Still searching at HVRM 2/23/13

Greetings -   Cold, cloudy day at Hoosier Valley today with temp maxing out at about 30 degrees.   We had some snow overnight on Thursday into Friday although nothing like what hit the Great Plains.  The 3" or so at North Judson was "crunchy" when walking on it.  I started out the day putting salt on the depot platform and on the steps leading into the NKP kitchen car.   Joe Baker and Joe Kingsbury were working on the Long Island commuter coach, including Joe B. doing rewiring.  Car was fired up during the day and heat and electric seemed good but Joe K. say that the governor is not holding voltage high enough.   Doug Kosloske and John LaOrange removed the brake valves from EL Alco # 310 to send out for testing.  Meanwhile, the valves for GE # 11 have been received but have not yet been installed.   Fred Boyer and Bob Albert continued working on the yellow IC display caboose.  Since the plan is apparently to repaint the caboose into an orange Illinois Central paint scheme once the car is finished, I decided to try one more time to find the original IC number.  Did some sanding over the platform door but had no luck.  I have looked for this number through the years, but have never had any success.  Some things don't change.  Oh well!  After giving up my search, I took some old partially damaged panels down in the caboose that Doug Kosloske had cut out.  Messy!   Bjarney Henderson and John DeGan worked on the Pullman Troop Sleeper, cutting a number of plywood panels and piecing them into the walls to replace the old pieces that had suffered water damage.  These guys are doing great work!   Bob Jachim was working on a project.  Steve Newland continued to work on the shelving for the new G gauge layout in the depot building.  Loretta Kosloske managed the gift shop and worked on future passenger train plans.  Diane Bennett brought in lunch today.     During the late afternoon, Mark Knebel and I helped John LaOrange move a pallet that had some heavy equipment on it.  The pallet had broken from the weight of the items so this was not a fun job, but we eventually managed to get it done.  John has been trying to clean up the Shop and has made some progress during the last month.   Enjoy the upcoming week everyone.  Stay safe!   Les

Cold wind at HVRM 2-16-2013

Greetings!   Cold day in the mid-20's, with a very wicked wind!  Despite the weather, things were still going on at Hoosier Valley.   Loretta Kosloske, with help from Bill Dauber, was making "goody bags" to pass out to riders on the Easter Bunny train that is upcoming at the end of March.   Bob Barcus rode out with Mark Knebel to show him some ties he had previously found from the old, long abandoned, Erie Railroad wye track.  These ties were from the east leg of that old wye.  Some ties were also found in the "tail track" although this part of the wye actually tied in to the New York Central to form the interchange between the two North Judson railroads.   I made it over to the Shop where I took a couple of photos of the front end of C&O Kanawha # 2789, one of which is hopefully attached to this report.  The photo shows the new numbers in the lamp box up at the top of the 2-8-4's boiler.   The locomotive long had a number in one of the lamp boxes that unfortunately, had an incorrect font.  The frame for the other lamp box was missing and Fred Boyer first had a new frame made, then sized it correctly and then made the 2789 numbers in the correct font after Jeff Kehler of the C&O Historical Society finally found the company records with the correct diagrams in the C&OHS archives.  Fred recently put the two sets of numbers in the lamp boxes and this is the result!  Eventually, the numbers with the correct fonts for the headlight number boards will also be done (the ones shown in the photo are also incorrect) but right now Fred is holding out to get new studs welded in so that he can put the classification lights on the locomotive.   In the other photo with this report, Fred is shown in the foreground working on the cupola area of the ex-Illinois Central Railroad yellow display caboose.  Steve Henrichs is in the background partially hidden behind Fred.  Steve ended up making a very nice metal patch for a rusted out area of the cupola.   In the meantime, Bob Albert was working inside the yellow caboose, putting some new solid supports in for future plywood panelling.  I did just a bit of work inside, removing some small pieces of wood and also taking down an electrical box that will not be needed for the future display plan.   Joe Kingsbury continued working on the interior of Long Island commuter coach number 2937.   Cory Bennett and Rich Warner went out to the wye area after lunch and looked for the survey stakes that had been put in some time ago when the wye area (which the museum eventually purchased) was surveyed some time ago.  Enough of the stakes on the one side were found so that the museum will be able to start removing the old scrub trees in that area.   Steve Newland took some additional measurements for the new G gauge railroad to be put in the waiting room area of the depot.  This addition will connect with the G gauge track that currently runs around the gift shop area and provides such enjoyment for visitors.   There were also a surprising number of folks that stopped by the museum; the nasty weather not preventing a visit.   The first reservations were received for the museums Annual Dinner to be held at the Monon Connection Museum on Sunday, March 10th.  Attendees will be able to visit the displays there at the museum and in addition, Diane Bennett promises a good program for everyone's enjoyment.   Have a good week everyone.  Some bad weather reportedly on the way for later in the week.  Let's hope the weatherman gets it wrong again.   Les

No blizzard, no snow at HVRM 2/9/13

Greetings friends!   Unlike those of you on the east coast that are getting dumped on this weekend, we had sunshine all day today with temps in the mid to high 30's.  The bit of snow still on the ground is slowly disappearing!  We know that winter is not yet over, and could still bite us in the rear end.  But we will be thankful for our continued good fortune and hope those of you in other parts of the country, are holding up as best you can.   Hoosier Valley Board meeting this morning at 8:00 and I was only a few minutes late.  Bob Barcus showed off his drawing for the museums 25th Anniversary celebration.  Really well done.  Fred Boyer came in and announced that he had put up the second set of 6" numbers for the 2789 in the number lamp box up at the top of the Kanawha's smokebox.  We've had one of the lamp boxes with a set of 2789 numbers for a long time but the font was incorrect.  Jeff Kehler of the C&O Historical Society was able to get us the correct font blueprints and Fred got the boards made.  He would have had both done last Saturday, but one glass plate was about an inch too long and wouldn't quite fit.  The new (correct) numbers look great.  Fred intends to do the numbers for the headlight too with the correct font for them, but is holding out now for new studs so that he can put the classification lights up on the 2-8-4.         It was great to see Tom Travis at the museum today.  It's been a very long time since Tom has been in North Judson, mainly caused by hip problems.  Tom got a new hip about 4 months ago and it seems to be coming along nicely.  He brought down the new air brake pipe that Ross Robinson had made some time back and Tom and I marked it and put it on the storage shelves in the shop.  Hopefully it won't end up in the scrap bin!  The pipe is for GTW transfer caboose # 75072, that is currently being used as our "curio sales" shop.  Once the weather turns warmer, we'll try to get the pipe installed under the 75072.   The boys thought that they had the diesel generator under Long Island commuter coach # 2937 repaired, but had another problem pop up this morning.  Cory Bennett, Rich Warner, Dave Cook and Steve Henrichs worked on it and finally got it running smoothly.  Joe Kingsbury continues to work on the interior heating pipe problems.   Bjarne Henderson and John DeGan worked on the air vents along the top of the Pullman Troop Sleeper.  Some of these have apparently been leaking, causing some of the water seepage problems on the interior walls of the car.   Meanwhile, Bob Albert and Fred continued their work of the restoration of the interior on the yellow display caboose and I joined in and helped them.  I managed to finally get the large display cabinet pulled away from the one wall of the car.  Not sure if this cabinet will be used in the new display configuration, but at least it can now be removed if that is the final decision.   John LaOrange was making repairs on the door of the operating crew sign-in room in the shop.   Mike Koehler showed up with a truck to remove some private locomotive parts from the shop building.  Bing Risley loaded some of these items with his fork lift.   Steve Newland continued with building the shelves for the new addition to the G Gauge layout in the waiting area of the museums depot.   Number of other folks working on various things at the museum today including Judy Boyer, Margrett Cook, Randall Downs, Mark Knebel, Tom McKee, Doug Kosloske and Bob Jachim.  Probably missed some folks.   Have a great week everyone.  Remember, February is a short month and once March gets here, so will Spring!   Les

Snow before the storm at Hoosier Valley RR Museum 1/26/2013

Greetings -   Finally had a  bit of snow earlier this week.  So there was snow on the ground at the museum, but some sun today, although temps stayed in the 20's.  Snow/sleet/ice storm forecast for tomorrow.   Big project at HVRM today was work on the diesel power plant under Long Island commuter coach 2937.  The diesel had apparently been overheating in train service this past season, so a number of the guys were working on it including Cory, Steve H., Dave, Joe K., Joe B. and Rich.  Dirty work!   Fred, Bob J. and I spent the day working on the ex-ICRR yellow display caboose.   John D. and Bjarne continued working on the interior of the ex-Pullman Troop Sleeper display car.   John L. and Bob A. worked on the storage racks in the East Annex of the Shop.   After lunch, LIRR 2937 was pulled out of the shop so that the repaired diesel power plant could be fired up without the exhaust filling the shop building.   When the two display cars were placed in the Shop a few weeks ago, the yellow caboose had been pushed in about 2/3rds of the way into the West Shop Annex so that there was a separation between it and the Troop Sleeper.  Unfortunately, this meant that the heavy canvas curtain that separates the West building from the rest of the Shop could not be lowered.  The West Annex is the only shop section that is insulated so by having the curtain remain up, the insulation advantage was lost.  So after lunch, a discussion took place to see if the caboose could fit into the West Annex behind the Troop Sleeper and the curtain lowered behind it.  Original placement had been made because it was not believed that the two cars would fit, but a measurement seemed to indicate that they might!  No motive power to move the cars so Mark K. got a manual car mover and shoved the Troop Sleeper up about a foot to the very end of the track.  Then he tackled the yellow caboose and soon a number of us were pushing on the car too, and eventually we got it in motion and a coupling was made between the two cars.  They cleared by about 6 inches!  Then we had to climb up and release the canvas curtain which had been tied up in place.  Kudo's to Steve H. for making the climb and cutting the ropes.  This should help keep the guys working on the two display cars a bit warmer this winter!   Bob Barcus manned the depot all day.  Actually had one or two folks drop by!   Temp was at 27 degrees on the thermometer attached to the wall of the watchman's shanty when I pulled out of the museum at 4:15.   Enjoy the weekend, and let's remember to be careful out there!     Les

Tearing it up at HVRM 1/12/13

Greetings friends!   What was supposed to start out as a warm day near 50, and then see the temp progressivly drop all day with rain eventually starting, turning to ice and then to snow showers, did none of that!  The temp after the morning Board meeting was 53 degrees and when I went to lunch, there was hazy sun and a temp of 59!  It moderated in the late afternoon, but no precip as I write this after 6:00 p.m.  Our mild winter continues!  Let's hear it for global warming!   Lots of stufff going on at the museum today.   Bob Jachim, Steve Henrichs and Steve Newland were digging out loose stone and mud from the old unloading area just west of the depot.  This area had been filled with stone up to the top of the rail many years ago, to aid in unloading railroad equipment that was moved in to the museum by truck.  The ties unfortunately, which were old to begin with, were thought to have deteriorated through the years and when the extra stone was dug out a couple of week ago, this was confirmed.  Some new ties will be needed before the next operating season.    Cory Bennett, John LaOrange and Mark Knebel were going to apply a new rain gutter to the old Erie building that John had recently repaired.  The one wall of this old Erie maintenance-of-way building had rotted out and John put in a new wall.  Hopefully the new gutter will keep most of the water away from the interior walls.   Doug Kosloske and John DeGan worked on pulling the heads from the Erie S1 diesel preparatory to sending them to Pittsburgh Air Brake.  Hope I got that right!  John told me later that Doug had suffered a minor injury during this work.   That reminds me that if I usually come home from a day at the museum with some kind of bruise or nick or muscle pain.  I guess I should expect that as I am probably one of the more clumsy people in existance.  No problems today though despite working with Bill Dauber and Fred Boyer on continued restoration work on our old IC yellow display caboose.  We managed to pound and hammer and unscrew and get the old display cabinets out of the car.  Fred finished off removing the dried up tar that had been put in the seams of the cupola where it met the caboose roof.  This had dried and cracked through the years and is probably where we were getting some of our leakage problems, along with the leakage from the windows we had put in.   Bob Albert took the torch to the old C&EI car (ex U.S. Army kitchen car) again, this time in an effort to cut the bolts off of the bottom of the car which held the cars stove and the oil tank for the stove.  The mission was accomplished and eventually those will have to be removed from the car.   Bjarne Henderson started in on the restoration of our Pullman Troop Sleeper.  This car has experienced even more leakage problems than the aforementioned yellow caboose.  Bjarne started removing plywood panels in an effort to determine just where the leakage was occouring.  John DeGan, eventually went over to help him, and Fred and I did likewise when we had finished for the day with work on the caboose.   Matt Lasayko showed up in the afternoon and started working on signals.  I noticed that the EJ&E searchlight signal was lit, after a period of time when it was not working.  Good to see that!   So, quite a bit of work ongoing at the museum.  This is the time to be doing stuff like this.  Tear down before you can build up!   Next Saturday will be the museums Annual Meeting.     Colder weather on the way this week folks, so bundle up!     Les

Hot times at HVRM....aftermath 1-5-13

Greetings!   Happy New Year everyone!  Missed last Saturday at Hoosier Valley but the boys were busy.  Work had gone forward on C&EI #A-1054, the ex-U.S. Army kitchen car.  This is the car that is planned to be used as an extension to the NKP camp car that HVRM uses for its members lunchtime meals.  A number of steel shelves and other metal items needed to be removed and last Saturday, these items were torched out.  Around 2:00 on Sunday morning, Bing Risley's dog Corky, woke Bing up with loud barking.  Bing's is the first house north of the museums Shop building and Bing looked out to see flames reflected off the metal sides of the Shop.  He quickly called 9-1-1 and the North Judson fire department arrived to find the C&EI in flames!  Heroic work by the NJFD saved the body of the car, but all of the wood interior walls and ceiling were completely destroyed.  So much for the question about how much of the interior should be removed from the car for the upcoming work.    With that background, I arrived at the museum today for a short work day.  Saw a number of folks working on removing debris from the C&EI car.  This included Dave Cook, Doug Kosloske, Cory Bennett, Steve Henrichs and John LaOrange.  There may have been others, but I stayed out of their way.  Instead, went inside the Shop where I found Fred Boyer, Mark Knebel, Bob Jachim and Bill Dauber working on the CIND,  ex-IC, yellow display caboose.  This is one of the display cars that is planned to be worked on over the winter.  All of the previous displays that were in the car had been removed.  The car previously had a fire (BEFORE it came to Hoosier Valley) that caused much damage, especially to the cupola area and the roof.  Years ago, a restoration was undertaken before displays were moved in, but the car has recently developed a number of bad leaks, especially in the cupola, and the plan is to try to rebuild the cupola windows, and also the leaking body windows.  I got up on the roof and started trying to remove the cupola windows on the long roof end of the car.  Although these windows have developed leaks, the are very difficult to remove.  Much hammering and crowbar work!  I should feel this tomorrow!   Meanwhile, other things were also ongoing at the museum.  Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske continued work on the museum passenger schedules for 2013.  There were also some visitors, including a family from Watseka, Illinois!  Joe Kingsbury was working on the LIRR commuter coach, trying to find out the reason behind heating problems in the car.  Steve Newland worked on cutting new shelves for the extension on the G gauge layout in the museums depot building.   After lunch, I decided to go over and look at the C&EI car.  Steve Henrich's asked me if I wanted to give him a hand with the one side center door of the car.  The firemen had jammed it, trying to get it open, eventually getting in through the door on the other side of the car by taking it off of its track.  Steve managed to get the bolts out of the door, we worked to get it unjammed and we then moved it back in the car, setting it up against the side.  We then knocked out the boards that were behind the door, which were the last of the burnt wood.  The car is now down to the bare metal on the inside and work can now commence on restoration.   Finished up doing some more work on the yellow IC caboose and headed for home about 1:30.  A short, but eventful day.   Hope the week goes well for everyone.     Les

Man with beard again at HVRM 12-8-12

Greetings!   Santa put in his appearance at Hoosier Valley again today.  Losing his reindeer and sleigh, he hitched a ride on the 11:00 train to English Lake asking riders to "keep an eye out for my reindeer".  The kids spotted them and if the train hadn't been going so fast (?), he could have hopped off and rounded them up.  He tried again on the 1:30 train and more reindeer were seen.  Again, the breakneck speed of the train prevented Santa from taking off after them.  Since he was on  the trains anyway, he was able to visit with each child and pass out some goody bags.  Cookies and hot cocoa were available for one and all back at the depot.   Yours truly had Santa transportation duties today.  Most of the members were tied up with operating the two trains.   But Steve Henrichs managed to get some painting done on the inside roof of Grasselli Tower's second floor.  Steve Newland was also working on Grasselli.   Bing Risley found time to get the stone around the Hibbard building, future motor car shed smoothed out using his little Bobcat.  John LaOrange and Fred Boyer were in the cab of 310 with Doug Kosloske as conductor.  Joe Kingsbury and Bill Dauber collected tickets on the train.  Mark Knebel and Bob Jachim red flagged the various grade crossings.   Bob Barcus and Loretta Kosloske manned a very busy depot.  Other ladies helping out included Judy Boyer, Margrett Cook, Louise Kingsbury and Dianne Bennett.  Not sure who choreographed the deer scared up for each of the trains today, but I can only say "well done"!   Earlier in the week, when we had temps in the 60's and 70's (unlike the low-40's of today), I managed to get to HVRM on Tuesday and get about a third of the north side roof of passenger car 899 painted black.   Bob Jachim was working that day on the new wood porch for the Secretary's office which had been resided earlier this fall.  Saw today that Bob had managed to get the porch mostly finished except for spindles needed on the railings.   Loretta advised we had a total of 220 riders on both trains today using only Long Island coach 2937 on the train behind EL Alco 310.  Number 2937 was warm and toasty!   One more day of Santa trains next weekend.  Then we are done with train rider operations until next Spring.   Hope everyone has an enjoyable week.   Les