Plenty of Work at HVRM 6-19-2014

Greetings to all,
 
Saturday was a great day for projects at HVRM. 8am general membership
meeting met inside the depot. A quorum was reached only at the last moment.
Various reports were given. The house next to Bing's is almost officially HVRM's,
Tom McKee's son has offered to tear it down free of charge an recycle the material.
They will be contacted an given a time limit to get it down. The garage was
discussed that it could be used as a storage shed for lawn mowers and other
items that are not used in the winter. The building will have to be inspected as

to what may need to be done with exterior and interior. No doors are on the

building at this time and some sort of doors would have to be built. The garage

would show up on properity taxes if left. Trees are dead an have to come down

or  will come down on their own in a storm. Joe Baker has acquired free of

charge 3 LED outside lamps and wil be installed today on the shop building.

The 3 lamps are of different sizes, but will be much easier to repair than the old

lighting on the building. Savings of $60 per year on electric should be saved.

Joe will seek grants from companies to acquire more lamps for around the

museum grounds. A tie order has been put in for 250. North Judson will

reimburse HVRM for 60 or so for crossing replancement in the near future.

The John Deere 4010 has developed a hydralic leak in the 3 point hitch system

an will require work this winter to be able to use the brush hog mower again.

Loretta noted that ridership is down on regular rides, but the LaCrosse trips

are up in numbers. I did not get the ridership for today.

 

Train today used EL 310 for diesel power. Last Sunday, work was performed on

the Interstate Steel 11 to trouble shoot the reverser problem. It was found that a

wire had come off the reverser mechanism an repaired. GE 11 is now back in

service. A number of people assisted with troubleshooting the problem. Last

Sunday, was guest engineer day for a number of people. A good program

for the museum and money income.

 

Engineers/Conductors-John DeGan/Doug Kosloske

Car attendants, Bill Dauber/Randall Downs/Tom Travis

Student conductor-Steve Hendrics

Depot- Loretta Kosloske

Kitchen Car-Margret Cook

Road crossing guard, Bob Jacqim, Les Beckman crossings to English Lake.

Richard Warner has donated an old John Deere weed sprayer. Sparky Beyers,

John LaOrange worked repairing they sprayer. Unknown what problems it may

have, but will be solved. A 50 foot hose with spray nozzle will be bought to be

used on the sprayer for areas that can't be reached by the sprayer. The sprayer

will be used to control the brush in the wye area that was recently cleared of trees

in the past years. Grassy area of the museum can now be sprayed quickly and

easily with the sprayer. It will help eliminate the use of sprayer backpacks and

the small pull around sprayers.

 

The tie replacement crew was busy getting ties replaced on the south side of 

IN 10 at the park area. 18 ties were replaced with what ties were on hand.

Spiking ties were difficult due to the dryness of the ties.  Cory Bennett, John

LaOrange, Dave Cook, Mark Knebel, Sparky Beyers were the crew today.

 

The payloader garage was worked on by Tom Travis, Fred Boyer, Steve Newland,

Les Beckman. I started on taking boards off the west side of the building that were

unsalvageable along with batten board. The corner boards also were dry rotted.

Fred and Steve cut notches in the wood for the rafters and corner boards. Steve

gave some tips on how to nail up the boards. Les gave assistance is nailing

boards up higher than I could reach. All the boards were primed before

nailing up. Jim Minnix cut boards to match the dimensions of the batten boards.

It won't be exactly the same designs as the old batten, but will be close. Old

batten boards were milled with a curved cut on the backside for boards that were

uneven and a cut made on each side of the board in a curved fashion. Old time

carpentry not found today on buildings. As old batten is taken off, it will be saved

for lengths that do no require a full 10 foot lenght, just replacement. 

 

Grasselli tower was worked on by Fred Boyer and Steve Newland. Fred painted

window sills.

 

The manlift is now back in operation. It still goes now slowly, but not as fast as

before. Some more parts and work is needed to rectify the problem, but is fully

operational.

 

Safety at the museum is paramont. A tourist museum experienced a death on

the properity by slipping under the wheels of a locomotive. Platforms are needed

to be watched carefully while trains are in motion. Watch for activity under

and around train cars. Climbing on equipment is strictly unauthorized. Discussion

for footwear around the museum should not be sandals or flip flop. A disclaimer

will be printed that wearing such footwear wil be at your own risk. Tour guides

in the shop area have been on going to groups, keeping the public aware of

hazards to unsuspecting visitors.

 

Monday, the Lionel Train Collector Convention from INDY will be coming by bus

to ride the train at 10am. We are expecting a large group for this event. July 25th

will also be another group riding the train at 10am. Come out an volunteer

if possible as carhosts, ticket takers, depot volunteers.

 

Everyone have a good week, drive safe, enjoy the nice weather we are having.

 

Hope to see everyone next Saturday.

 

Tom Travis HVRM 

GE # 11 Update

GE #11 was repaired Sunday. Fully operational once again. A wire broke
off the reverser, shutting down the fault protection circuit. Matt Lasayko
assisted over the phone with the fix.
 
Thanks to all who worked on the problem.

Museum Push-Pull Train Operation 7-12-2014

Greetings,
 
Saturday started with a HVRM board meeting in the depot waiting room with
the hint of rain in the west sky. Items were discussed, painting of the HVRM
depot, building conditions, an scrap metal disposal. The  rain started shortly,
an most of members shut windows on vehicles. Mark Kniebel has started
repaint the HVRM depot this past week. Lots of problems painting due
to all the overhangs, decks and ramps around the depot, making it a time
consuming job setting up ladders an planks. Gutters and downspouts are
taken off to get to those areas of the depot outwer walls. Lots of small
details to work around. The scrap metal pile is getting bigger all the time,
but roll on-off dumpsters are not avail at this time from Richard, busy trash
hauling season. Buildings problems run from lighting issues to bad roofs,
payloader shed needing repainting and wood repairs. Joe Baker has come
up with the idea to replace all outside lighting with LED lighting to drop the
electric cost of almost 60 dollars a year on each bulb. LED programs and
grants thru electric companies will be looked into by Joe. Which the solar
panel project needs to get running, as the meter reading down on IN 10
keeps increasing every month. Elimination of electric meters and alternate
sources of engery need to get going to save on electric bills. The payloader
shed needs to be repainted with wood repair done to rotted areas of siding.
Over the years, the shed has only been painted maybe once since moving
it years ago and is beginning to show its age again. The wood batten is just
about wore out from the elements. Replacement is necessary. The motor car
shed roof needs a metal roof put on, as the shingles are just not lasting.
Ties have been ordered (250) with the city paying for approx 70 ties for crossing
replacement on county road north of the museum. Approx 55 ties are needed
for the IN 10 city park area. The ties are just at the point where running passenger
trains over the rail is in a grey area. Lots of tie work is needed on the museum
grounds, the main line thru the museum, and on sidings.
 
The manlift developed a problem last week when Mark was using it to fix outside
lighting, it would not move backwards. John LaOrange, Sparky, Richard Warner
worked on it, finding a valve was not working properly to move hydralic fluid.
Replacement parts are on order. John and Mark have been working on removing
the final burnt word inside the burnt out tool car. It is clear of all wood and now
some metal work around the floor area is needed to install a new deck. Maybe it
will get moved inside the building area soon for starting work on it. Lots of wood
needs to be installed to build up the floor, with tongue and grove put on for the
final layer.
 
The train crew consisted of John DeGan, engineer, Bob Albert Conductor, Joe
Kingsbury  as car host and passenger car maintainer. The crew could not get
the diesel engine started for a/c. The train was ready for departure and Richard
Warner came to the rescue and got it started for the crew. Randall was the
carhost for the open air car. Doug Kosloske was doing conductor classes inside
the kitchen car, with 3 trainees. Bob Barcus an Loretta Kosloske were depot
workers for the day. Close to 60 riders on all 3 trains today. Sunday is guest
enginneer program in the afternoon for 3 or 4 persons.
 
Grasselli tower workers, Fred Boyer, Steve Newland, Steve Hendrics were all busy
working on different areas of the tower. Radiators brackets are being installed and
the heavy radiators are being mounted along the walls. Fred worked on window
sills filling in cracks in the wood. Norwayne Lumber sent a paint rep down to look
at the peeling paint on the outside. Many ideas were banter about, but nothing
for a fix situation. Most likely leaking windows from rain is causing the problems
from the inside. Until all windows are replaced, repainting the outside will be
on hold. The upper level is progressing along nicely.
 
Les Beckman did some painting on the truck trailer plates, including the pins. Later
on I started on scraping paint off the payloader shed. Working from ground level,
reaching as high up as I could, tried to get the paint off. It came of fairly easy. Les
joined with paint removal, until we heard the Alco' bell from the shop area. 
 
Until the rain finally stopped after lunch, outside work was pretty much curtailed.
The GE #11 has worked well for the last couple of weeks as standin for Alco 310,
as it work was done on it, changed oil, engine work, brake work and was expected
to be operational for the upcoming special tourist trains this coming week.
The Alco would see a startup and testing as to how things were running. But
an emergency call from the tourist train arrived to Doug. The Alco was needed
to rescue the GE at La Crosse IN. The train had arrived at La Crosse, unloaded
passengers, then pulled to the west to have the engine run around the now open
wye. The #11 was at the first switch on the wye, and refused to reverse direction.
Lots of things were tried to fix the problem, but nothing worked. It just refused
to go either direction, so the Alco came to its rescue. The Alco tied on to the
LIRR coach, and then went down to rescue the GE. Passengers heard the
whistle of the Alco and quickly arrived for loading. The passengers all were
under the picnic canopy, and had use of restrooms inside the building.
The GE was sucessfully pulled back to North Judson and returned to the shop
building for repair. A late afternoon for everyone. Hopefully the problem will
not require a lot to fix.
 
Hopefully I will be able to help out more until school starts again August 17th.
A week in Norfolk VA for a week on the beach was very nice and relaxing. Lots
of interesting sights around Norfolk, the battleship USS Wisconsin is downtown
along with the the Norfolk Southern Museum close by. A very nice display of
artifacts and the entire line of NS Heritage diesel in HO scale on a display track.
A very interesting boat tour of the Navy ships and the docks around Norfolk. Lamberts
Points is a very interesting coal unloading facility from train to ships, lotsof coal
trains arrive to unload. Ships of all types are constantly entering an leaving
the harbor. One loading facility is for loading train locomotives onto ships for
export to foreign countries. Nothing was there at the time but 4 massive cranes
are located there for loading. I suspect that farm tractors going thru La Porte (John
Deere, Case, International) may be loaded from from the same facility. Lots of
ship drydocks had ships of all types out of the water. Was a very nice time for
myself, Maureen and Brianne. Intermodal containers are everywhere with massive
cranes. Those ships do not spend much time in port, strictly load and unload,
and they are off to other ports.
 
Good to be back after 3 weeks, Brianne had emergency gall bladder surgery
on July 7th, after waking up early on the 5th with a horrible stomach pain. Emergency
room decided after lots of scans, she had a inflamed gall bladder with lots of
gall stones. She is recovering nicely an should be back to normal by time school
starts in August
 
Take care everyone, have a good week. Check the HVRM web for trains coming
up during the week. Help is needed in almost every position, carhosts etc.
Loretta made the announcement the Lionel convention people are coming to
ride the train also. I'm sure they will be impressed with the G guage layout in
the museum.
 
Bob Jacqim recently had a stint put in to help with his health issues. Les was
flag bearer for the Mulberry crossing today.
 
Tom Travis
 
 
 
 
 

Chicago, West Pullman & Southern caboose #207

I contacted OmniTrax back in April to find out if the subject caboose still existed on the roster of

Chicago Rail Link, which now runs the old CWP (along with other trackage on the south side of

Chicago).  They advised me that the caboose was still in existance, and that I could make the

necessary arrangements with them, to photograph it.  Finally got around to doing that today. I've

included a couple of photos.

 

Les

Fourth of July 2014 plus one, at HVRM

Greetings -

Hope that everyone had a wonderful Independence Day.  I had a late arrival at the museum due to cleanup from the get together at our house on the 4th, as we enjoyed the local Crown Point parade.  Hope other parades were as good as ours.

Bruce Emmons ran the gift shop and sold tickets today as Bob Barcus was a crewman on the trains, and Loretta and Doug were not in attendance.  Others on the train included Bjarne Henderson and Steve Henrichs.  John La Orange was engineer.

Mark Knebel, Cory Bennett and Dave Cook were "cleaning up" the right-of-way after spending their Fourth of July putting in ties at the switch out at the Main Street end of the property.

I painted the black lettering on the two concrete posts that were planted in the east flower bed last Saturday and then started removing loose paint from the "miniature" crossing bucks located at the crosswalk over the museums main line just to the west of the depot building.

Steve Henrichs and Steve Newland were talking outside of Grasselli Tower and I joined them and Fred Boyer up in the tower as we attempted to put in the first two long cast iron radiators along the south wall.  Those mama's are heavy, but we managed to lift and position the first, and then the second radiator on the supports that Steve Newland had custom built.  Steve then screwed both into place.  We then moved one of the radiators laying against the north wall on to temporary supports so that Steve can attach the radiator supports to the wall on that side.  So much for work on the tower this week!

Joe Baker reported that he had finished with the electrical work and that there is now power into the Troop Sleeper.  Great job Joe!  On another, non-museum item, but of interest locally, Joe reported that the move of the Grand Trunk Western depot in Valparaiso has begun.  The station has been moved and rotated 90 degrees and this coming week, Canadian National will take down flashers and gates so that Dillabaugh can move the building across the CN (ex-GTW) tracks.  After that is completed, the depot has to be turned another 90 degrees before moving into its final location.  Nice that the historic station has been saved.

In the afternoon, I painted the crossing bucks mentioned earlier and then put a coat of white paint on the two concrete posts in the east flower bed.  The photo included, shows the painted posts.  Quite a difference from last week.  By the way, the west flower bed can be seen in this photo off in the distance.  These two flower beds were put in to protect the wooden electric poles that visitors had a habit of backing in to and have done the job!  I then went over and touched up the black lettering on the crossing bucks.  I neglected to mention last week that the C&EI Property Line concrete post had been donated to HVRM by Charles Graves back around January of 2003.  So good that it has finally been put back in the ground! 

By this time, the "gandy dancers" were finished with their track work and Mark Knebel came over and attached the green shade he had repainted for the light over his office (photo attached).

The La Crosse train again ran in a push out/pull in configuration as the switch on the wye in La Crosse is apparently still not repaired so that we want to take our train though that trackwork.  

As the La Crosse train was arriving back in North Judson, I signed out and headed for home.

Enjoy the upcoming week everyone.

Les

 

  

  

 

 

A bit of this, a bit of that at Hoosier Valley 6/28/14

Greetings all!

Managed to get to the museum at 9:00 a.m. after a brief, but heavy shower.  Train crew were all wet but well into their efforts to get the cars inspected and ready for the first run.  John DeGan and Bjarne Henderson were conductors while Andy Hershmann was the engineer of GE number 11 for the day.

The morning was cloudy, so I decided that this would be a good day to plant some concrete railroad posts in the east flower bed.  One of these is of milepost 30 off of the xxx and was donated by   xxxxx.    The other is a C&EI Property Line post that was donated by  xxxxxx.  Both of these posts were donated many years ago and have been lying around the museum.  Bing Risley and I thought that they should be put up somewhere and I decided that the east flower bed might be a good place.  So, found the post hole digger and a narrow bladed shovel, and I went to work.  Digging around the museum is always interesting because in many places, you have to dig through stone before you get down to the sand.  Despite the fact that the sun had now come out and the humidity was on the rise, I finally managed to get both holes dug to the necessary depth.

Bill Gustason and some of his rail historian friends stopped by prior to their search for abandoned railroad right-of-ways in the area.  Bill was a big help in setting us on the path to eventually acquire Grasselli Tower.

Meanwhile, John LaOrange and Mark Knebel were tearing up the wood floor in C&EI number A-1054, ex-U.S. Army kitchen car #325.  Although this car has had fire damage, the wood floor was not coming up easy!  John and Mark also had to break for a while to put a new tie in the museum main line after discovery of a really bad tie.  Then back to the wood floor on A-1054.

Steve Newland and Fred Boyer put the first of the cast iron radiators back on the wall in Grasselli Tower.  This particular radiator was the one "shorty" in the group due to the fact that it went on the wall with the door.  All of the other radiators are long and will require more bodies to manhandle them into place.  Fred had put the two timers back up in Grasselli last week, and I've included a photo of those two installed timers.

A group arrived for the first train to English Lake, the first of three groups to ride today.  Bob Barcus reported 99 passengers for the day.  The last train to La Crosse again went out in a "push" mode, due to the fact that one of the switches on the wye up a La Crosse remains out of service.

Joe Baker was working on installing electricity for the recently restored ICRR caboose.   He's now getting close to getting that project finished! 

Bing showed up with his machine to lift the two concrete posts into place, but we decided that we would use some strapping from the Shop.  Bing requested short straps and I went over there to see what I could find.  When I returned, Bing had gone over to help John and Mark with t he previously mentioned tie replacement, so while waiting, I wandered up to the Troop Sleeper to get out of the sun and temp which was now nearing 90 degrees.  Saw the derailed cars on N gauge display layout so decided while I was waiting, that I would try to figure out how to get the top glass protection panels off.  Was able to get the one off without too much of a problem.  Rerailing N gauge equipment however is not fun!  Probably didn't put things back in the proper order.  Sorry about that Jon!  Put the protection panel in place and screwed down again and then tried the other end of the layout.  Couldn't get this panel removed and then Bing showed up, so abandoned the effort and went outside to help with the post planting.

Steve Newland wandered by and gave Bing and I a very welcome hand.  The first post was the Milepost an quickly discovered that although the hole was deep enough, it wasn't wide enough!  So a rather quick fix.  The second effort was still not wide enough, so had some additional work with the post hole digger.  Finally, the 3rd time proved to be the charm.  The post slid down and was packed in.  Then came the C&EI Property Line marker.  This one was shorter and the hole was wide enough, and the post slid on down.  Photos are included.  We shall see how they hold up, before any additional work is done to them.

Someone had given the old Pennsylvania milepost marker 399 a new coat of white paint.  Since I had run all of the tools involved with the concrete post project down to the Shop, I decided that I'd try to paint the two number 399's on the post in some black paint.  Managed to do a decent, but far from neat, job.  Hope it is adequate.

With the train not yet returned from La Crosse, and a bit bushed from the weather, I decided to call it a day at about 3:30 p.m.

Summer is here folks.  Enjoy it!

Les

     

Hot and humid at HVRM 6-21-14

 

Greetings -

Board meeting at 8:00 a.m. today at the museum.  Treasurer Bob Barcus was one of the conductors on the train today, so was a late arrival.

GE #11 was on the passenger train today.  My daughter donated a couple of Iris plants, so I took a few minutes to plant them in one of the flower beds.  Trying to make the grounds a bit more beautiful!

Mark Knebel, Tom Travis, Dave Cook and John LaOrange spent the day working on replacing 8 or 10 old switch ties with new ones out near Main Street.  The day started out misty and cloudy but soon turned sunny and humid.  Hard hot work for those guys today!  Ties pulled out were really in poor shape, so the change was necessary.

Tom and I had visited Illinois Railway Museum last Sunday where we spotted a Trailer Train flat car with some bridge plates, similar to the ones that I've been working on at Hoosier Valley.  Tom noted that the smooth side (side where the truck were move over) were actually painted white.  I got a confirmation on this from Jim Panza, so I decided that our two bridge plates had to be so painted.  Bob Albert told me that there was a container of non-skid sand in the shop, so I added some to the paint before I painted the plates.  The photo included is of the one bridge plate repainted, before I started in on the second one.

Work at Grasselli Tower was ongoing.  Fred Boyer painted the window sills on the two second floor east windows.  Later in the day, Fred told me that he had put the two timers we have back up on wall of the tower.  I didn't see them, but will check it out next week.

Also, Steve Newland primed the six radiator braces he built.  This brings to 22, the total number of braces which means we can start installing the cast iron radiators themselves.  Finally, attached is a photo of Steve painted some of the chair rails that go under the windows on the towers interior.  Steve started out hatless, but when that sun came out, he needed the protection from its rays!

I talked to a few visitors in the Troop Sleeper today and noted that the N gauge Pennsy train had derailed on the Erie diamonds.  Need to call out the wrecker, or perhaps Jon Oram.

Tom and I noted last Saturday at the museum, that the sign that stands at the Mulberry Street entrance, was starting to look a bit ragged.  So, after lunch, I found some old black latex paint, and rolled over the wonderful sign that Joe had made.  On the deep letter cut-in from the router that Joe Kingsbury had used for the name of the museum, the roller worked well.  But not so on the smaller lettering, which had a shallower cut.  So had to find some paint to touch up those letters.  During that effort, clouds and rain clouds moved in and I did a hurry-up job.  Rain finally came, but not heavy, despite the thunder.  Probably rained heavier after the museum was closed up for the day.

The last run of the passenger train of the day was another push-all-the way to La Crosse.  Apparently, there was another problem with the wye up there, and it was not available for the GE to run around it and get on the front end for the trip back to the museum.

Rich Warner, Joe and I moved the benches off of the platform and in to the depot.  With that, I called it a day.

Have a good week.

Les