Much too hot for autumn at Hoosier Valley 9/23/17

 

Greetings -

First official day of fall yesterday, but summer isn't quite ready to throw the towel in just yet.  We've had some record setting 90 degree days this past week and today wasn't any different.  Got up to at least 93, and maybe even a bit higher! 

The North Judson station platform was finished with work one day this past week and the finishing touches this morning.  Sorry no photo.  Maybe in the next report.

Not a good day to do it with all the heat, but it was discovered from the museum's water bill, that we had another leak.  So, work was started to see if it could be found.   First photo shows Cory Bennett on the back hoe making the first dig, while John La Orange (at left) and Tom Rainford observe.  Working much of the day in the heat, the leak was apparently located.  The second shot taken in the afternoon shows the digging effort involved.

Had a guest engineer in the morning.  Doug Kosloske was the engineer instructor with Bob Albert the conductor and Stephen Bulla getting in additional time as student conductor.  These same gentlemen handled these duties for the two regular English Lake trains.  Tom Rainford and Les Beckman were car hosts.  Mark Knebel handled road flagman duties for the 12:30 p.m. train while Kevin Kennedy did the honors for the 2:00 train.  Bob Jachim was the flagman for Mulberry Street in town.

Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske were in the depot today.  The Blue Jay Café furnished lunch; fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans.  We eat good at HVRM!

Last week I painted the newly built lid on the Mulberry Street watchman's shanty coal bin and the third photo shows the results.  Yes, the rest of the box must also be taken care of.  A job for down the road a bit!

Mark continued working on C&NW box car # 284.  No photo update on this either!

Finally, after the second run of the day and with the passenger carrying equipment stowed on the caboose track, it was time to put Kanawha # 2789 to bed.  The last photo shows Stephen throwing one of the switches to line up that move.

The outlook for NEXT weekend, is for temps in the 60's!  More like fall than what we had today!  Have a good week folks!

Les  

  

MRM Railroad Days, Sunday 9/17/17

 

Gentlemen -

A couple of photos from yesterdays visit to the Monticello Railroad Museum.

Photo 1  -  Tom Rainford (left) and Tom Travis riding in IC combine 892.

Photo 2  -  Southern Railway 2-8-0 # 401 sits at the Monticello depot after bringing in a train from Nelson's Crossing.

Photo 3  -  Oiling around!

Photo 4  -   Conductor Dennis Slone mans the horn and air brake on ICRR caboose # 9926 on a backup move toward the Monticello depot.

Photo 5  -    Throwing the levers up in MRM's Stair Tower.

Photo 6  -    NKP RPO/baggage car # 356 in one of MRM's storage buildings.

Photo 7  -    Recently donated PRR cabin car # 477692 is out on display.

Good time at MRM, as usual!

Les  

Heat & Humidity back at HVRM 9/16/17

 

Greetings -

Temps got up into mid-80's at Hoosier Valley on Saturday, with humidity increasing.

Membership/Business meeting in the morning.  Big news is Mark Knebel's resignation from the Board of Directors and as museum Secretary.  Mark says he has served on the Board for 28 years.  He will remain as an active member.  Other news is the fact that agreements have been signed between the Board, the Town of North Judson and the railroad providing freight service.  The Chesapeake & Indiana (CKIN) has signed a new agreement with the Town to provide freight service for 10 years with further options.  Hoosier Valley will be allowed to continue to run as far as Milepost 218, which is just beyond the Kankakee River bridge.  So, our passenger runs to English Lake will continue.  Greater details in an upcoming newsletter.

There were three guest engineers on Saturday morning.  Bjarne Henderson was the engineer instructor, while Doug Kosloske was conductor with Steve Bulla as student conductor.  These same three gentlemen handled the work for the regular English Lake trains. 

Tom Travis, Loretta Kosloske and Bob Barcus were working in the depot.  Tom also served as car host on the Katy open car for the 12:30 passenger run and in Bessemer & Lake Erie caboose # 1989 for the 2:00 run.  

I received the new windows for Kanawha 2789 this past week from Ross Robinson of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  Some "tweaks" will have to be made, but the windows appear to fit.

I managed to get the lid for the Mulberry Street shanty coal bin, painted.

Last week, we showed in the report, the work being done on the cracked rail in the switch leading to the south storage track but didn't have a photo of the finished repair.  After the new rail section was put into place, Tom Rainford drove all the spikes home and the repaired track can be seen in the first photo.

Meanwhile, Mark continued his efforts on the restoration of C&NW box car # 284.  The second photo shows him cleaning the old paint off one of the door and surrounding area.  Mark says that the grooves and rivets on the doors quickly consume the wire brush bristles.

The heat and humidity from Saturday is supposed to continue most of the upcoming week; this last official week of summer!  Stay cool!  Autumn is right around the corner!

Les

The "fix is in" at Hoosier Valley 9/9/17

 

Greetings!

Beautiful Saturday in North Judson with temps in the low 70's!  Day started out with a Board meeting in the new meeting car; HVRM # K-325 while Alco 310 was todays motive power for two guest engineers.

Work was done during the past week on new boards for the passenger platform at the museums depot (see photo 1).  Ten rows still have to be taken out and replaced with new boards to finish up the project.  Understand that additional work may be done this upcoming week.

Mark Knebel continued working this past week on Chicago and North Western 40' boxcar number 284.  Since half of the roof walk was still in place, he tackled instead the cleaning and priming of the two ends of the car and the "B end" result is shown in the second photo.  After the Board meeting, Bob Albert continued cutting the rivets on the roof walk and by the lunch time break, was down just to the sections on the "A end" of the car as shown in pix number 3.  We still need to get some stencils cut for the slogans on this "billboard" box car and for the other lettering. 

I started by digging out a can of the old light green paint from the first floor of Grasselli Tower and although I worked on it for quite a while, couldn't get the paint mixed well enough to use.  I had hoped to apply the paint to the new coal bin lid for the Mulberry Street shanty, but that project had to be put aside for the day.

Then Cory Bennett went by the shanty on the backhoe carrying a section of rail heading east.  Bob Jachim told me that they were going to be replacing a section of broken rail, so I wandered down there and gave them a hand.  The 4th shot shows John La Orange working on removing the nut from one of the track bolts and the cracked rail can be seen.  The broken rail section can be better seen in the fifth photo after the broken off section was removed.  Cory got the rail clamp on the longer section of broken rail, and he can be seen in the 6th shot removing it with the backhoe while John tries to balance it.  The new section of 105# rail that John had measured and that Tom Rainford cut last week, fit like a glove, and rail joiners were reapplied, track bolts put in and tightened and the rail re-spiked.  Another job well done by the HVRM "Gandy Dancers".  Others working on the replacement were David Cook, Tom and myself. 

Bob Barcus, Loretta Kloske and Tom Travis worked the depot, while Bjarne Henderson was engineer for the train with Steve Henrichs as conductor and Stephen Bulla as student conductor.  Mike Healy was car host on both trains and Tom Travis also hosted on the second train for some folks riding on EJ&E transfer caboose # 184.

Supposed to be some good weather this upcoming week with temps in the mid-70's.  Have a great week.  Drive safely and say a prayer for the folks in Florida and also those impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana.

Les        

    

A Nice Labor Weekend at HVRM 9/2/2017

 

Greeting to all,

It was a wonderful day at North Judson with temps in the 70's an clear sky. I showed up sort of late,

but soon got into it. I had heard Loretta had a good crowd already pre-paid for train rides. HVRM had

over 100 riders. Really  nice bunch of riders. I was originally asked to do flag protection for road crossing,

but Doug then asked me to be a car host, with Mark Knebel doing the flag duty. I really had a good time

talking to everyone, furthest visitor was from Evansville IN. A couple of military vets on the train also,

as 9/2 was VJ Day. Enjoyed hearing about war experiences, from Army, Air Force an Navy.

Les took some photos of activites around the museum.

Photo 1 & 2. Had the LIRR passenger car jacked up attempting to grease the center pin. Some sort of

pin prevented getting the car off the pin, but was high enough to get grease inside. Passenger cars have

different mechanisms to prevent the truck from coming off in case of an accident, while freight equipment

will lift right off the pin.

Picture 3 has Bob Albert on top of the C&NW boxcar removing the rivets from the catwalks with a torch.

Being so high up an on a slight angle, it is very hard work. Bob got about half of the catwalk off, with

more to torch next weekend. At least enough is off for Mark Knebel to clean up the roof an start painting.

Picture 4 has Tom Rainford an David Cook cut a piece of rail for the new switch. There are switch bolts

square head type, but hex type are required for FRA requirements now. Will have to buy some if we

can't find any around the local area.

Picture 5 has the Purdue crane back over in the shop area, along with the PRR flat car. The C&NW boxcar

is spotted in a different spot so the manlift can be put on flat ground.

Picture 6 is the Porter diesel in the west shop. Joe Kingsbury has been needlegunning the old paint off

in the last couple of weeks. Noisy work, dirty work, an just plain exhausting after a couple of hours with

the clattering of the needlegun. Amazing how much gets painted at the museum in a season.

Train crew was Steve Hendrics engineer, Doug Koslovske conductor, Steven Bulla, student  conductor.

I was the car host for both trips. Margret Cook provided a good lunch for the workers. Bob Barcus, Loretta

Koslovske  manned the depot duties.

Les Beckman got some paint on the lid to the coal bin near the shanty, along with providing guard duty

at the crossing. Les had some visitors from Crown Point who he gave a good tour of Grasselli tower

to them.

Jason Jordan dropped by for a visit, has not been around in sometime. John LaOrange of course was busy

at every aspect of the  museum. Cory Bennitt got the LIRR coach center pin greased. Now I'm not sure

if both ends were done on Saturday. Jon Oram? was in the Troop Sleeper cleaning up the model of

North Judson train display. I had a lot of good comments about the Troop car display. Lots of visitors walked

around the museum grounds during the day also.

I did see John an possibly David putting old depot decking  planks inside the reefer cars along Arlington St.

Cleared out the pile of planks that had been stacked inside of the west shop on a temporary basis. Screws

an nails were removed as they were stacked. So someday they may come to good use on some project.

Seems we reuse all material somewhere, someday.

Still a beautiful day on Sunday, with temps hitting about 79 for a while, but will go down to the 50--60's

tonight. Everyone have a good week, be careful on the roads, lots of travelers moving about.

Tom Travis