Hoosier Valley before the December 2016 snows - 12/10/16

 

Greetings -

Cold day at HVRM today with temps in the upper 20's, but a little bit of sunlight at times.  Supposed to be getting some good snowfall starting tonight through Sunday night, then again on Tuesday and still more (with frigid temps) for next weekend!  We shall see! 

Santa trains continued and photo 1 shows the second train of the day getting set to stop at Arlington Street in North Judson to pick up Santa and Mrs. Claus!  That's train conductor Steve Henrichs on the back platform of LIRR # 2937 and if you look closely, you might be able to see a little bit of Kevin Kennedy who was out flagging the various crossings to English Lake for the second and third trains of the day after Mark Knebel flagged for the first train.  Jason Ciastko and I were "Santa's helpers" for the three trains today.  By the way, please note that Bessemer & Lake Erie caboose # 1989 was NOT on the end of the train today after Jason and Mark had managed to get the old caboose stove fired up in the morning.  Unfortunately, the 1989's brakes froze up and couldn't be thawed so the "little red caboose" had to stay behind today!

John DeGan was engineer for the trains today, Steve Henrichs train conductor, Bob Albert assistant train conductor and Bud Tibbie as the conductor for the 2937.  Doug Kosloske and Jason assisted with passenger boarding at the North Judson depot.  

 

Sparky Byers and Rich Warner got the new caboose horns installed on ND&W Porter diesel # 5332 today and fired the diesel up, to check both the horn and the original Porter bell.  Sparky reported both worked fine.  The second photo shows the new horn up on the cab roof of the old Porter.

Another section of shelving was added against the north wall on the new concrete floor of the West Annex of the Shop building.  In photo 3, Dave Cook, John LaOrange, Cory Bennett and Sparky check on the installation.

Finally, Joe Kingsbury continues to work on C&EI tool car # A-1054.  Both side door work can be seen in the last photo.

Have a great week everyone!  Hope the snow doesn't turn out to be too bad out your way!

Les

A chill, but progress, at Hoosier Valley 12/3/16

 

Greetings!

Had a nice day last Tuesday (November 29th) with temps getting up into the mid-50's.  Decided to try to take advantage and head to the museum and work a bit on the 899.  Was greeted by the new concrete floor which had been poured the previous day over track 3 in the West Annex of the Shop (see photo 1).   Smooooth, to say the least!  But I knew this pristine condition wouldn't last long (see below).

Today was the first day for our Santa trains and December greeted us with more typical weather with temps not getting above the upper 30's and clouds all day!  I was elected to give Santa a hand before train departures from North Judson and was assisted on these three trains for the day by both Tom Rainford and Tom Travis.  While we were waiting for the first departure, Tom Rainford and I took off the glass covers over the N gauge model railroad of North Judson to rerail some freight cars that had tipped over and some others that were derailed.  That's done....until the next time!

A fellow from the Orange Empire Railway Museum apparently visited the museum this past summer and noted that we had a temporary metal plate over the wiring at the bottom of our "Right Turn Only" warning signal (photo 2).  The temporary plate in question is at the bottom of the signal and a close up is shown in the third photo.  The guy from O.E.R.M. said that he had the correct US&S plate for this part of the signal and last month, Mark Knebel received the plate.  I went over to the Shop and eventually found the correct size bolt for the top of the plate and after a bit of a struggle, managed to put it in place.  The 4th photo shows the correct plate installed!  Thank you for this great donation Mr. Palmieri!   BTW, when the weather warms back up a bit, I'll put a bit of black paint on the bolt head.

The three Santa trains today had the following crews:

Engineer all 3 trains:  Bjarne Henderson

Train conductor: Doug Kosloske (trains 1 and 3); Steve Henrichs (train 2)

LIRR coach # 2937 conductor all 3 trains:  Bud Tibbie

Assistant to 2937 conductor: Steve Henrichs (trains 1 and 3); Tom Rainford (train 2)

In the North Judson depot today were Bob Barcus, Loretta Kosloske and Tami Shaw.

Flagmen for the day included Mark Knebel (for county road crossings) and Bob Jachim, Tom Travis and Les Beckman (at Mulberry Steet).

Others assisted with the trains or in work .

Meanwhile Rich Warner, Sparky Byers and Jason Ciastko worked on ND&W Porter # 5332.

John LaOrange got GE diesel # 11 up and running.  John also worked on the putting up the first of the recently donated storage racks on the northwest corner of the new concrete pad section in the West Annex (photo 5).  That's Tom Travis watching.  A closer up view is shown in the sixth photo.  Some equipment has also been put back into this section.

The seventh photo shows one of the two new end doors recently installed in C&EI tool car # A1054 by Joe Kingsbury. 

Others assisted with the trains today or in various work around the museum.  Including Cory Bennett, Dave Cook, Margrett Cook, Louise Kingsbury, Joe Baker and others.  Margrett prepared a very nice chicken soup today for lunch and Louise furnished desert.

Have a good week everyone.  Supposed to get colder toward the end of next week.  Well, I guess it IS the winter season after all! 

Les