Shopwork Pics at Hoosier Valley 2/23/19

 

Greetings to  Everyone,

Has not been bad weather, well the annual meeting was snowed out, will be rescheduled for a later date.

A very cold week of -50 degrees hit the area, shutting down school, local work jobs, you name it, it was

closed. But things have rebounded to being nice again. NW Indiana had one snow storm of measurable 

snow an melted the next day. Work had continued on Saturdays in the warm shop.

The Porter engine has been the main issue, with the brake system being reworked. The entire engine 

was jacked up to roll out the trucks at both ends of the engine. Taking apart the air cylinders an cleaning

everything, replacing gaskets, cleaning out the inside of the cylinder of rust, burnt on grease, getting them

to shine. Tom Rainford in the first pic has been hard at work now for a couple of weekends cleaning the truck

on the east end of the diesel. A number of gaskets were purchased, but not enough for the entire job, so

the rest of rubber gaskets needed will be cut out of stock. Its been done before an has worked quite

well. Pic 2, Cory Bennett is working on some piece of air pipe under the engine, trying to take it off.

Some connections are going to be replaced with a flexible rubber pipe with connectors on both ends,

one end to screw into the air tank, other end to the supply air, making it easier to work on instead of

pipe. Pic 3 is Tom Travis on left, John LaOrange on right, grinding on a piece of metal. Taking the crud

off is a hard job. Others working on the trucks included Kevin Kennedy, David Cook, Joe Kingsbury,

Les Beckman an myself, Tom Travis doing some actual labor, well at least I got dirty, sure felt it Sunday.

Lunch was provided by Charlene an Sherry, who made beef raviola, french toast, cheese cake, strawberry

jello with cottage cheese, an other assorted side dishes. Cheese cake was the highlight. A new volunteer

joined the museum Saturday helping out in the shop in the afternoon. Bob Barcus worked the gift shop.

I might of missed a couple of volunteers, but  thanks to everyone working on the Porter. Oh Joe the

electrican was also working in the shop. Mark Kniebel was there also. Thanks to everyone who helped 

this past Saturday.

February is at an end, March is right around the corner, an after that is the first event of the year,

Easter trains. 

Everyone have a good, safe week. 

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Shopwork Pics at Hoosier Valley 2/23/19

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Short day at Hoosier Valley 3/23/19

Greetings!

Had a family situation this morning, so got a VERY late start to the museum today, not arriving until well after lunch.  Not sure what all was going on but I know that the boys in the Shop were testing one of their reconditioned Porter brake valves, and heard that the test was successful!  Loretta Kosloske was cleaning out the EL commuter coach.  Matt Lasayko had discovered a couple of C&O right-of-way concrete markers last week and we decided to try to dig them out for display.  So, that's what I tackled this afternoon.  The first photo shows one of the posts as buried amongst the trees and leaves.  I dug around the post and eventually got a hole down pretty far on one side.  Shad Vargo came over and tried shaking it by hand, and it moved!  Then asked Bing Risley to come over with his machine and Bing managed to pull the post straight up so that it wouldn't crack.  Bing transported it over to one of our display sites and laid it down.  The other two pix, show the two sides with the impressed lettering.  NEAT!  One post to go...but for another day!


Les

Virus-free. www.avast.com

HVRM 5/25/19

Subject: HVRM 5/25/19

Gents -

Couple of photos from Hoosier Valley today.  Bing (and Corky) unloading 2789 parts from NKP baggage car #344; Porter crew trying to get wheels put back into side frames; results
of Kevin Kennedy's efforts on train order post.  Hot day; a short shower; estimate about 90 to 100 riders for the two trains.

Les

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Another hot day at Hoosier Valley 7/13/19

Greetings!

Temp in the low 90's at North Judson today.  Couple of guest engineers in the morning.  I had a problem with the upper sash on one of the west windows in Grasselli Tower last week and made a temporary repair to get the window opening closed.  Today I got out the man lift and went over and made a more permanent repair (see photo 1).  We can now open the lower sash to let some air into the tower without worrying about the upper sash crashing down!

In the afternoon, I agreed to car host on the Katy open car.  Had a good crowd.  Twenty five rode with me on the 12:30 run plus a number of folks opted for the air conditioning in Long Island coach 2937.  We then had a tour bus from the Lafayette area come in for the 2:00 train with 52 riders.  Plus we had some other passengers besides the bus folk!  Bjarne Henderson was the engineer in EL Alco # 310 while Bob Albert was conductor.  Lots of other folks helped out with the trains today doing various jobs including Bob Gyurko, Shad Vargo, Tom Travis, Robert Barcus, Bob Jachim and Tom Rainford.  Probably missed some people.

Apparently Kevin Kennedy put the finishing aluminum paint on the train order stand (second photo) some time this week.  Looks sharp!

Mark Knebel continued emptying NKP baggage car # 344 of the steam locomotive parts, as can be seen by the example in the third photo.  Mark is also doing some repairs to the roof supports on the depot ends.

Thanks to Charlene Gyurko for a nice rib lunch with all the trimmings.

Have a great week.  Stay cool (if possible)!

Les

Drizzly, but beautiful day at Hoosier Valley 11/17/18

 

Greetings -

Snow in the forecast for the day, but just had a light rain most of the afternoon with temps in the mid 30's all day.

Bob Albert has been working on the photo displays in Pullman Troop Sleeper # 7256, including those highlighting the Studebaker Automobile Company in South Bend, Indiana.  Photo one shows a photo display of historical photos relating to Studebaker.  Note the photo of Wabash boxcar # 49114, a car that is displayed at Hoosier Valley.  The company used box cars like this to ship parts and also entire automobiles to Studebaker dealers around the county. The second photo shows one of Bob's previous Studebaker displays that he recently renewed with new wood frames.

While in the Troop Sleeper, I checked for recent additions to the N scale display of North Judson.  Jon Oram has added grass and a number of trees to the display and also told me that a N gauge 1951 Desoto had been placed on the layout.  I looked, and actually found the maroon colored car! 

Joe Kingsbury continues working on our Porter diesel.  Photo number 3 shows one side of the cab with its finished ND&W 5332 lettering.  Also note the template on the hood of the unit.  The 4th shot shows Joe working on the lettering on the other side of the cab. 

Work also continued on putting ballast down on the new spur going into the west side of the museum's Shop.  Dave Cook with the air hammer is at left in photo number 5, while John La Orange handles the second air hammer with Tom Rainford behind John using his shovel to spread the stone.  Later Mark Knebel (left) and Cory Bennett took over the hammers, as seen in the 6th shot.

Two Saturdays ago, the museum started putting down new stone for the upcoming arrival of Erie Lackawanna open window coach # 4328.  Last Saturday, additional stone was put down from the Mulberry Street pavement over to the track where the car was to be unloaded.  The job got finished just in time, because word was received mid-morning that the truck bringing the car to HVRM, was on its way up from Noblesville! 

There was no formal lunch today so after finishing work on the west side Shop spur mentioned above, Tom Rainford and I went over to Subway for a quick lunch.  Upon our return, we found EL number 4328 sitting on Mulberry Street, waiting to go onto museum property (photo 7).  The unloading of truck-shipped railroad equipment is a long and involved, and we aren't able to document each step, however these next photos will give you an idea of the work.  Schlatter Boys Trucking handled the move of the 1917-built car and in the 8th shot, we see the two sets of trucks up on the roll off truck.  The first set of trucks has to be placed on the unloading track before the unloading of the 4328 can be started.  The 9th photo shows the first set of trucks coming off.  Doug Kosloske, who arranged to purchase the car, is shown in the 10th pix, putting heave grease into the bowl of the unloaded truck.  Once the first truck is on the unloading track, the car can be brought onto the property.  This move was not without problems as the truck got its wheels stuck in the new stone necessitating bringing out the museums Payloader to provide some helper service (photo # 11).  The car eventually was carefully positioned over the unloading track and the jacks positioned to lift up the front end of the car (pix 12), and once raised, the truck was pushed back (photo # 13) and lined up with the cars bolster with the jacks lowering the car onto the truck.  Not as easy as it sounds, this particular operation took quite a while.  With the car now sitting with a railroad truck on one end and the highway bogie on the other end, work commenced on getting the second railroad truck under the car.  This first entailed removing the third axle from the rear highway bogie and then pulling out the remaining two axle bogie as seen in the 14th photo.  The jacks were placed in the proper spot, and the car was again lifted up as can be seen in the 15th shot, with Doug again getting ready to apply heavy grease to the truck.  The second truck was unloaded from the roll off truck (photo 16) and then, after being greased, was carefully backed under the car.   With both trucks now in place and the car safely sitting on Hoosier Valley track, a quick inspection of the interior took place (photo 17).  Much work now has to be done to the car, but one day it WILL run down HVRM rails.  Thanks to Joey and Jake Schlatter for the move of the car to North Judson. 

Hope everyone has a great week coming up and a most wonderful, and enjoyable, Thanksgiving.  Don't eat too much now!!

Les

 

Virus-free. www.avast.com

A blue September sky at HVRM 9/15/18

Greetings!

Membership/Business meeting scheduled for this morning cancelled due to lack of a quorum.  

Beautiful blue sky today with temps in the 80's.  I got the manlift out and tightened the balance of the bolts in the roof walk sections of Chicago & North Western box car # 284.  Not a hard job, but I kept waiting for some clouds to show up for some shade.  Didn't happen!  And it was hot up there!  Managed to get all of the bolts in and tightened except for one on each end which will have to be taken care of from the car ends.

Mark Knebel had to work today but earlier in the week, he had started in on NKP gondola # 45622.  Here is a shot of the results on one end of the car. 

Steve Henrichs was wire brushing some additional levers up in Grasselli Tower and by the end of the day, Steve had cleaned up three levers and painted them black.

The track crew of Cory Bennett, John La Orange, Dave Cook and Tom Rainford successfully put in some holes using the museums rail drill tied the two rails of the track leading into the west side of the shop together with a joint bar, as can be seen in the second photo.

Bob Barcus handled depot gift shop sales today while Charlene Gyurko was the ticket sales agent.  Since Charlene was in the depot, pizza was ordered for lunch.

Bjarne Henderson was the engineer on the G.E. diesel today while conductor John DeGan aided by student conductor Bob Gyurko.  Tom Travis and I handled attendant duties in Long Island coach 2937 and MKT open car # 13833 with Kevin Kennedy along on the first run.  Bob Jachim and Mike Healy handled flagman duties at the North Judson Mulberry Street crossing while Bob Albert took care of flagging the crossings out of town.  The first train scared up a coyote while the second train did the job on a young deer which was just developing its antlers.  The deer decided to race the train and cut across the tracks and was successful, but John and Bob said "just barely"!

Joe Kingsbury put a blue stripe on the Porter diesel and later in the day did some needlescaling on the unit.

Bob Albert used the table saw to cut some wood to size.

Supposed to stay warm until mid-week when cooler temps are scheduled to move in.  Have a great week everyone!

Les