Storage Track No. 2

Mark sent out a message of the work done Saturday 5/27/2017.

This will go along with pictures in the report.

There are a total of 949 railroad ties from the kitchen car east coupler to the spot where I left off last year working westward on the No.2, replacing ties.  Overall, No. 2 storage is a 1,000 tie siding.

 

There are 124 ties marked for replacement.

 

124 out of 949 is 13% being replaced.

 

Today, 65 were removed from the track.

 

Mark

 

 

Memorial Day 2017 work at Hoosier Valley

 

Greetings -

The first photo in this weeks report is actually from last Saturday and shows the progress made by Mark Knebel on the repainting of Grand Trunk Western transfer caboose # 75072.  At that time, Mark had scraped, primed and painted the roof of the caboose with a new coat of Morency Orange paint.  Mark has continued the work this past week in between rain showers, and also has one end of the car painted.

I started out today, swinging into Porter, Indiana to pick up the back panel of the model board that was at Dolton Tower.  Arrived at the museum just as Bjarne Henderson was bringing the lift over so that we could "clean up" the outside of the Pullman Troop Sleeper.  We used a process described on the Rail Preservation News website, which is too lengthy to get into in this report although it involved much elbow grease, linseed oil soap and linseed oil itself.  The second photo shows Bjarne at work on the car and the third shows Lars Henderson (up on the ladder) and Tom Rainford, working on one end of the car.  Finally, in the fourth shot, the finished work is shown.  In addition to those mentioned, Bob Albert and Kevin Kennedy also assisted in moving the heavy ramp up to the car, and then putting it back into place at the end.

We had two guest engineers this morning and ran both passenger trains to English Lake.  Steve Henrichs was engineer with John DeGan handling conductor duties.  Doug Kosloske handled the road flagging while Loretta Kosloske manned the depot and ticket window.

Lunch in our Nickel Plate Road camp car today came from the Blue Jay Restaurant in town and included fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.  Yum!

With the upcoming completion of Hoosier Valley table/meeting car #K-325, it was decided that it would be a good time to do some work on the storage track where K-325 and NKP camp (kitchen) car X58538 will be sitting.  Using GE # 11, the cars at the east end up to X58538, were pulled out and moved over to the south run around track.  The fifth photo shows the empty track and with a number of the old, rather rotten ties, already removed.  The string of cars pulled out can be seen over to the far right in the picture.  The 6th shot shows Cory Bennett operating the back hoe and pulling ties out.  The 7th photo shows Kevin Kennedy pulling spikes from one of the soon-to-be-removed ties while the 8th shot shows Tom Rainford removing some of the debris from a yanked tie.  Others working on the project included Mark and John LaOrange.  We started the work on the track after lunch and got barely half way.  Much to do next week!  Help always appreciated!

Bing Risley was cutting grass around the museum today.  A job that we have to continually do so that it doesn't get ahead of us!

Doug and Loretta had to leave after the second English Lake train departed at 2:00 p.m., so Tom Travis came in and handled the depot duties thereafter.  The 9th photo shows Tom behind the counter while member Tom Royce is off to the right in the shot.  

Finally, the last photo shows the arrival of the second train back in North Judson and passengers unloading from MKT open car # 13833 using the steps of Long Island passenger car # 2937 to detrain.  Museum personnel assisting in the unloading include Jake Denton (at left), Joe Kingsbury (black cap/plaid shirt), John DeGan (orange cap/yellow vest) and Rich Warner (blue cap/black shirt).  Another safe run completed!

Hope everyone has a safe, and enjoyable, Memorial Day weekend!

Les 

  

   

 

Day before Mom's Day at HVRM 5/13/17

 

Greetings -

Mother Nature brought us some gorgeous weather at the museum today!

Despite appearances in the first photo, David Cook is not looking for buried treasure, but checking Hoosier Valley's underground water meter.  Cory Bennett is on the phone with someone back in the depot asking them to run the water, while Bob Barcus supervises.   A suspected leak was apparently confirmed and attempts were made during the day to find it.  Not sure if they were successful or not.

Joe Baker and Brian continued the electrical work that was begun last week.  The second photo shows them at work while the third photo shows the results at the end of the day.  This is  the first light on this side of the museum.

Grand Trunk Western transfer caboose 75072 is due to be repainted but before that is done, Bob Albert tried to repair a leak in the roof of the car as shown in the 4th photo. 

Joe Kingsbury's efforts on the stairs for Hoosier Valley eating/meeting car # K-325 is shown in the fifth shot.  Coming along really well!

Last week's museum report showed Mark Knebel working on the lettering of the museum's Purdue University crane.  This past week Mark went over and did the lettering on the other side and the results are shown in the 6th photo.  Looks great!

In addition to the work on the crane last week, Mark also found time to give our 50' PRR/TTX piggyback flat car a new coat of freight car red, as shown in photo number 7. 

Nice passenger turnout today and the 12:30 p.m. train is shown pushing west out of the depot in the 8th photo with Bob Jachim providing crossing protection on the ground while Steve Henrich's (at right on the B&LE caboose platform) keeps an eye on things.  John DeGan was engineer today while Bud Tibbie and others, collected tickets.  Kevin Kennedy protected the road crossings on the way to English Lake.

I spent some time up in Grasselli Tower trying to repair a strip of wood that had fallen out of the towers ancient door.  That effort is shown in the last 3 pix.  Still have to put some wood filler in the gaps, but it will do for now.

Have a great week folks!  Still warmer weather reportedly on the way.

Les

A howling wind but some small victories at Hoosier Valley 5/6/17

 

Greetings!

We had a strong wind today straight out of the north across a still very cold Lake Michigan.  Temps were only in the low to mid 50's all day, and with winds of 25 to 30 m.p.h., temps felt like it was in the 30's.  Still, we had our first regular day of operation with two guest engineers and our two regular trains at 12:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.  The temps kept regular passenger numbers down, but our S1 Alco # 310 performed flawlessly.  Engineer was Doug Kosloske with Mark Knebel and Bob Barcus handling conductor duties.  Tom Rainford was a car host.

Last week's museum report included a photo of our recently repainted Purdue University crane.  Mark continued his work on it this week, taping the lettering outline as shown in the first photo.  Although he had already used two coats of yellow paint for the lettering, later in the day he applied an additional coat, as can be seen in the second photo.  After the paint dries, he'll be able to remove the tape and then start on the lettering on the other side!  Museum work is an ongoing project!

I managed to climb up into the cab of the 2789 today and after working a bit on the window tracks at the top of the cab window openings, I decided that the screws were pretty much rusted in place.  I then tried the lower tracks and, as can be seen in the third photo, managed to remove one of those bolts pretty easily.  A small victory!  Unlike the top window tracks, these bottom ones are new and apparently were put in when the Kanawha's cab was repaired for the museum a number of years ago.   Either the top or bottom tracks have to be removed in order to get the new windows in, and right now, I am pretty sure it's going to be the bottom tracks.

Rich Warner handled road crossing duties today although Bob Jachim and I managed to protect the Mulberry Street crossing near the depot.

In the 4th shot, Joe Kingsbury is shown starting on the building of the steps for Hoosier Valley kitchen/meeting car # K-325.  The flat concrete floor is a good base to build these steps, exact measurements in relation to the car can be made, and work can done without weather worries.  After the steps for the car are complete, they will be moved over to the future location of the car, east of the North Judson depot.    

Joe Baker and helper Brian, are working on getting the electrical connections made for the future location of # K-325, and the "tunnel" under the tracks was put in today as can be seen in the fifth, sixth and seventh photos.  The 5th photo shows the tube for the electic at the car location, the 6th some work being done where the line runs between two museum structures and the 7th shows the Witch Ditch after it was loaded back on the companies trailer.

The 8th photo shows Cory Bennett (in the Payloader), John La Orange (background) and David Cook (at right), as they look for switch components from our stock.  The switch is to go on to the track that was recently swung around to get it lined up for the track going in to the West Annex of the Shop building.  The last photo shows two pieces that were eventually found and placed in the approximate location of that switch.

Have a great week everyone.  Spring temps will eventually get here....or so I've been told!

Les