Later in the day, Cory Bennett used the front end loader to remove some additional dirt (photo 6) so that a couple of additional ties could be put in place.  That's Dave directing Cory's efforts.  And then in photo 7, Cory is shown driving a spike home with the spike jack which is powered by the air compressor.  John LaOrange is at left, then Dave, Jason Ciastko applying muscle on a spike puller to keep the tie tight and Mark Knebel off to the right dropping spikes for additional tie work down the line.  Cory advised later that both rails were spiked down and ready to move on to the next step.

Finally, back to Grasselli where I gave Steve a little bit of help in putting the trim on one part of the chimney brick.  The eighth photo shows Steve doing a bit of trimming.  We needed some concave trim and I went over to Norwayne Lumber and Jim Mennis found a couple of nice pieces for the project.  The last photo, though a bit blurry, shows Steve putting those pieces in place.

Joe Kinsbury continued working in the C&EI tool car.

Train crew consisted of Andy Hershman as conductor, Doug Kosloske as engineer and Bjarne Henderson as student engineer. 

Bob Jachim and myself, flagged at the Mulberry Street crossing for various trains with Bjarne doing rural road flagman duties for the guest engineers and Tom Travis the same for the regular passenger runs.

Randall Downs and Tom Rainford were car hosts.

Bob Barcus was in the gift shop today with Tammy Ciastko doing a great job as the ticket agent in the depot.

Have a good week everyone. 

Les     

Suprisingly cool mid-July day at Hoosier Valley 7/16/2016

 Greetings!

The regular Bi-Monthly museum membership/business meeting was held this morning in the depot.   Number of things were mentioned including the info from Loretta Kosloske that HVRM revenues are down about $9K from the same period last year, and confirmation of the report that the number of operators expressing an interest in operating the freight end of the railroad has been reduced by the Town of North Judson from 11 down to two.  Those operators still in the running are Lake State Railway headquartered in Sawyer, Michigan and U.S. Rail Partners, with headquarters in Lemont, Illinois.

Our "Gandy Dancer" crew continued putting in new ties out toward the Main Street end of the museum.   The first photo shows (from left) Kevin Kennedy, Todd Flanigan, Mark Knebel and Kyle Flanigan.  Jason Ciastko also was a part of this work crew today.  Kevin reported later that they had put 7 ties in and all were spiked down.

Tom Travis provided rural road crossing flagman protection today for the passenger trains and the guest engineer trains, except for the Mulberry Street crossing which was handled early by Bob Jachim and later in the day by Kevin Kennedy. The second photo shows the second scheduled passenger train arriving back in North Judson, with Kevin protecting the crossing at Mulberry.  Todd was engineer today with Doug Kosloske conductor for both regular runs and for the Guest Engineers earlier in the day.

Bob Barcus manned the gift shop in the depot today with Loretta the ticket agent. 

For some time now, the number boards have been missing on Whitcomb # 509 allowing rain to enter through the hoods.  Decided it was time to put the number boards back in place.  Tom Rainford made a neat aluminum replacement for the one number board that was missing and I painted the other three original ones at home during this past week.  The third and fourth shots show Tom grinding some of the old screws off the frames in the hoods and in the fifth photo, Tom and I step back from our efforts to smile for the camera lens of Tom Travis.  Also thanks to Bud Tibbie for assistance as we managed to get all four number boards put back in.  Later in the day I started working on applying the numbers to the number boards, but that effort needs to be redone.

The next photo was taken in the West Annex of the Shop showing a string running from the end of the rail out toward the rear entrance of the building along with some dirt removed.  Can we actually begun thinking of working on this track again?  I saw David Cook a bit later and he said that a load of ties was on the way to the West Annex.  Great news!

Margrett Cook provide lunch today in the NKP camp car.

Steve Newland painted the trim on the two end windows up on the second floor of Grasselli Tower and his efforts can be seen in photo 7.

Sparky Byers and Rich Warner continued their work on the 95-ton General Electric diesel.  They say that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel now!

Finally, Mark Knebel has been using motor car #MW-2 to go out and check the track to English Lake each morning for any problems, and then using the car to go out to the area where they are doing track work on museum property.   The last photo shows Mark waiting for Kevin to throw the switch so that he can run the car back into the Shop at the end of the day.  I believe that this is former EJ&E car number 591.

The temps today were in the upper 70's but it's supposed to get hot again toward the end of next week.  A special La Crosse Library run is scheduled for this coming Friday (July 22nd) and help is really needed.  You don't have to be experienced.  Here's a chance to come out and help the museum!

Note, photos in this report by Les Beckman, except as noted.

Have a good week everyone!

Les 

Nice day at Hoosier Valley 7/9/16

Greetings -

Got to the museum a bit too late to attend the Board meeting.  Had a bad day yesterday when the wife and I had to put down our 12 year old Black Lab, Casey.  Tough decision, and I'm still not over it.  Anyway, it was a great day weatherwise with sun all day, a nice breeze and a high temp of 78 degrees.  I passed out the report on the EMD SW-1 to all of the Board members.  The unit is former Monon number 5 and has been offered to the museum.  Board will look over the report and make a decision.

Mark Knebel and Jason Ciastko were hard at work again on the Main Street (east) end of the museum putting in replacement ties.  The first photo shows Mark, with Jason adjusting his glasses, after another tie was put in.  Mark tells me that they have put in 51 ties on the various tracks down at that end.  Well done!

I opened up Grasselli Tower and had a few visitors during the day.  Steve Newland continued his work on the exterior trim on a couple of the windows on the second floor.

Work continued on G.E. diesel number 11 with Sparky Byers, Dave Cook, Rich Warner, John La Orange and Tom Rainford hard at it.

Later, John La Orange did some sorting of items on the storage racks in the East Annex of the Shop.

Bing Risley was out cutting grass.

Engineer of Alco 310 for the two guest engineers and the two passenger runs to English Lake today was John DeGan, with Steve Henrichs the conductor.  Bob Barcus manned the gift shop in the depot while Loretta Kosloske did her usual great job as ticket agent.

Bud Tibbie was the road crossing flagman all day.  The second photo shows Bud giving the "thumbs up" to Henrichs sitting in the fireman's seat of the 310 on the last train of the day as it crossed Mulberry Street on its way back to the depot.

Note the third photo, which was taken as we were shutting down for the day.  Over 20 folks lined up on the road leading up to the Shop!  What was their interest directed to?  The last photo shows what they were looking at; Kanawha 2789 being put away by the train crew.  Even though she's "dead", she is still an impressive site to visitorskev!

Enjoy the upcoming week!

Les

  

Short report for HVRM for the Independence Day weekend 2016

 

Greetings!

Saturday, July 2nd, 2016 turned out to be a beautiful day weatherwise at Hoosier Valley.  Temps in the low 70's with a nice breeze and plenty of sunshine.  Membership was just a bit light today which could be expected because of the Holiday weekend.

Two guest engineers this morning and with GE #11 still not available, EL Alco # 310 with used.

Work on the GE continues and the first photo shows Rich Warner (at left) and Tom Rainford on the hood of the 95-tonner, while John La Orange looks through the old maintenance manual.

Mark Knebel and Jason Ciastko put some more ties in on the Main Street end of the museum property.

Tom Travis and I dug out the replacement air pipe that was made a number of years ago by HVRM's Canadian member, Ross Robinson.  This pipe was never put on GTW transfer caboose # 75072 due to the fact that it was taken out of service and used as a static location.  Today, we did some preliminary work on the installation but then Tom was asked to assist on the train as a car host.  A project now just a bit closer to getting done.

Steve Newland put some new exterior window trim pieces on the second floor of Grasselli Tower.  The second photo shows him up on the lift while the third photo is a shot taken from the interior of the tower.

Bob Albert continued working on displays in ICRR caboose number 9914.

I didn't get a passenger count for the two trains, but there seemed to be a good number of folks that came out today to ride our two English Lake trains.

Have a good week everyone.  Don't forget to fly the flag on July 4th and remember our struggle to establish this great country!

Les