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