10-05-2010 HVRM Extra Workday

Beautiful day at North Judson. Both me and Les arrived at the same time at the passenger
car. Took a while to get started. Les went to get the manlift, I got the electric cords
out and plugged in for the wire grinder. Took Les a while to get the manlift
started and running, finally coming up along the south side of the DRGW passenger car.
 
Work commenced and got into a routine of grinding an area, with Les priming that
area. Got over half the upper area of the car completed. When we quit for the day,
went down to the GTW caboose and  bolted seats to the floor. 2 seats remain to
be installed. The outside coach seat needs to be put back on the grating also.
Ran down to the shop and quickly made blocks for the seats that are too short
to reach the floor.
 
Jason and Josh were working on the GE and the LIRR passenger .
 
That the news from Here..............
 
Tom Travis HVRM North Judson IN

Cool Day at HVRM 8-2-10

Fall is in the air, litteraly. Up till last night, many farmers worked late to combine beans
or corn. Today was a day of rest for some. Rain curtailed their work. Cool conditions
most of the day and towards later part of afternoon, it started to rain again. Time to
call it quits for the day.
 
Start off with the bad news, 3 UTLX tank cars were switched out of the storage track
and put on the interchange.
 
I don't know if a board meeting was held or not, I arrived late and went to work immediately
on the GTW seats. I dumped every bucket, bag, carton of bolts and nuts to find what I
needed and could not find any lag bolts. So spent considerable time in trying to sort nuts and
bolts, then down to hardware store to buy what I needed. Stopped at Garys R's house
and spent too much time, so got back to caboose, it was 12:30pm. I got one seat back
on and the brackets to hold the back on. Started on the 2nd seat and did not make it,
train was leaving and I needed to get off. Locked up caboose and left for the shop area.
 
Back to the REA trailer. I started to remove the REA signs and did quite well on that, cept
when the grinding wheel wore out. Got all off except for one large REA diamond. It can
wait till Tuesday. Loaded them all in the van and will work on them at home. Did some
wire wheel grinding on the new rust. Want to get the side doors off and transport home
to build some new ones. Lots of hardware to remove on the outside of them. Quit finally
about 4:30pm.
 
Other activity, ridership on the 1:30pm train to La Crosse was good, over 60 plus.
At the station stop in LC, lots of people headed to the cabooses off the open air cars.
The wye must of been fouled, as Erie 310 pushed the train back to NJ. Crew was Elmer M,
Doug K, John LaO. Don't know who was conductor, as so many people were car hosts.
 
 
LIRR passenger was getting some attention by Mike K, doing bondo on the sides and
roof. Jason A, Steve N were also inside working on car. The GE was fired up and used
to push passenger car back into west shop, GE's engine sounds good.
 
Tuesday is a work day for me and Les at the museum, many projects to work on,
GTW seats, REA trailer sign, D&RGW 899 passenger car, repaint. Will bring generator
for power tools and maybe can progress faster. Will also bring 2 ladders so we can
put a plank along the side to work off of it. Unless the manlift is available.
 
Pumpkin trains are filling up with advance ticket sales, looks good.
 
Have a safe week everybody.
 
Tom HVRM Restoration

Fixing up D&RGW 899

Les has been working on his car getting it ready for paint. Has worked on the south side
a couple of day in the past 2 weeks. Wire brushing and some priming going on.
A window on the south side needs to be taken out and rebuilt and reinstalled sometime.
 
Tuesday of next week, OCT 5th I will be down all day working on various projects. No school.
October 21/22 will also be no school days. Will be gone the 23rd on bus charter to INDY.
 
Come on out to work on railway equipment.

WABASH CABOOSE ST CHARLES MO

DEAN LEVIN took this picture while in ST CHARLES, MO

Emailing: 9246.1244174471

 

Nippy but nice at HVRM 9/25/10

A cool low 60's day, with sun on and off all day.  All in all, a good weatherwise day at North Judson.   Apparently, the FRA inspector found some problems with some of the museums cabooses including no built dates on three of them.  These were added this morning.  Also, the inspector stated that the hand rails on GTW transfer caboose had to have at least 4 inches of clearance and three of the seats had to be moved forward slightly to accomplish this.  A 4th seat could not be moved without some special work so that seat was just removed.   Cory Bennett and Dave Cook were plugging holes on the south side roof of the East Annex to the Shop.  The north side roof had been finished a few weeks ago and apparently no longer leaks.  Cory reported that they are about half finished with the south side.   Unlocked the crossing watchmans shanty for visitor inspection.   Andy Hershman and Mitch Montgomery were working on GE # 11 in an effort to get the unit its blue card.  Lots of work done on it today and Andy and Mitch were still at it when I left the museum late in the afternoon.   Joe Kingsbury cut grass for a while.   I noticed that Mike Koehler had put bondo on the south side of LIRR 2937 when he was here last weekend.   Steve Newland was in the Shop, measing and cutting the missing boards for the north side of Grasselli Tower.  After eventually putting them into place, he then gave them a coat of primer.   I started out working again on the seats that need to be added to the interior of GTW 75072.  Went down to the Shop and, with the assistance of Steve Newland, managed to get a wood pattern made for the needed riser legs from the 4 x 4 blocks that we have on hand.  Cut and drilled three additonal wood risers and then broke for lunch.  Pizza, salad, soup and various deserts were served in the NKP kitchen car.  While eating, the 11:00 caboose train arrived back at the depot, so after lunch, I headed over to the GTW caboose to see what I could get done before the 1:30 departure for English Lake.  Ran a long extension cord out to the caboose and managed to get one leg down and the other two marked, and the wall marked for lag bolts.  Train time came too soon, so I disconnected the electric, returned the cord and then, since all my tools were still on the caboose, decided to ride the train to keep an eye on my stuff.  Nice group of folks on board and they enjoyed the ride, although the wind and cool temps finally drove some of them inside.  I heard later that we carried over 100 riders on the two trains.   After we returned to the museum and the crew put the cabooses away on the caboose track, I went hunting for the electric cord and started in on the seat once more.  Managed to get all three legs bolted down and the lab bolts put into the wall before leaving for the day.   Mark Knebel, John LaOrange and Dave Cook were doing some kind of track work on the east end in the afternoon.   Pat DeGan reported that the gift shop in the depot had a very busy day.   Others members at the museum today included Bob Jachim, Andy Roeske, Randall Downs, Bill Dauber, Loretta Kosloske, Margrett Cook, Judy Boyer and Jason Annen.  Engine crew was John DeGan and Doug Kosloske and the conductor for both runs was Fred Boyer.  I am sure I missed some folks.  Another senior moment!   It was a tiring, but worthwhile day.   Les

[MONONPIC-L] Dearborn 2

Here's an interesting shot taken at Dearborn Station in Chicago of a Monon train arriving in 1950.  Note the C&EI cab unit waiting to go outbound and the C&WI RS1 switching a string of cars.  Also note the dwarf semaphores up on the signal mast.