Saturday, 29 July 2017 HVRM Report

 

Greetings All,

Sorry no pictures this week, I took pictures, but the camera refuses to download. I will go back to my

old reliable camera next time. A very pleasant day for the end of July, clear sky, nice breeze, not like the

hot conditions last week an torrents of rain.

Started out that the K-325 was having the steps put in position an leveled with the help of some

ballast brought over to raise the platform. Lots of realignment to make sure the step platform was

just right height to enter the car. The NKP kitchen car also had it step platform put back against

the car. A couple of buckets full of white limestone topped it off. The work crew was Cory, John, Tom

Rainford, David an yours truly, who managed to shovel a few stones.  The cars electric was reconnected

by Joe Baker an his assistant, whom I forgot his name, so the noon meal was on time. A steel metal grate

was placed between cars for crossing over. A more permanent walkway will be installed later. A couple

of tables from the kitchen car were moved over an chairs followed. A couple of tablecloths were put

over the tables an soon more items began to show up. Took a couple of tries to get some forks, but Margret

pulled thru an brought over a new 50 pack. Lunch was served of chicken an macaroni. Was nice to be able

to sit the entire work crew inside on one sitting. Nice lighting an fans inside, the windows were opened an

a nice breeze went thru the car.

A couple of guest engineers ran Erie 310 in the morning. After returning, the tourist train was made up before

the 12:30 departure. I was car host in the B&LE caboose for a couple of people who wanted to ride

in the cupola. Tom Rainford was car host on the Katy car. Engineer was John DeGan an conductor was Doug

Kosloske. Bob Barcus an Loretta Kosloske were the depot workers. Bub Tibbie did the road crossing flagging

on both runs.

After the 12:30 train returned, it was shoved across the street to let GE #11 out on the main to return the

cars on the runaround track back to its normal storage track. The 2pm train departed an I was car host on

the Katy car, allowing Tom Rainford  to go over to the shop area.

Announcement was made at lunch that Joe Kingsbury had bought a International 284 tractor with a belly

deck for mowing grass. This tractor will replace the International Cub that has been a long time work horse

around the museum, but years of use has taken its toll on the engine that constant repair was needed.

Joe returned with the museums trailer an tractor about 3pm an the tractor was unloaded by the NKP 344.

Good looking tractor, started right up an was backed off the trailer an taken over to the shop area.

The tourist train was put back on the caboose track an 311 promptly shoved the C&O 2789 back inside

the shop building. Did not take long to get the doors closed an secured.

Mark Knebel last week finished painting the Penn Central boxcar back to its green color. Nice looking car.

Lettering is being considered put back on in the near future.

Come on out next week to peek inside the new K-325, sounds like a Submarine number, but is not. Cory did

a lot of cleaning up around the kitchen an dining cars an looks nice.

I can't believe summer has gone so fast, school starts in 10 days for me, back to school bus driving.

Please be careful on the roads when you see the yellow busses picking up an dropping off children.

Have a good week,

Tom Travis

Fw: Hot & Humid at HVRM 7/22/17

 

Greetings to all,

Was very hot an humid on Saturday around North Judson. I sold tickets out of the ticket bay in the

depot standing in for Loretta again. Large crowd on the 12:30 train, but only 7 on the 2pm train.

The depot was nicely air conditioned an people just came in to rest in the coolness. I want to thank

Les Beckman for taking time for the pictures around the museum. Again lots  has been accomplished

during the week an Saturday. Les was nice enough to caption every picture with a short line about

what is being done.

Robert Barcus manned the gift shop an then flagged road crossing for the first train run. Margret served

up lunch in a hot kitchen car. The kitchen car was moved over to the caboose track so the tie tamper

an the air compressor could do tamping on new laid down stone ballast an wood ties. The kitchen car

an newly renovated dining car were pushed back to end of the track for the final time. An electrical

cord was used for the fridge. Joe Baker will connect up all the electrical next weekend  to both cars.

The tie tamper machine developed an oil leak an had to be taken out of service an back to the shop

for repair. But most of the storage track has been tamped, so after the machine is fixed, the rest

of the tamping will be completed.

The EL 310 train crew, engineer Bjarne Henderson, Conductor John DeGan. Car hosts Bud Tibbey . Bob Albert

was active on projects during the day. Standby engine 11 engineer, John LaOrange, conductor Mark

Knebel.

Les captioned the pictures for me already.

 Pix:

1. Problems with air ballast gun at end of Storage Track number 2 as John La Orange, Mark Knebel and David Cook work on the problem.

2. New gasket fixed problem and John and Mark after the repair was successfully made!

3. Train with Second Guest Engineer of day gets set to push back across Mulberry Street where Bob Jachim is flagging the crossing.

4. Mark has been repainting Pennsylvania Railroad 50' box car # 607627 during the week.

5. Effort to get Union Pacific tamper running was finally successful.

6. Close up of the Tamper in action with Cory Bennett at the controls.

7. Tom Travis manned the ticket window in the depot today and between the two passenger runs, managed to grab a lunch prepared by Margrett Cook and bring it back to the depot.

8. After the arrival of the first train back into North Judson, the Tamper started leaking oil and it was decided to take it in to the Shop.  This necessitated some maneuvering.  The passenger train pushed back to clear the main (at left) after which the Tamper headed for the Shop.  John then got set to move blue Interlake diesel # 11 east so that NKP kitchen car #X58538 and Hoosier Valley table/meeting car #K-325 could be switched onto Storage Track number 2.  After 11 got into the clear, the passenger train headed back to the depot to load passengers for the second run of the day to English Lake.  BTW, Bjarne Henderson was engineer, John DeGan conductor and Bud Tibbie was car host for these runs.  Bob Barcus handled flagging at the various road crossings west of the museum. The 2pm train left at 2:07pm.

Les had a visitor from out east, David Conrad, who stopped on his way to Union IL. David is a staff

member on the Valley Line in CT.

Les pretty well said it all.

Hope everyone has a good week, drive safe.

Tom Travis     

A bit warm but hot stuff at Hoosier Valley 7/15/17

 

Greetings railroad aficionado's!

Got a bit warmer than predicted today, making it up into the mid-80's.  The museum's Membership/Business meeting was not officially held as a quorum was not present.

Two Guest Engineers in the morning.  Bob Albert was conductor all day with Steve Henrichs in the engineers seat of EL Alco # 310.  Both passenger runs were made with Tom Travis acting as car host in the Katy open air car and Bob accommodating some riders back in B&LE caboose # 1989.  Bob Jachim flagged Mulberry Street today and  Doug Kosloske handled flagging duties west from there.

Bob Barcus was in the Gift Shop and Loretta Kosloske handled ticket sales.  

During the week, weed spraying was conducted and the cars that had been moved off of Storage Track number 2 a few weeks ago, were moved back so that the track they were on could be sprayed.  That meant that GE diesel # 11 had to move the string of cars back.  Photo 1 shows engineer John La Orange in Interlake # 11 as he awaited clearance from conductor Mark Knebel back at the end of the string.  After the cars had been removed, track work recommenced.  The second photo shows Cory Bennett at the controls of the Backhoe as he dumps a load of ballast onto the storage track just past Nickel Plate Road camp car (kitchen car) # X58538.  John La Orange, David Cook, Tom Rainford and myself, spread the ballast and I paused for a second to take the 3rd photo showing David (at left) and Tom hard at work.  Mark Knebel showed up and decided to get the blue sectional push car out of the way and the fourth shot shows Tom and Mark taking the second section of the car off of the track before moving it over into Mark's pickup.

Meanwhile, Joe Kingsbury has been at work in the Shop doing some needlescaling on the Porter diesel; ND&W # 5332 (see photo 5 for results).

After Margrett Cook's nice lunch in NKP X58538, and after the first English Lake passenger run, Steve and Bob moved the passenger train back out of the way, so that Track 2 in the Shop could be cleared of equipment.  First out was the Union Pacific Tamper with Cory at the controls as he took it east onto the Museum main (photo 6), in a picture taken from the cab of # 310.

Then Joe removed the electrical connection to # X58538 (photo 7) while Dave disconnected the propane connection to the cars heater (shot number 8).  Then number 11 pulled out the Nickel Plate kitchen car (pix 9) and added it to the string of cars pulled off of the Number 2 Storage Track earlier in the day.  This is the first time in a VERY long time, that NKP # 58538 has been moved from her spot at the end of that track!  A momentous occasion, to say the least! 

Things were humming now!  Number 11 now moved down to the Shop and pulled out Porter # 5332 and set it aside as shown in photo # 10.   Back into Shop Track 2 and the 11th shot shows the GE pulling out the object of a lot of recent museum work.  And here she is in photo number 12; Hoosier Valley's newly restored table/meeting car # K325 as number 11 head east so she can be placed in # 58538's spot at the end of Storage Track # 2.  Hot Stuff for sure!  The reason that K325 had to be put at the end of that track is that the X58538 only has a door on the west end, and to have access to the two cars, this is the way they have to be set up.

Our final shot for this report shows both active diesels; number 11 shoving the NKP kitchen car back west to couple with the K325 while ALCO # 310 is putting the passenger train away after the second run of the day.  Nice to see both diesels running at the same time!

Bing Risley told me today that he spent 7 hours over 2 days, cutting grass this week.  A never ending job!

Tom Travis was nice enough to bring down his grinder today and I actually was able to do some grinding on the window tracks in the cab of Kanawha # 2789.  Ross Robinson continues to make progress on the new set of windows for the 2-8-4.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Les

A very long story and a satisfying ending at Hoosier Valley, July 1, 2017

 

Greetings -

First day of July and temps in mid-80's at HVRM today with mostly sunny skies.

Two guest engineers in morning and both English Lake trains were operated.  Doug Kosloske engineer, Steve Henrichs conductor, Joe Kingsbury car host and Bud Tibbie road flagman.  Bob Jachim handled the Mulberry Street crossing protection.

Despite the Holiday weekend, spikes were put in additional ties on Storage Track number 2.  Crew included Cory Bennett, John La Orange, Tom Rainford, Mark Knebel and Kevin Kennedy.  There may have been others I missed.

Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske handled depot duties.

Jon Oram was down at the museum during the week and also today, doing work on the North Judson N gauge 1952-era layout.  Ballast was applied to certain areas, new (old) cars put on the layout, the electrical troubleshooting saw one of the Erie semaphore signals being lit and new signs of explanation were made.  Jon does 99.9% of this work himself and visitors appreciate being given a good idea of the way North Judson looked back then!   The first photo shows Jon putting the screws back in one of the protective covers that protects the layout.  A couple of the newly made signs are visible at the edge of the layout.

I got the Manlift out and drove it over to the west side of Grasselli Tower to do some additional work in scraping peeling paint and applying a new coat of primer.

Not much else going on....and then there was!  I heard the Purdue crane being backed out from in front of the Shop and out onto museum trackage and pushed across Mulberry Street.  I managed to take a shot (photo 2) from the Manlift after the crane had made its way across the street before stopping.  The photo shows Mark Kneblel at the controls with Tom Rainford acting as Conductor back on Grand Trunk Western caboose #75072.  John La Orange flagged Mulberry, but the edge of the Tower blocks him from appearing in this photo.  What's going on?

The crane and its two cars moved west to the switch behind the Shop and photo 3 shows the ensemble now heading east on the old Chesapeake & Ohio line.  

Photo 4 shows John La Orange flagging the second Mulberry Street crossing (although the flashers WERE working) and the fifth photo shows the train heading across the street.  Incidentally, that's Bing Risley and Corky in Bing's John Deere in photo number 5.   Eventually the train continued all the way past Main Street past the east end of the musum.  Not sure what was going on there and I got back to work on Grasselli.  Eventually, the Purdue crane came back, pulling Pennsylvania flat # 475403 and the GTW caboose and they stopped directly opposite the Tower.  It finally dawned on me and I dropped the Manlift down and went over to give Mark, John and Tom a hand.  But first a short explanation.

Back in 1991 (yes, 16 years ago!), CSX was going to tear down three old Maintenance sheds that sat at the location where the three car train was now stopped.  The museum asked CSX if we could have them and they donated the 3 structures to the museum, with the proviso that the area should be completely cleaned up after the sheds were moved.  We moved the three and they are now the Secretary's Office and Artifacts Shed; the Payloader storage shed and the Handcar shed.  At that time, there were also 6 or 7 sections of heavy rail next to those buildings, cut in various lengths.  Since we were told to "clean up the area" after the sheds were removed (which we did), we assumed that that included the rail, so we brought it too over to the museum property.  UNTIL, we got a call from CSX saying, "Where is our rail?"   We had to put it back.  It stayed in a stack, covered in weeds since that date.  CSX obviously forgot about it and is long gone now itself.  And THAT is what was obviously what we were now going to claim.....AGAIN!  Sixteen years isn't too long to wait, is it?

Photo 6 shows Mark dropping the hook toward Tom an John on the ground.  Can't see any rail?  Believe me, it's there!  We measured the length of a couple of sections, and then marked the center point. Photo 7 shows the first piece after it was clamped on and lifted from the pile.  At  this point, I stopped shooting photos and climbed up onto the Pennsy flat, and then Tom joined me.  We positioned the rail sections onto a couple of pieces of wood with enough space in between so that the unloading will be easier.

By this time, the last train of the day had arrived, GE number 11 had done all the switching and it was time to call it a day, and pack everything up.  That took a little while!

One last thing I did was take a photo of Pullman Troop Sleeper # 7256, which is shown in the last shot.  Bjarne Henderson had given the car a new wash of linseed oil a couple of Saturdays ago, and I had neglected to look at the results last week.  The sides are still a bit "tacky", but the car looks fine as you can see.

Have a great week everyone.  Enjoy the Fourth.  BE SAFE!  And don't forget to fly the flag!

:es