Saturday, July 20, 2019
Shopwork Pics at Hoosier Valley 2/23/19
Greetings to Everyone,
Has not been bad weather, well the annual meeting was snowed out, will be rescheduled for a later date.
A very cold week of -50 degrees hit the area, shutting down school, local work jobs, you name it, it was
closed. But things have rebounded to being nice again. NW Indiana had one snow storm of measurable
snow an melted the next day. Work had continued on Saturdays in the warm shop.
The Porter engine has been the main issue, with the brake system being reworked. The entire engine
was jacked up to roll out the trucks at both ends of the engine. Taking apart the air cylinders an cleaning
everything, replacing gaskets, cleaning out the inside of the cylinder of rust, burnt on grease, getting them
to shine. Tom Rainford in the first pic has been hard at work now for a couple of weekends cleaning the truck
on the east end of the diesel. A number of gaskets were purchased, but not enough for the entire job, so
the rest of rubber gaskets needed will be cut out of stock. Its been done before an has worked quite
well. Pic 2, Cory Bennett is working on some piece of air pipe under the engine, trying to take it off.
Some connections are going to be replaced with a flexible rubber pipe with connectors on both ends,
one end to screw into the air tank, other end to the supply air, making it easier to work on instead of
pipe. Pic 3 is Tom Travis on left, John LaOrange on right, grinding on a piece of metal. Taking the crud
off is a hard job. Others working on the trucks included Kevin Kennedy, David Cook, Joe Kingsbury,
Les Beckman an myself, Tom Travis doing some actual labor, well at least I got dirty, sure felt it Sunday.
Lunch was provided by Charlene an Sherry, who made beef raviola, french toast, cheese cake, strawberry
jello with cottage cheese, an other assorted side dishes. Cheese cake was the highlight. A new volunteer
joined the museum Saturday helping out in the shop in the afternoon. Bob Barcus worked the gift shop.
I might of missed a couple of volunteers, but thanks to everyone working on the Porter. Oh Joe the
electrican was also working in the shop. Mark Kniebel was there also. Thanks to everyone who helped
this past Saturday.
February is at an end, March is right around the corner, an after that is the first event of the year,
Easter trains.
Everyone have a good, safe week.
Short day at Hoosier Valley 3/23/19
Greetings!
Had a family situation this morning, so got a VERY late start to the museum today, not arriving until well after lunch. Not sure what all was going on but I know that the boys in the Shop were testing one of their reconditioned Porter brake valves, and heard that the test was successful! Loretta Kosloske was cleaning out the EL commuter coach. Matt Lasayko had discovered a couple of C&O right-of-way concrete markers last week and we decided to try to dig them out for display. So, that's what I tackled this afternoon. The first photo shows one of the posts as buried amongst the trees and leaves. I dug around the post and eventually got a hole down pretty far on one side. Shad Vargo came over and tried shaking it by hand, and it moved! Then asked Bing Risley to come over with his machine and Bing managed to pull the post straight up so that it wouldn't crack. Bing transported it over to one of our display sites and laid it down. The other two pix, show the two sides with the impressed lettering. NEAT! One post to go...but for another day!
Les
HVRM 5/25/19
Subject: HVRM 5/25/19
Gents -
Couple of photos from Hoosier Valley today. Bing (and Corky) unloading 2789 parts from NKP baggage car #344; Porter crew trying to get wheels put back into side frames; results
of Kevin Kennedy's efforts on train order post. Hot day; a short shower; estimate about 90 to 100 riders for the two trains.
Les
Gents -
Couple of photos from Hoosier Valley today. Bing (and Corky) unloading 2789 parts from NKP baggage car #344; Porter crew trying to get wheels put back into side frames; results
of Kevin Kennedy's efforts on train order post. Hot day; a short shower; estimate about 90 to 100 riders for the two trains.
Les
Friday, July 19, 2019
Another hot day at Hoosier Valley 7/13/19
Greetings!
Temp in the low 90's at North Judson today. Couple of guest engineers in the morning. I had a problem with the upper sash on one of the west windows in Grasselli Tower last week and made a temporary repair to get the window opening closed. Today I got out the man lift and went over and made a more permanent repair (see photo 1). We can now open the lower sash to let some air into the tower without worrying about the upper sash crashing down!
In the afternoon, I agreed to car host on the Katy open car. Had a good crowd. Twenty five rode with me on the 12:30 run plus a number of folks opted for the air conditioning in Long Island coach 2937. We then had a tour bus from the Lafayette area come in for the 2:00 train with 52 riders. Plus we had some other passengers besides the bus folk! Bjarne Henderson was the engineer in EL Alco # 310 while Bob Albert was conductor. Lots of other folks helped out with the trains today doing various jobs including Bob Gyurko, Shad Vargo, Tom Travis, Robert Barcus, Bob Jachim and Tom Rainford. Probably missed some people.
Apparently Kevin Kennedy put the finishing aluminum paint on the train order stand (second photo) some time this week. Looks sharp!
Mark Knebel continued emptying NKP baggage car # 344 of the steam locomotive parts, as can be seen by the example in the third photo. Mark is also doing some repairs to the roof supports on the depot ends.
Thanks to Charlene Gyurko for a nice rib lunch with all the trimmings.
Have a great week. Stay cool (if possible)!
Les
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