Warming Up at HVRM Shop 2-15-2014

Greetings
 
Finally after weeks of subzero temps everywhere, things are starting to warm
up, including HVRM. Many things to report on todays activities inside the west
shop area.
 
After a grueling week of driving school bus in nothing short of harsh winter
conditions, I was ready for some relaxing activities. I got up early to meet
some friends at Fingerhut Bakery for breakfast. WOW was I surprised at
7am to find almost all tables full, but managed to sit down with a couple of ham
radio friends who were not at the master table. I guess everyone in North Judson
was having the same idea, get out of the house and enjoy the day. So after
an excellent breakfast, I proceded down to HVRM. Most of the activity seemed
to be at the shop building. A large crew had already assembled inside and
were starting on projects. Walking into the west shop, it was actually very
warm. The new heater was inspected last Monday an bought on Tuesday
an transported to North Judson. Its a monster, and does it put out the heat.
I'm not sure what the btu's are, but in the range of 600,000 I think. Runs on
#1 diesel fuel. The second surprise was the concrete for the long anticipated
floor along the rail will be poured Monday morning. About 27 yards have been
ordered. The day was spent in prepartion of leveling the sand and putting down
the wire. The side boards were beefed up to prevent bowing when the concrete
is being poured. John, Cory, Dave and Steve Hendrics were the workers.
 
The back-hoe tractor was started and managed to get in close to lift the bent
coupler to be put in John LaOrange's truck for another attempt to get it straight
again. It was found out it is hollow and if heated up, it most likely will be able to
get it back to normal.
 
After the tractor moved out, the payloader pulled in to have it serviced. Change the
oil, change fuel filters and have it greased. Cory, John and Sparky worked on
this project. 
 
Steve Hendrics moved a small cabinet from Grasselli tower inside and primed
it for future painting. Steve also did some more work on a pipe he has ground
down, primed and final painted today.
 
Joe Baker was there today also doing whatever. Joe Kingsbury was busy
around the shop building also. Margret was there today to provide lunch
for the crew. Loretta was in the depot drumming up throttle time participants.
Doug was over at Osinkis auction today and came back with a list of bought
items. Bob Barcus was holding down the gift shop. Mark Kniebel doing all
types of odd jobs today also. Elmer Mannen showed up in the afternoon an
stayed for about an hour or so. Steve Newland, Richard Warner were also in
attendence.
 
I took on the task of starting to grind on the ND&W west end and getting a start
on the task that is going to take a long time to complete, removing the old paint.
Haven't work this hard in months. Was fun to get all dirty again and I was the first
to make the new heater look like it has been inside the building for months, dirty.
 
About 3pm, it was time to pull the loco and IC caboose into the other shop in
prepartion for the cement pour. This only took a few minutes with the payloader
providing the power.
 
Shop was locked up and everyone moved over to the depot for a meeting.
The annual dinner will be held at the Revolution Restuarant in Valpo in April.
More in the newsletter coming out soon. A couple of other items were discussed
and adjourned about 3:45pm.
 
Headed towards home for a hot shower and clean clothes. Hope everyone has
a better week and warms up some. Drive safe, roads are still ice coated and
slick. Things are looking up at HVRM, come on out and visit with us some Saturday.

LIttle of this and that....and that....and that....and that...at HVRM 2/8/14

Greetings Winter Season enthusiasts!

Well....maybe not.  This has been a tough winter for us here in Northwestern Indiana.  Much snow and frigid temps have frayed the edge of many folks.  Snow piled everywhere!  Tom Travis told of a particular bad corner in LaPorte where high snow piles at the corner caused a couple of serious accidents.  Of course, not only us in the Hoosier state are feeling the winter, as it had been bad in many of parts of the good old U.S.A.

The last two Saturdays at the museum saw heavy snow and horrid road conditions, keep attendance down.  Just 4 people showed up last week.  We had an overnight snow again last night and road conditions were again poor at best.  Temps stayed in the upper teens and we had light snow again just about the whole day.  Despite this, we had a number of folks show up today, although there was no formal Board meeting.

Cory Bennett pulled the flat tire off of our manlift and went out and had it repaired.  A bad connection at the rim was the verdict.  Some cleaning up of the rim and the tire was pronounced as fixed.  Cory said, "let's hope so or we'll be back!"

Loretta Kosloske reported a number of Guest Engineers have signed up from states beyond Indiana and Illinois, including a phone call today from a gentleman in Tennessee who had visited HVRM when Nickel Plate 2-8-4 #765 was last here. 

Fred Boyer worked on sanding down previously applied Bondo and then grinding some rough spots under the roof overhangs on the IC yellow caboose.  Fred keeps finding red paint from the original Illinois Central paint job.  Meanwhile, Bob Albert, using some of the old gymnasium floor pieces that we have on hand, worked on fixing the bad floor section in front of one of the caboose doors.  The floor in now finally finished!

Cory and company used the Backhoe to pull the Porter diesel from the old section of the Shop into the West Annex, which is insulated.  Temps in the old section peaked at 27 degrees whereas one torpedo heater got the West Annex up to 47 degrees by the afternbboon.  Quite a difference.  A regular furnace of some type would actually make it toasty in the West Annex.   Discussions on that are ongoing. 

After moving the Porter, Cory changed the oil and filter on the Backhoe.

The warmer temps in the West Annex enabled Steve Henrichs to move the long pipe for the Grasselli Tower electrical connections over and he managed to get the pipe completely primed.

Sparky Byers wanted to put a 4' florescent fixture into the cab of the Porter for light when working on the electrical cabinet.  Believe it or not, we found a brand new fixture on top of a cabinet in the Old Shop along with a whole boxful of 4' florescent tubes!   Sparky put some screws into the wood in the cab roof and hung the fixture.  First tube lit up like a charm.  Second one....no.  Tried two tubes.  Neither of them worked.  Then exchanged tubes and the good tube one did not work and one of the bad ones did.  Joe Kingsbury took the fixture done and worked on it and eventually pronounced it as "junk".  Knew there was a reason we found that stuff so easily!  Went out a purchased a couple of portable lights to use instead.

We all chipped in and purchased some pizzas for lunch.  Got the great news that a Tamper has reportedly been donated to us.  This will greatly aid in trackwork, which is an ongoing necessity at Hoosier Valley.

Tom and I have talked about painting the train order stand and finding some place to put it up at the museum.  I looked for the stand and found it but also discovered that the lower "circular" connection was missing.  I wandered around the shop looking for it and finally found it on one of the shelves that were rescued from the old Erie Milk Station building.  We now have a winter project.

Cory, John DeGan, Steve Newland, Rich Warner and Randall Downs stood around and  talked about the coupler and its bent shank that had been removed from the one end of the Porter.  Apparently the company that John LaOrange approached stated that they didn't think they could heat and then bend the 6" solid square shank.  Steve checked over the coupler and said that he thought that the shank might not be solid, but hollow.  Found a long piece of wood and was able to insert it nearly back to the hole for the pin that holds the coupler/shank in place.  An interesting discovery.  Might be able to heat and bend the shank after all.

I spent a bit of time removing some yellow tape residue from the other coupler on the Porter.  By then, it was 3:00 and still snowing, covering all of our cars.  Enough for one winter day.  We turned off  the lights and locked up.  Next Saturday's another day.

 

Richard Warner and Joe Kingsbury have completed the repairs to the John Deere tractor. The

tractor needed to be split apart to repair the PTO problem. Richard also replaced some items

that were in marginal condition. Transmission oil was replaced also. Works great now for the

brush whacker for next summer.

 

Someone spent a lot of time with the back hoe tractor cleaning out the drives around the

museum this past week of deep snow. Thanks very much.

 

Talk of acquiring an old house north of Bings home at a Sheriffs sale coming up later in the month.

The house would be torn down, as it is now unoccupied and deserted. It is a large lot and zoned

for dwellings at this time. Would clean up the corner also. A couple of large trees occupy the

properity, one which is dead, which would burn nicely in the wood stove in the shop building.

Les  

    

 

 

UP 4014 Ontario CA 1-25-2014

The historic move of UP 4014 today to Colton CA 1-25-2014
 
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=467715&nseq=3
 
 

Threat of snow, meeting, fail to halt work at HVRM 1/18/14

Greetings!

Threat of snow ignored as work at Hoosier Valley continued today. 

I arrived at 9:00 a.m. and did a bit of sweeping of the depot platform.  Pulled a bad wooden board from the coal bin next

to the watchman's shanty, but failed to find the same style in the Shop.  Bob Jachim later told me that the old wood pile

that he used to build the bin, is now gone.

In the Shop, Sparky Byers, John LaOrange, Ben Byers and Jacob Byers were working on getting the bent coupler out from

the front end of the ND&W Porter diesel.  After much work, they finally got it done!  Ben and Jacob put it on a cart and

wheeled it out to the Shop's east entrance, where Bing Risley used his loader to put it in the bed of John's truck.  A repair

will be attempted.

Meanwhile, Cory Bennett used the green man lift to take down the lightweight blue fiberglass separating curtain between

the original old McGill Shop and the newer West Annex.  He then put up the old canvas tarp, which should supply a better

temperature protection between the insulated West end and the original Shop.

Fred Boyer continued applying Bondo to the yellow IC caboose.  Bjarne Henderson showed up with the lettering diagrams

for this caboose, which were recently sent to him by the Illinois Central Historical Society.  Bjarne had been waiting for these

for some time and its great to hear the they have finally been received.  The diagrams are for Illinois Central lettering with

the "Main Line of Mid-America" slogan and the IC "split rail" herald.  These will eventually applied to the caboose, which

will be repainted orange.  We will have to figure out what number to put on the car since we have never found the original

IC road number.

The forementioned canvas curtain works, but there was a gap of a few inches, so Dave Cook, Bjarne, Tom Travis and

yours truly helped as Cory attached a separate canvas strip to the bottom edge of the tarp.

After lunch, the Annual meeting of the museum was held at the North Judson Public Library.  A good attendance for the

meeting, even though a good snow was forecast, and had started to fall just before the meeting commenced.  All of the

incumbents, President Bennett, Treasurer Bob Barcus and Directors LaOrange and Joe Kingsbury, were re-elected.

Supposed to be some frigid temps coming in next week, so stay warm everyone!

Les 

     

HVRM's Annual Meeting 1-18-2014

Greetings,
 
Today again dawned to another cold day. Only 19 this morning with colder
temps to come in the next week. By this afternoon snow was coming down
again, just making the driving slippery. One spin-out was noted on the
way home from North Judson, just not slowing down early and braking at
the last moment makes for scarey moments for some.
 
Did not get down to the museum till about 11am, due to a late night basketball
charter to Chesterton, I slept in. When I walked in, a coupler with a bent
shaft was on a roller cart. John LaOrange and Joe Kingsbury has taken out
the east end coupler on the ND&W 5332 Porter diesel. John is going to take
it to a shop to have it straighted with an extremely large press, as its going to
take some omph to get r done. Much of the morning it took to get it out, hopefully
it will go back in faster.
 
The tarp that was up between the middle and west shops was back up with
a new improved rope system to open an close. Not being long enough,
Cory, Dave, Bjarne were tacking another piece on the bottom with brass
grommets. Cory had acquired the grommet package at a truck stop, not
a bad idea, but since he is a trucker, and tarps do rip at times. So now a
nice bottom tarp dragger is on the bottom to keep out the cold air the west shop.
The electric man lift in the west shop was used to string up the
tarp along the top rafter.
 
Fred Boyer was again working on the IC yellow caboose. A couple of salamanders
were keeping the air temp above 40 or so. Bjanrne Henderson has received the
lettering from the ICHS group. So he will be able to letter the caboose once painted.
 
After lunch, the group moved down to the North Judson library basement for the
years annual meeting starting at 1pm. 30 members were present. Reports from
secretary and treasurer where given. Election ballots were handed out and
counted. Cory Bennett retained the president postion, Bob Barcus, treasurer,
John LaOrange, Joe Kingsbury directors. Much discussion on the subject of
heating the west shop building was held. Many ideas were discussed and all
will be investigated for cost of type an installation. Heating sources from
wood stoves, LP gas, natural gas, kerosene salamanders were brought up.
Heat is needed in the shop if equipment is to be painted in the winter period.
Certain paints now require a certain temp for it to go on the steel surface correctly.
A new LP gas heater will be bought an installed in the kitchen car shortly, paid
by the lunch money fund. Concrete pad will be poured as soon as it warms up
some in the shop area, as all preps are made for pouring.
 
John LaOrange reported that buildings need to be repaired soon, the payloader
shed, motor car shed, all needing work on roofs and walls. Shop buildings
continue to leak water from the roofs onto the floors.
 
ND&W 5332 to be blue carded, most likely will cost a couple of thousand
dollars to  accomplish, and take maybe 2 years to get ready for operation.
Having low hour, low used Cummins engines,  with parts available, antifreeze
fluid added to system, will make this a year round engine available for switching
duties. The Whitcomb was evaluated and costs just exceeded what was resonable
for HVRM. With CAT engines, no parts are available, so if one goes down, it is
sidelined. A spare CAT engine remains on a NKP flatcar in the rail yard. The
Whitcomb is slated for display.
 
After the meeting, drove directly home, as not much else was going to happen
for the day. Take care, have a good week everyone.
 

A New Year, In Comes the Cold & Snow, 1-11-2014

Greetings to All,
 
Well 2014 is here, it came in with cold an snow last week. The two
week school vacation stretched into another 3 days with very frigid weather,
and lots of blowing snow. All we could do was just stay inside for an
extra couple of days. Thursday, the 9th was the first day back to school.
La Porte was lucky, INDY and Ft Wayne both had no school all week,
but the warmup came friday, temps almost to 40 degrees plus over an
inch of rain. Now its flood watches on the Kankakee River. The reappearing
lake in the parking lot at HVRM was again full, might not go down anytime
soon due to frozen ground.
 
For some late late news on the Santa trains of 12-14-2013, total count
of riders was 260. Again it was a lot of fun for everyone. Things went well
and everyone had a good time with Santa.
 
01-04-2014, was not much of a work day for anyone. Cold buildings
made it hard to work in. Only a couple of workers showed up and most
of the operations were over by noon.
 
01-11-2013. Started off with a board meeting in the depot. The regular reports
were given by the board. A couple of items was for heat in the west building, cost
estimates for a wood/coal burning stove with forced heat vents to various areas
of the building were to be investigated. Another item was the large door at the
west end of the building, for installation of door opener. Roof problems continue
to give us fits, leaking and  freezing on the floor. Concrete is still in the works
for the west building, only when the crew finds time to pour on a Saturday. The forms
are ready and sand has already been put down.
 
The one an only big job for the day was putting batterys in the ND&W diesel. After
the board meeting, John LaOrange headed to the shop to put water in the Erie 310
and get some heat on the engine block. After getting the diesel started, and filling
the shop with exhaust, the Whitcomb and Porter were pulled outside the building.
Richard Warner brought his John Deere tractor with hay forks on the bucket
down to the museum to lift the big batterys one at a time into the battery boxes of
the Porter ND&W engine. The old batterys were taken out earlier, as they were
empty of fluid and some had large cracks in the cases. The eight batterys were taken
out of the Whitcomb, filled with water, an were put in the ND&W diesel. These
batterys are only about 5 years old, so should get a couple more years of use
out of them. Joe Kingsbury will or has connected all the batterys so charging can
begin. Joe can't even do simple testing of electrical circuits without any power,
so this should help. The battery boxes were cleaned out, scraped and painted.
This job was accomplished before noon. Diesels were pushed back inside
the building an the ND&W was positioned over the pit for access to the traction
motors. Erie 310 sat outside for a couple of hours idling to charge up batterys.
 
Other activity on the IC caboose was Fred Boyer working on bondo the south side
of the caboose. More places need bondo all the time. Ed Keeler did floor repairs
to the rotted wood in the caboose.
 
Bob Albert brought up the subject of the Wabash 4th Sub, Gary IN to Montpelier OH,
book is now complete an printed. Cost is about 45 dollars and Bob Barcus has
ordered at least 5 or more copies, with 2 already spoken for. If you desire a copy,
please contact Bob Barcus so he can save you a copy. Bob Albert has high praise
for the new book already.
 
Next Saturday, 01-18-2014, 1PM at the North Judson town library for the museums
annual meeting and election. Please try to attend an vote for candidates for various
offices in the museum. Wish Elmer Mannen a Happy Birthday also, actually it was
today, but he was not at the museum today.
 
Big your ideas an comments for the Annual meeting, new ideas are always
welcome.
 
Have a good week, days are getting longer each day, yeah, but still not over
with the cold an snow just yet.
 
Tom Travis 

Frigid temps fail to stop Santa at HVRM 12/7/13

Greetings everyone -

Sun, but temps in 20's all day at North Judson.

Most of the members today were involved with moving the three Santa trains out over the line to English Lake.

Santa visited each and every kiddie in Long Island passenger coach while the Bessemer & Lake Erie caboose

provided lights and horn on the westbound runs with the EL 310 at the head end eastbound.  Both LIRR #2937

and B&LE #1989 were toasty and warm!

Too many folks to mention who supported the runs today but all 3 trains were operated at capacity with a total

of 339 passengers on board.  And we will do it all again next Saturday!

A few other things were done at the museum today including Steve Newland painting parts for Grasselli Tower

and Bob Albert working to repair a broken vice in the wood shop. 

Thanks to all who helped out today!  It's very much appreciated.

Les