Greetings!
Last Sunday (April 2nd) I opened the depot for the Great Lake Rail Cars groups Annual Meeting (see photo 1). Hoosier Valley received a nice donation from the group for the use of the depot. As I was closing up Grasselli Tower after their meeting, a couple of other folks showed up; one couple from Etna Green, Indiana and the other from Wallace, Idaho! Always good to talk to visitors to the museum!
Today (Saturday, April 8th), we had a mostly sunny day at North Judson for the monthly Board meeting. Tom Travis told me at the meeting that Malcolm McCarter had passed away. Mac was a great guy who ran a railroad photography business from his home in Arizona. We have some of his photos for sale at the museum and also have some on display. Mac was also one of the founding fathers of the Illinois Railway Museum.
After the meeting, Bud Tibbie and I managed to get the last seat off of the platform of Grand Trunk Western transfer caboose # 75072. Not a fun job, but we got it done!
Steve Henrichs as engineer and Doug Kosloske as conductor, spent the day switching cars around as the museum gets ready for the Easter trains next Saturday. GE # 11 was the road unit today.
Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske worked in the depot.
I had often stated that we should build an old style stop sign for the Watchman's street crossing shanty at Mulberry Street and Bob Jachim surprised me with his home made sign. That's Bob in the second photo holding the sign in front of the shanty. Well done Bob! BTW, Bob also prepares the coffee pot in the Nickel Plate Road kitchen car each week. The man is multi-talented!
John LaOrange found the right key and we were able to get one of the doors open on NKP baggage car # 344. We looked for various items amongst the parts for 2789 that are in the car, but had absolutely no luck.
More ballast was put down for the new track out behind the West Annex of the Shop and then later, Cory Bennett got the Payloader out and shoved the track over a bit more . Tom Rainford and David Cook are shown in photos 3 and 4, directing Cory's efforts.
Meanwhile, Joe Baker and this helper Brian, put up a new outside light on the west wall of the Shop building. The fifth photo shows some of their efforts.
Bob Albert and Steve Newland did some additional work on the roof of IC display caboose # 9914 in another effort to stops the leaks in the car.
Member Dennis McNeil showed up with some donations for the museum. That's Dennis (in the red jacket) with Bud in the 6th photo, after we had unloaded the railroad items from Dennis's vehicle. Always good to get donated railroad items. Thanks Dennis!
Bjarne Henderson somehow talked wife Cindy into coming down and helping him finish painting the roof of C&EI tool car # A-1054. That's Bjarne and Cindy in the 7th photo up on the green lift as they prepare to paint the car.
Mark Knebel and Kevin Kennedy were out in the motor car inspecting track today. In the eighth photo, Mark brings the car back toward the shop, while Kevin (off in the distance) is locking up the switch just west of Mulberry Street.
On the way home today, I noticed that the string of stored cars on CKIN stretched from 875W (just east of La Crosse) in a solid string all the way to the derail that was put on the track in the spring of 2016. The only breaks in the string were at public road crossings and some private crossings. The 9th photo was taken from 875W looking back east and the photo does not do justice to the amount of cars stored! CKIN continues the status quo.
Have a great week everyone. It seems as if Spring IS really here!
Les
No comments:
Post a Comment