Short museum report on a cold March 4, 2017

Greetings!

Cold sunny day with a brisk wind at Hoosier Valley today!  Temps were upper 30's to low 40's, but the wind made it seem much colder.

Had an informal meeting of about 15 members in the depot today to discuss the situation at the museum and talk about remedies.  A good session! 

Tom Rainford and I, went up to Dolton Tower this past Thursday and picked up a few items from the Indiana Harbor Belt for use up in Grasselli Tower.  The most important thing was the IHB donation of five timers!  The first two photos show one of those timers.  Eventually they will all be installed in Grasselli.   Incidentally, the yellow metal circles shown in the second photo were used by the railroad when certain of the 172 levers at Dolton were taken out of service.  Now all of these levers are "out of service" as Dolton will soon be no more.   We also picked up a large Chicago Operating Railroad Association (C.O.R.A.) map of the Chicago Terminal District (photo 3).  Tom did the work of unscrewing the map from the tower wall, while I held it in place.  I had the easier job!   There is also the possibility that the IHB may donate a switch to the museum in the near future.  We will have to go up and take it apart and bring it down to the museum.  Keep your fingers crossed on this one!  

Other work going on at the museum today included further work on the 2789's running gear by John DeGan.  John had to clean up the rods he had worked on two weeks ago, due to some light rust again showing up.  But John then waxed the rods to keep them clean for the future.

John LaOrange continued working on GE diesel number 11.

Cory Bennett, Bjarne Henderson and Joe Kingsbury got the green lift in place and looked over the roof of C&EI tool car # A-1054.  The roof will eventually be coated to keep it from leaking once it is moved back outside.  The air conditioner and two overhead fans have now been put in place in the interior of A-1054, as can be seen in the fourth photo.

Margrett Cook had chicken and mashed potatoes for lunch along with other goodies!

Bob Albert was working on IC display caboose # 9914.

Loretta Kosloske was working on the Easter Bunny train which will be our first train of the season in April.

Enjoy the upcoming week everyone!

Les