Old man winter finally shows up at HVRM 1-14-12

Greetings!   After what has been a mild winter (in the 50's through the middle of this past week and less than 2" of snow), winter showed up on Thursday with in excess of 5" of snow throughout the Region.  There was a good snow cover at North Judson today and temps were barely above 20 degrees all day.  At least the sun was out at times.   Due to an errand, I was late arriving at the museum, not getting there until after 10:00.  Rich Warner was working on the switches on the G gauge layout that runs around the top of the gift shop area.  Judy Boyer and Loretta Kosloske were working in the depot.  I found a broom and swept the station platform, but couldn't find the shovel, so had to go over to the Erie building to locate one.  Did a bit of digging out at the ends of the platform.   Saw Joe Baker almost immediately thereafter and he reported that the north wall of the East Shop building annex had been cleaned of junk.  This is to accomodate the heavy metal shelving from the Milk Station that will eventually be put into this area, after concrete posts can be installed when some warmer temps show up.  I walked down to the Shop and had to admit that the guys did a great job.  Not sure who helped besides Joe, but saw John DeGan, Fred Boyer, Bob Albert, Cory Bennett, Steve Newland, Doug Kosloske and a few others in the area.   A good turnout today, considering the weather.  Mark Knebel picked up pizza's for lunch and the members scarfed them down.   After lunch, Bob, Steve and Ryan Kertis joined Bruce Fingerhut over at the Milk Station building, to continue with cleanup.  I decided to head over to the Shop where I found Fred working on removing the bolts from the benches and the wheelchair anchors in the EJ&E transfer caboose so I found a wrench and pitched in.  This is being done so a new rubberized floor can be put in the car.  This is the same type of floor that was put down in the B&LE caboose some time back, and it has held up very well.  After Fred and I finished, we went over to C&O 2789 and removed the right marker light bracket so that Fred could check to see if a similar bracket can be made for the left side.  Turns out that it would fit, so Fred took the bracket home as a pattern for a new one.  We then did a slow walk around the K-4 and noted some of the problems that need to be addressed in its cosmetic restoration.  Fred managed to locate the latch and we were able to get the door to the stoker motor open and take a look at it.  It was a long time ago that Bill Byers managed to get that motor running one day.     Don't forget that next Saturday is the Annual Meeting of the museum which will be held at the North Judson Public Library in the downstairs meeting room at 1:00 in the afternoon.  Hoosier Valley will hold their elections at that time.  Running for office:   For President:  Cory Bennett                          Les Beckman   For Treasurer:  Margrett Cook                          Bob Barcus   For Director (two to be elected): Joe Kingsbury                                                     Tom Travis                                                     Steve Newland                                                     John LaOrange   All members in good standing will be allowed to vote so please try to attend the meeting if at all possible.   Have a great week everyone.  Try to stay warm!   Les

Smokin' end to 2011 at HVRM on 12-31!

Greetings!   Our mild winter continued with temps in the 40's again today.  Arrived at the museum about 9:30 and noticed smoke coming out of the open door of the Shop.  Obviously, a diesel had been fired up!   Went in to the depot where I found Loretta Kosloske and Bob Barcus working on train planning 2012.  From the little I could hear, it sounds like an interesting schedule.  The diesel went past the depot and I eventually stuck my head out the door to see what was going on.  Turns out that the crew was using GE # 11 to do some switching.  Since I had never been in the 95-tonner when it was moving, I decided to take a walk down and see if I could catch a short ride in the cab.  Elmer Mannen was engineer with Fred Boyer as fireman and invited me aboard.  John DeGan and Doug Kosloske were working on the ground.  The crew had shoved the dead Alco into the passing siding and had pulled out the now finished Nickel Plate caboose # 471.  Bay window 471 really looks sharp in her new coat of red paint with NKP High Speed Service lettering in the light gray band across the top of the car.  The crew went into the caboose track and coupled on to Erie Lackawanna bay window caboose # C345, since she is the next project for the painting crew.  They pulled the EL hack out and put it on the main, then shoved everything back into the caboose track.  They then went and picked up Alco 310 and headed back toward the shop.  When they stopped short of Mulberry Street so that John could flag the crossing, I thanked Elmer and Fred and detrained the GE onto the depot platform.  I enjoyed the ride in the unit.   I noticed a bit later that the crew had put everthing away, so I assume that the C345 ended up back in the West Shop Annex for painting.   Decided to go down and see what, if anything, was going on with the cleanup of the old North Judson Milk Station.  Found Bruce Fingerhut, Bob Albert and Steve Newland hard at work.  They had a Bailey's truck partially loaded with boxes of good items for that store.  There was also a dumpster with stuff that was too far gone to save.  I pitched in.  Others helping included Fred (after his crew duties were finished), John LaOrange, Mark Knebel and Ryan Kertis.  A lot of the steel shelving which had been taken apart, was loaded and moved in both Mark and Ryan's pickup trucks and taken over for use later in the Shop.   After the truck was driven to Bailey's, we started in burning old cardboard boxes and other burnable "junk".  This fire really got going after a while, with lots of smoke at times.  Fortunately, the folks that live behind the old Milk Station are very tolerant of our efforts.  I think that they are glad that the old structure is eventually going to go.  As we neared the end of a very tiring day, one of the ladies that lives in one of the neighboring houses, even brought over a pitcher of hot sweet tea for Ryan, Bob, Bruce and myself.  A nice gesture to be sure.    Mark stopped by to tell us that the museum had been "buttoned up" so we stirred up the fire to try to get some of the unburned items at the bottom of the pile to the top.  But I was tired and decided to call it a day at about 4:15 p.m.   Hope that everyone has an enjoyable New Year!   Les

RE: Winter and Santa arrive at HVRM 12/10/2011

Greetings!   Back hoe update. Richard Warner has been working on the problems. He and his assistant engine mechanic, will work on the transmission. He has the capablility to completely rebuild it for parts only. The bolt that broke in the engine, he was able to back out the broken bolt with an easy-out. It was very loose in the threads. The rocker arm is bent. Dave Cook thinks the water in the hydraulic system, that was removed when the system was flushed, may of had something to do with these problems. Future looks good for rehab before spring.     The first measurable snow late this week was on the ground and with temps today in the low to mid-20's was a favorable setting for the first ever Santa trains at HVRM.  Beautiful blue skies and sunshine all helped the atmosphere.    Life came to Alco 310 and the crew switched cars around in the morning so that the two Santa trains consisted of a nice warm LIRR coach 2937 and a less than warm B&LE caboose # 1989 which was used for the backup move to English Lake.  Both the 11:00 and 1:30 trains had been sold out, but a few extra riders were able to be accomodated on both trains.  C   Loretta asked me to pick up Santa Claus at his place (fortunately a bit south of the North Pole) and I took him to the Arlington Street crossing where he waited for the train to give him a ride.  Scenario was that there had been a problem with his reindeer and once on Board, Santa asked for the kids to "keep an eye out for them".  On the first run, believe it or not, the train spooked up a herd of (wait for it....) 8 reindeer!  Dasher, Dancer, Comet, etc., come back!  No such luck!  Santa visited with each child, and gave them a nice little wrapped present.  In addition to Santa, Fred and Elmer in the cab, Doug as conductor and Bill Dauber and Joe Kingsbury collecting tickets, made up the train crew.   Total ridership for the day was reported as 216 with a bit over 40% of that being kids and youth.   Bob Barcus, assisted by Margrett Cook, reported a good day in the museum gift shop.  The Union Pacific G gauge train that circles the gift shop derailed and Mike and I had to give Bob a hand in rerailing it including dragging the tall ladder in from the display Troop Sleeper .  Apparently a switch was somehow thrown by accident.  Fortuntately, this minor problem happened while the first Santa train was out on the line and the G gauge was back in operation by the time the passengers arrived back at the depot.   Mark Knebel and John LaOrange acted as road guards for both Santa runs.   Ryan took photos of the train itself (11:00 run) and on the train (1:30 run).   Bob Albert, Louise and Steve worked in the old Erie Milk Station building today, burning a lot of worthless paper items.   Bing Risley brought lunch, including a number of goodies, including three different soups.  I made a meal of the Chicken Noodle!    I checked on the Nickel Plate caboose before I left the museum and the exterior appears to be finished.   A number of other museum members were around today including Tom Travis, Tom McKee, Dave Cook, Tom Royce, Randall Downs, Jason Jordan and probably others I missed.  The cold weather and the concentration on operating the caboose trains, kept other activities to a minimum.   Enjoy the week everyone! December 17th is the last day to sign the list in the kitchen car for President, Treasurer and 2 director positions. Newsletter arrived last week also, great color pictures of HVRM Pumpkin Patch.   Les

Back Breaking Work at HVRM Office, 12-03-2011

Greetings to all wherever you may be,
 
Today started out as an overcast, rainy day, but by late afternoon it was quite pleasant. Board meeting was short, about an
hour. Big news is that HVRM will start the Annual General Membership Dinner again next spring. Details will follow.
I arrived late again, due to some issues trying to get going this morning. Les reported that the  troop kitchen car/ex-diesel
office, the C&EI number has been found with the help of Ryan Kertis last week and he has contacted the C&EI Historical
group for some stencils and the board approved repainting it next year back to C&EI. In lieu of the Metra car being converted
for a lunch room, with some work inside the troop kitchen car, it will be converted to a lunch room. A working stove did
provide heat at one time, with some tinkering should work again.
 
After a quick breakfast at Finger Hut Bakery with Les, we returned an started to work with Mark K, John L, Richard , Les,
an myself on taking up the screwed down luan board inside the HVRM office building. Mark has removed all the contents
of his office out to the 48 foot container, set up for office duties. The old carpeting was taken up and rolled  an taken
outside. Then started the removal of the 4x8 sheets of plywood, nailed in with ring shank nails, extremely difficult to remove.
A small area was started with crow bars and some extreme pounding, the hard back breaking work commenced. A variety
of tools were used and after some trial an error, breaking a pitchfork in two, bending a long bar wrench, another long handled
broken pitchfork was used. First a crow bar was pounded under one edge and the long handled pitchfork pulled it up off the
floor, I used a heavy duty spike puller bar to get under the flooring and keep it up while Mark kept pushing the fork in
further to pull up more plywood. Amazing we finished finally and then pulling the nails out of the floor. Underneath the
plywood was the orignal planks for a floor. Two of the large planks were pulled up and there was no blocking under the
joists to keep the floor level. Plans were made to jack up the building and put supports under the floor. Lots of water
damage to the door area will need to be address later.
 
A quick trip down to the milk building to see how the crew was coming along. They have removed a sizeable amount of
material to either the dumpster or truck. Inside the building remains a large amout of questionable material for resale
at Baileys. Bob A, Steve N, Bruce F, Fred B, Randall were all working at the milk building.
 
The Christmas train for next week was being readied charging batterys and maintence. Joe K, John L, Doug K were all
busy.
 
Elmer M and Doug K were also working on the diesel engines down at the shop area. John and Richard were also
taking the backhoe tractor apart, transmission and engine damage all caused by a 69 cent bolt inside the transmission
a long time ago damaging parts that will require an extensive amount of money to fix. Stay tuned for further details.
 
Loretta K, Bob B and John DeGan were about at the museum thru the day.
 
Some upcoming events will happen in January, office elections for President, Director (2), and Treasurer position.
Make sure that you come out to vote, its important to all the canidates running and the future of the museum.
 
Some ideas are needed for goals that could be worked on in 2012 by everyone. Tourist train operation, restoration of
railroad cars, track work, shop cleanup. The shelving out of the milk building will be coming to the shop buildings.
The shelving is heavy duty and can be put up all the way to the ceiling. Needed to get all the clutter that occupies
floor space unto shelves will be great. Many other projects need to worked on, Grasseli tower, landscaping, cleanup of
the yards, coal pile, worn out ties, make the museum presentable to the public. Lots of hard workers needed.
 
Have a safe week, only 22 days till Chrismas. I got a present today for myself, a Black & Decker 1/2 inch, 7 amp, heavy duty
electric drill down at Norwayne Lumber, got to have those toys for restoration work.
 
Tom
 
http://hoosiervalleyrestorationpage.blogspot.com/
 
 
 

Weather to be thankful for at HVRM 11-26-11

Greetings!   A cloudy, windy day, with rain in the forecast for the afternoon, but a temp of 56 degrees at North Judson at 9:00 a.m.  Certainly not bad for a late November morning!   Ran the flag up the pole once I signed in.  I realized I'd have to take it down if it started raining.   Joe Baker was working on the new electrical boxes near the museum sign at the entrance to the museum off of Mulberry Street.   I drove down to the east end and found Bob Barcus taking some photos of the freight equipment.  Bob says that he is going to be updating the web site.  He also reported that Google is running HVRM ads on searches for the museum.    Eventually made my way down to the Shop where I found the temp at 50 degrees.  This is typical as the metal in the building has a tendency to hold in the cold.  John La Orange had gone up to town for a firebrick which he was going to see if it would fit into the wood stove that Tom Travis had brought down a while back.  John reported that the brick will fit, although slightly larger than what the wood stove calls for.  When that stove is installed, it should provide for a nicer workplace in the insulated West Annex of the Shop.   Speaking of the West Annex, I walked back and found Joe touching up the yellow handrails on the NKP bay window caboose.  Still a lot of touching up to do, but the old 471 is looking great!  Cory Bennett and Dave Cook were working on a problem with the backhoe.  "Don't ask!" was Cory's comment.   Ryan Kertis showed up and we decided to walk over to the storage tracks and look at some of the equipment that he had not been able to inspect since he joined the museum back in October.  We managed to get into the NKP wood tool car and talked over what it would take to attempt to restore the car.   Doug Kosloske and Elmer Mannen fired up EL 310, using the Alco to pull GE # 11 out of the Shop so that the big tarp could be pulled down on the number 2 shop track to provide a tight wall so that the West Annex can be heated.    Bob B. joined Mark Knebel in taking the stuff out of Mark's office and putting it into the donated trailer.  Mark had found a copy of an Indiana Harbor Belt timetable from 1913 which included whistle rules for calling Grasselli Tower.  Neat find!   Margrett Cook brought in soup and some home made pizzas for lunch.   Bob Albert, Steve Newland and Jon Schmidt had been helping Bruce Fingerhut in cleaning out the old Erie Milk Station and eventually showed up for lunch.  Steve fired up the Payloader in the afternoon to help in clearing out the junk in the building.   The Scouts arrived and started giving Joe a hand with the work on NKP 471.  Ryan also pitched in.   I decided to go over to the Troop Kitchen car and do some additional sanding to try to find some additional lettering.   Dave, Cory and John tackled the water pump which had given up the ghost.  They found a new pump at Hoppe Hardware and spent the afternoon getting the old one out and the new one in.  So we have water again in the Shop!   Ryan came over and when I told him that I was not having any luck with my sanding, he pointed out a number 3, which I had missed!  Turns out, with him and I working at it, we found the old U.S. Army number on the kitchen car; K-325.  The old car is slowly giving up her secrets!  Bob Albert came over and we showed him the Army number and also the C&EI maintenance-of-way number (A-1054) that we had found last week.   There were a few raindrops and I decided to head back and take down the flag.  But no rain came, and when I got to the depot, I found Mark already in the process of running the flag down the pole.  The temp was still in the upper 50's.  Not even the grayness of the skies could keep this from being a wonderful day!   Stopped in the depot for a few minutes.  Loretta Kosloske was asking folks about the possibility of a renewal of the the museums Annual Dinner to be held on a Sunday in February or March.  I gave a thumbs up!    Darkness is coming early to the museum at this time of the year, so I pulled the plug for the day at about 4:15 p.m.   Enjoy the upcoming week everyone!     Les

Cloudy, breezy day at Hoosier Valley 11-19-11

Howdy!   Cool temps in the 50's all day.  But not bad for mid-November.   Arrived at the museum about 9:00.  A group was working on tamping ballast at the east end of the grounds around the newly installed ties.  Included were Cory, Dave, Mark Knebel, John LaOrange, Tom Travis and Bob Jachim.   I again tackled the errant turnout target on the switch leading in to the number 2 track of the Shop building.  After much work, and an assist from Tom T., I finally managed to get the target tight!  A victory after 4 days of work spread over the last month!   Joe Kingsbury was working on NKP bay window caboose 471.  Much of the lettering was done but the Scout troop from South Bend showed up and continued their assist.   Jon Oram was working on the N Gauge display layout in the Pullman Troop Sleeper.   Joe Baker reported that he now has 3 of the "torpedo" heater restored to service!   Bob J. has finished the removal of the "flower/weed" bed from around the museum sign off of Mulberry Street.  Area looks neat!   Bob Barcus, Judy Boyer, Louise Kingsbury and Pat DeGan were working in the depot gift shop today.   Elmer Mannen was working on the Whitcomb.   The container donated by Canadian Pacific, was delivered to the museum late in the morning.   Bi-Monthly meeting was held at in the afternoon.  Big news to come out of the meeting was that the museum agreed to purchase the Long Island passenger coach from owner Mike Koehler.  Two individuals have agreed to donate the funds for the purchase.  More details of the meeting will be in the upcoming newsletter.   In the afternoon, Ryan Kertis and I started sanding on the side of the old Army kitchen car in an effort to try to find the C&EI car number from when it was assigned to the Dolton Yard Center work train.  Ryan managed to find a number A-1054 and will see if this might be the number.   Bing Risley was moving parts around the equipment part with his Bobcat.   Took off at 4:00 for home.   Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!  Enjoy the day!   Les

Projects around HVRM

		Projects around HVRM Prep work for Main street crossing repaving. Track/tie replacement on the east switch. Repainted NKP steel boxcar by Mark Kniebel. From, Thomas View Slideshow Do more with these photos Beautiful full-screen slideshows Comment on and Like your favorites Download full-resolution copies
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