Hot, hot and moving about....at Hoosier Valley 7/18/15

Greetings!

Temps in the mid-90's at North Judson today.  Got to the museum in time for the regular bi-monthly membership/business meeting.  After the meeting, I found some dark green paint and started painting the trim on the Mulberry Street watchman's crossing shanty.  Sweat pouring off!

Tom Travis reported that long time member Harold Russell had passed away.  Harold had once worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

After the meeting, I found a can of dark green paint and started painting the trim on the Mulber  

We had at least two Guest Engineers this morning.  Doug Kosloske was engineer for the passenger trains today, with Bob Albert as conductor.  LIRR passenger coach 2937 still out of service due to air conditioning problems so train consisted of NKP bay window caboose #471, MKT open air car, EJ&E transfer caboose #184 and B&LE cupola caboose #1989.   

Bob Jachim provided crossing protection at the Mulberry Street crossing today while Tom Travis travelled out in his van to provide protection for the trains at Arlington Street, CR500 South, CR400 South, English Lake Road, Toto Road and CR650 West.

They decided to move the recently sold Porter 0-4-2T steam engine # 6 over to the loading area which necessitated switching cars around.  Also being moved over to the loading area was privately owned Plymouth diesel #1881.  Some photos of the moves are included.  Interlake Steel GE diesel #11 was used for  this operation with John LaOrange at the throttle and Cory Bennett and Tom Rainford on the ground.

Steve Newland recently applied new oil based primer to a patch on the south side of Grasselli Tower and today he put a coat of light green paint over that primer.  This side of Grasselli had experienced a lot of paint peeling and hopefully this new primer will solve that problem.

Stay safe everyone.  Enjoy the summer weather.

Les   

A hot and muggy day at HVRM 6/13/15

Greetings!

Managed to make it down for most of the Board meeting at Hoosier Valley yesterday.  Sunny all day with temps well into the upper 80's and

high humidity.  Good day to make one sweat!

There were a number of guest engineers running GE Interlake Steel number 11 this morning.  Steve Henrichs asked me to flag Arlington Street

and CR500W on the last of these runs so he wouldn't have to get off of the caboose to flag each of those crossings, and I obliged.  This was

a definite non-sweat job, but I forgot my ear protection.  The horn on the back of B&LE caboose #1989 is LOUD!

Back at the museum after these runs, Steve, who was conductor for the day, is shown in the first photo making sure that the brake valve on

EJ&E caboose #184 was operating correctly (it was!) and then is shown in the second photo just a bit later putting the air hoses on the EJ&E

and B&LE cabooses together after the regular passenger train was coupled to the Bessemer caboose.  Yes, that is Steve in the second photo,

even though his face is hidden!  John DeGan was engineer for the day on both the guest engineer runs and the regular passenger trains.

I went up to Grasselli Tower and painted white numbers on the five levers that Steve had painted earlier.  Steve thought that the levers looked

okay without the white painted numbers, and he may be right.  I told him that if he didn't like the numbers in white, he could paint over them with

the red, blue and green paint.  Results are in the third photo.

Fred Boyer continued his work on the exterior of the C&EI tool car using the green man lift  to get up to the top of the car as you can see in the

fourth photo.  Fred has done a heck of a lot of work on C&EI #A-1054.

Finally, in the last photo, new member Ryan Osmolski is shown cleaning up the B&O steam whistle that was on the Notre Dame & Western

Porter diesel.  Looking better already!

Other members were working on HVRM track, Bing Risley was cutting grass, Bob Barcus was in the gift shop, Loretta Kosloslke was the

ticket agent for the day while Bob Jachim provided crossing protection for trains at Mulberry Street.

Stay cool this week!

Les

 

   

A little color at HVRM for Memorial Day weekend 5-23-15

Folks -

Arrived at the museum to find that Bob Barcus had had three bright red "KEEP OFF TRACKS" signs made for the split rail fence

across from the North Judson depot.   Bob used the drill press in the Shop to drill holes in the signs, then removed the old signs

(no longer readable) and screwed the new signs into the wood rails in the fence.  I held the signs in place.  This is the kind of job

I like; Bob did all the work!  Photo of one of the signs included with this report.  Hopefully these new signs will keep visitors from

the dangerous practice of wandering onto the tracks to take pictures.

Gave Bob a box of Operation Lifesaver coffee mugs, donated by member Joe Gasiorek.  Bob will add these to the various items

being sold in the museums gift shop.  Thanks to Joe for this gift which will hopefully bring in a few extra bucks to HVRM. 

While down at the Shop building, I noticed Fred Boyer cleaning the sides of C&EI tool car #A-1054.

Threw another bunch of extra day lilies from home (Betty said we had too many) into the East flower bed at the museum.  The

three different color irises in the bed are currently blooming (see second photo).

Spent the rest of the day, scraping peeling paint, wire brushing the metal and then priming that part of the passenger coach below

the windows.  Cool weather and rain, stopped this job last fall, and now I'm going to paint this part of the car with Pullman Green

paint the next time I'm at Hoosier Valley.  The results of todays effort is shown in the third photo, which was taken from the manlift

after I had finished for the day.

Not sure what else was going on at the museum today.  Cory Bennett was running the Payloader.  Operating crew for the two runs

included Steve Henrichs at the throttle of GE #11 with Doug Kosloske as fireman/instructor; Joe Kingsbury and Randall Downs

as car hosts and Bob Albert as Conductor.  There were also some guest engineers in the morning, but not sure how many.

Enjoy the long holiday weekend everyone!

Les

     

 

    

Perfect weather (at last) at HVRM 5/2/15

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Greetings -

Beautiful day at Hoosier Valley today to greet the first regularly scheduled passenger runs.  Temps in the 70's and sunny all day!

Day started out with Guest Engineers.  New schedule of two trains (down from three last year) with the English Lake departure at

12:30 p.m. and the La Crosse departure at 2:00 p.m.  Due to the tie replacement ongoing, trains were held to 10 miles per hour

between the depot and English Lake resulting in longer runs.  Then there was a sticking brake on the 12:30 train, meaning a later

departure for the second train which did not leave North Judson until 2:30.  The departure of the La Crosse train from the depot is

shown in the first photo.  Don't know the figures, but both trains seemed to have a decent amount of riders.  John Kimsey was the

engineer and John DeGan was fireman, Bjarne Henderson and Doug Kosloske were conductors with car hosts Bill Dauber and

Randall Downs. 

One always ongoing job at HVRM is cutting grass.  Bing Risley was doing it this morning and Joe Kingsbury (see second photo)

this afternoon. 

I managed to get some primer on the one wall of Mulberry Street watchman's shanty and the lid of the coal bin. Still have to put on 

some Bonzai tint (light green) after we get some new gallons from Sherwin-Williams.

Big news of the day was that the house and garage on Pleasant Street, that the museum had acquired some time ago, were torn

down today.  The last photo shows Cory Bennett, Bob Albert (with shovel), John LaOrange (up on the peak) and Dave Cook, taking

off roof shingles from the collapsed house.  I joined them for a while this afternoon.  Good day to work up a sweat! 

Bruce Fingerhut reported to me that he had planted 40 white pines out at the rest park on the biking/hiking/walking trail at SR 10/39

and CR 250W.  A welcome addition to the spot that I (unofficially) think of as "Wayside Glen" as the railroad name.

Enjoy the week everyone! 

Steve

  

Dismal day, but progress, at HVRM 4/25/15

Greetings!

Good day to celebrate an Anniversary (mine) but a horrible weather day in North Judson!  Temps in the 40's with a steady rain all morning slacking off to a light rain in the afternoon.  Good day to sit around and "chew the fat", but work continued at HVRM despite the weather.

Big event of the day was the firing up of Erie S1 #310 to do some switching.  The crew of the Alco consisted of John LaOrange at the throttle with Bob Albert and Mark Knebel on the ground to handle the switching chores.  After firing up the old 1947 unit, it was backed up and coupled to the dead GE 95 tonner #11 and then the C&EI tool car #A-1054, both of which were pulled out of the Shop and John and Bob moved them across Mulberry Street next to the HVRM depot.  Joe Kingsbury had fired up ND&W Porter #5332 and after the 310 and consist was in the clear, Joe and Mark ran the unit out of the Shop and into the track on the north side of the building and into the clear.  John then pushed number 11 and the A-1054 back into the Shop, uncoupling the tool car at the far west end of the West Annex Shop track., then pulled the GE clear.  Joe and Bob then ran the Notre Dame unit east, cleared the switch and went back into the Shop (first two photos in the sequence below showing ND&W 5332 ready to back into the Shop and then entering the Shop door).

The crew later in the day did some additional switching, as can be seen in the photo below of the 310 shoving N&W hopper #40639 west toward the yard.

I managed to get a few things done at the museum in the rain, including planting some new plants in one of the flower beds.

Bob Barcus ran the gift shop today.

Finally, as you are aware, a contractor has been putting new ties in the line between English Lake and the museum.  The final photo shows some of the results of this effort near CR650W with the old ties (marked earlier in green by Mark) and a new tie.  Work goes on!

Despite the lousy weather today, it's supposed to slowly improve each day with temps near 70 by the end of the week.  Next Saturday kicks off our regularly scheduled passenger carrying trains.  Help of all kinds is needed, and APPRECIATED!  Please give it your consideration!

Have a great week!

Les

Month of April Almost Gone 4-18-2015

Greetings to Everyone,
 
April has come an almost gone so fast that I just have not been able to keep up with the report. Between
driving school bus all day long, feeling bad on spring break, trying to get a few things done on spring break
has just zapped me, but things are looking up now. A lot has been going on down at HVRM the past month.
 
First I want to report on the Easter trains April 4th. A full train of cabooses an passenger car, everything was
used on a great spring day. Over 671 paying passengers rode the train on 3 trips. It was a very busy day of
trying to accommodate all the families was trying at times. Many thanks to Loretta an Bob for the ticketing
end of trip. Making sure all tickets were ready and already punched, made it easy for attendants to get
the folks on the right cars. The Easter Rabbit did a fine job of handing out treats to the children. Lines
moved fast to get the folks loaded back on the train. Everyone who participated in helping out on the
trains is greatly appreciated for their service. All train operations went off good, the standby GE #11
was ready for any emergency. The Alco Erie 310 ran fine after a winters worth of repairs on countless
cold days in the shop. Many thanks to all shop people also. Future operations should be just as good.

Gift shop sales were very good for the day also.

 

Some other things happened over the month of April. A semi truck load of used ties was bought at

$25 a piece. The ties have been unloaded along the HVRM side of the staging area.

 

The tie replacement  program is progressing along. Many ties have been placed along the C&I right of way

all the way from north of the Kankakee bridge to IN 10 switch. Ties remain to be placed along the passing

siding in the future. The crew has been called away for an emergency job, but will be back as time permits.

The C&I line will be open on weekends for tourist train operations. Some equipment is on the passing siding

across from the depot at HVRM. During the last couple of Saturdays, the yellow UP motor car an trailer

have be put on the tracks to go out on the mainline an pick up used spikes for sorting later. This coming

Saturday will provide an opportunity to ride the motor car out on the mainline to retrieve spikes along the

row. Come on out an help out, but weather calls for rain.

 

Many thanks to Les Beckman for supplying the photos taken on 4-18-2015 around the museum. First picture is

Joe Baker replacing the troublesome yard light on the east end of the shop building with a brand new LED

light with 35,000 hours of service from it. Bing will clear a path along the south side of the shop buildings

to be able to get to the west shop door on the south side for replacement with an LED light. The old yard

lights are beginning to give out from years of use. Joe has made this a priority project, as it is not much fun

to be up at the top of man lift swaying in the breeze.

 

The next pictures are from replacing ties along the main line from the C&I switch to Grasselli tower. 19

ties were taken out, replaced with some remaining new ties an 4 ties from the new used ties. These ties

should last at least 30 years or more. Spiking the ties was also accomplished by the hard working tie crew.

Bob Jachim, Dave Cook, Cory Bennett, John LaOrange, Mark Kniebel an myself at least not falling down.

Bing Ringsley and Corky manned the skid loader bringing in new ties an taking away rotten ties. Bing

cleaned up the edge of the row picking up bits an pieces of broken ties. Cleaned up nicely. Cory and

Richard Warner worked on the UP tamper machine. Some sort of air leak in a rubber hose.

 

Bob Albert is putting on the hand throw for the derailer that he had fixed by a Amish welder. He did a really

nice job on fixing all the cracks. Bob reinstalled the hand throw during the day.

 

Les Beckman worked on replacing some wood on the coal bin at the watchmans shanty. Over the winter

the wood has rotted due to water damage.

 

Some visitors were touring the shops an exhibits during the day. By 3pm the shop was closed up an locked.

 

It was not a real busy day at HVRM. Come on out an help pick up spikes with the motorcar this coming

Saturday.

 

Tom Travis

 
 
 

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