Mother Nature throws a curve at Hoosier Valley 8/27/16

Greetings!

Well, the plan was to pour concrete in the middle section of the West Annex today.  Unfortunately, heavy rains hit the area overnight and into this morning.  HVRM was the only customer scheduled for an INSIDE pour, so with all of the scheduled outside pours cancelled, it did not make any sense to open up the plant for just us, so the company closed down for the day.  The pour WILL happen; hopefully in the very near future!

Arrived at HVRM at about quarter to ten and the second guest engineer was out on the road.  Two brothers took the two slots this morning, which is believed to be a first!  I noticed on the way in that the steel mileage post next to concrete m.p. 215 that was talked about the last couple of weeks, was no longer there.  Persistence obviously pays off!

Doug Kosloske and John LaOrange shared engineer duties for the day with the other handling the conductor job.  Except for the last regularly scheduled passenger runs when Bob Albert took over the conductor duties as Doug had to leave early.  Rain, and the threat of rain, helped hold down ridership for the two regular runs to somewhere in the 30's....total!

With the concrete pour cancelled, there was a number of folks around to help with the installation of roof panels in C&EI tool car #A-1054 after Joe Baker had put in the new fluorescent lighting.  The first photo shows Dave Cook putting some nails is while the second shot shows the results as of the break for lunch.  A number of people helped out on this besides Dave including Kevin Kennedy, Cory Bennett and Tom Rainford.  I probably missed some others.

I had some work to do in passenger coach 899 so after opening up Grasselli Tower, I pretty much disappeared for the efforts on 899.  Steve Newland showed up and painted the trim for the rest of the second floor windows on the tower's south side (see photo 3).

Bob Albert put up another photo of a watchman's crossing shanty in our Mulberry Street shanty.  This one is a photo of an Erie shanty taken in Decatur, Indiana. Bob also showed us some photos of additional photos for Illinois Central #9914, our display caboose.  Bob's been busy!

I don't believe GE #11 has been tested yet.  The museum continues to rely on EL Alco # 310 for all work.

Others on hand today included Bob Jachim, Loretta Kosloske, Mark Knebel, Randall Downs, Joe Kingsbury, Margrett Cook, Tom Royce and I know I missed some folks.  Sorry about that!

Have a good week everyone!

Les

  

Rainy day at North Judson 8/20/16

 

Greetings!

Had rain on and off at Hoosier Valley today.  Even a bit of sun late in the day.  Temps in the upper 70's most of the day.

Two guest engineers with John DeGan in the cab of EL Alco 310 instructing.

I had heard that Norfolk Southern had cut over the interlocking plant at Thomaston where the old Nickel Plate crossed the old C&O line, now owned by the Town of North Judson and currently operated by Chesapeake & Indiana.  Since it was raining and not a lot going on, I talked Tom Rainford and Bud Tibbie into going up to Thomaston to take a look.  We verified that the old C&O signals on the line had been replaced with new LED's.  Old signals missing and probably scrapped.

Some of the museum reports have mentioned our kitchen car (former NKP camp car #X58538) and thought I would take a photo at lunch today.  That's Joe Baker at the left, then Joe Kingsbury in the gray # 6 hat, John LaOrange standing, Bob Albert seated with his back to the camera, Dave Cook standing with his back to the camera getting some chow, Bob Barcus seated across Bob Albert, Margrett Cook in the background and then Cory Bennett with his hands folded at the right in the photo.

There was a bus with a group from Goshen, Indiana that arrived for the 12:30 train.  John DeGan switched over to conductor duties and Steve Henrichs was the engineer for the day.  The second photo shows the days rainy conditions with Steve in the parka, heading across Mulberry Street toward his waiting train.  John reported between 37 and 50 riders on that first train but only about 8 or so on the 2:00 train. 

I had opened up Grasselli Tower and decided to paint the numerals on the number 31 and 35 levers that Steve had recently painted.  Unfortunately, the 31 lever has locked in the forward position and I finally called Tom over to help me get it freed up.  Working on the lower level of the tower, he finally was able to free the lever up, and I finally managed to get the numbers on the two levers painted. 

At the end of the day, I went over to check on progress of the concrete project in the West Annex of the Shop.  As you can see in the 3rd photo, the steel wire mesh has been put in place and is now set up for the concrete pour.

Have a good week everyone!

Les 

Some morning relief at Hoosier Valley 8/13/16

Greetings!

After a hard rain in places on Friday and early this morning, the day in North Judson dawned cloudy with nice temps.  Unfortunately, the sun came out in the afternoon and the humidity went back up.  A little relief from the heat though, was welcome.

Board of Directors meeting this morning and secretary Mark Knebel arrived late.  That's because he and Jason Ciastko were out at milepost 215 (see photo 1), trying to remove the steel post that the C&O had put in years ago to replace the old concrete mileposts.  The numbers on those posts had rusted out and m.p. 215 is one of the posts that Mark recently repainted and numbered.  You can see the old steel post in photo 2, hiding behind concrete m.p. 215, a photo I took last week.   Jason later told me that they were unsuccessful in pulling the post out, but thinks that there is a way to do it.  A project for another day!

It was stated at the Board meeting that the agreement between the new freight operator (Lake State Railroad) and the Town still has to be finalized, so until that happens, Hoosier Valley will not be running trains to La Crosse.   

Last week I worked on the four number boards on Whitcomb diesel # 509.  I managed to get three of them done, but when I tried to finish the last one, the sun had made the board too hot to touch, so I gave up on it until a cooler day.  That day arrived this morning and I was able to paint the number on the board, which is the new aluminum board that Tom Rainford had made for the unit when the original fourth board could never be found.  Anyway, here's a photo (number 3) of one side of the unit with the number boards now all in place. 

I flagged the Mulberry Street crossing a couple of times today, then went over and gave Tom Henrichs a hand in his painting and installation of the trim around the chimney board in Grasselli Tower. We borrowed Joe Kingsbury's jig saw for this work after Tom forgot his at home.  The fourth photo shows Tom hammering some of the trim into place.  Looks real good.

In the old Shop building, the switch to turn on the light in the back end of the washroom area of the crew office, was located behind the door.  If you knew it was there, you could locate it in the dark, but for those who did not know where it was, it was a pain to find, if it even COULD be found.  Joe Baker took care of that today and installed a new switch which is right as you enter.  Exactly where you would expect to find it!   Thanks for taking care of that Joe; one other inconvenience we won't have to put up with any longer! 

Sparky Byers and Richard Warner, with an assist from Tom Rainford, worked on putting the new parts back in Interlake G.E. number 11.  I managed to get this shot (number 5) from number 11's cab window of Sparky (with his back to the camera) and Rich, hard at work up on the hood of the unit.  By this time, the sun had come out and it was HOT up there!  They got everything put back in and Tom reported that there were no water leaks.  Great news!

Margrett Cook provided lunch for the crew today.  Loretta Kosloske was ticket agent and Bob Barcus manned the gift shop in the depot.

Bing Risley was out cutting grass today.

Joe Kinsbury was working on C&EI tool car # A1054.

After reporting last week that the next section of track on the north side of the West Annex of the Shop had been ballasted and leveled, Cory Bennett, Dave Cook and John LaOrange put sand it the area around the track (see photo 6) in preparation for the concrete pour which is scheduled to be done sometime this coming week.

Photo 7 shows the arrival back in North Judson of the second passenger run of the day with Kevin Kennedy flagging Mulberry after he had flagged the "country" road crossings on the westbound run.  That's fireman John DeGan in the cab of Alco 310 while over in the engineers seat, was Doug Kosloske.  Bob Albert was conductor for both regularly scheduled runs.

You may recall from last weeks report, that we showed Bjarne Henderson as he scraped the loose paint off of the wood windows of the Pullman Troop Sleeper.  Bjarne came back today and applied a new coat of Pullman Green paint and yes, occasionally a quick wipe to take some paint off of where it shouldn't have gone!

Have a great week.  As Tom Travis reported last week, schools are starting to go back into session with starting times staggered these days.  The point is that kids are out there walking, riding bikes and school buses are very evident, so drive carefully!

Have a good week everyone!

Les 

  

 

Hoosier Valley Rail Road Happenings 8/6/16

Greetings,
 
Saturday was a wonderful day for trains. Cool breezes made the open air car very enjoyable to ride.
Good crowd on the first run, 2nd run was not too bad, smaller than first. The LIRR car went unused.
Everyone decided that the open air car or Bessemer caboose was the norm. Had one wheelchair
on the first run, family members rode with him on the EJ&E caboose. A new member, Terry manned
the lift an got some car hosting on the transfer caboose. Don Nickle from the INDY area was up
training on conductor duties. John DeGan was engineer, Steve Hendrichs was conductor. Bjarne
Henderson was student engineer today. Randall Downs did car host duties on open air car.
Bob Barcus an Loretta Kosloske were depot workers.
 
During down time, Mark Knebel has been repainting milepost markers on the line. Picture 1 is
one of the newly painted and numbered mileposts with first guest engineer on the way back east.
That's conductor Steve Hendrich's sitting on the platform of the Alco. Milepost 217 needs
to have some trees cut down to make it more open.
 
Picture 2. Bjarne Henderson scrapping the peeling paint from the Troop Sleeper wood windows.

Picture 3.  After the windows were scraped, Bjarne put Kilz primer on them.

 

Picture 4.  New section of track in West Annex of Shop after ballast was put down today.

Some inside work done by Cory Bennett, Mark Knebel, Dave Cook, John LaOrange.

Ballast was hauled down to the shop on the dump truck. The back-hoe 

tractor spread it out over the track that had been spiked down last week.

Tamping was done by putting the air compressor outside the door, air tampers did

a quick job of tamping ballast. Next will be bringing sand for go on the dirt floor.

Steel angle iron needs to be welded to inside of rail for wheel flanges. 

 

All of the tractors still fit inside, but is a tight sqeeze.  

Joe was putting up the first section of insulation in the ceiling of C&EI tool car #A-1054,

but photo didn't come out. The new kitchen car is  moving along now,

 

During the week, a new compressor for the LIRR coach car showed up, was on a

pallet near the shop door. Also on the floor was a new drill press all wrapped up.

No idea where it came from.

 

GE #11 still waiting for parts the engine. ALCO ERIE 310 running great.

 

Les Beckman started the day by painting numbers on the Whitcombs number boards.

Nests of wasps are in every little hole on the Whitcomb, as I was hit twice, once on the

wrist an once on the back of my neck. Need to get some wasp spray next week

to kill off these little pests, they are everywhere.

 

Thanks to Les Beckman for supplying photos in todays report.

 

Have a wonderful week an start watching out for those school busses back on

the road in the mornings an afternoons. School has resumed.

 

Tom Travis