Lots of pictures, 08-08-2015 (updated)

On Friday I was passing through downtown and a couple of the MainStreet Rensselaer ladies gestured to me to come and see the new flower pot being installed in the Hanley mini-park. It matches the bench.

 They also mentioned that there were new benches installed in Potawatomie Park, and later that day I checked them out. I suspect these are benches that are part of a fund-raising effort by the Park Department or the Park Corporation.

Down the street from the Hanley mini-park, the old Bub's BBQ place has its windows blocked so no one can see what is happening inside. The report from Visit Rensselaer is that it will be a new restaurant.

 On the other side of the street a building that had been empty for quite a while is now the home of a beauty shop.

 The door was open on what will be the new home of Ayda's so I peeked in and took a picture. The floor tile has been installed and a lot of the interior decorating in finished. This project turned out to be more involved than the owners anticipated but it should be very nice when it is finished.

 The old sign that said, "Furniture Carpets" is flaking off and under it old lettering is appearing. I do not know if you can make out the word "SERVICE" in yellow and what appears to be "FOUNTAIN" before it. Before the building was a furniture store, it manufactured ice cream and apparently sold it as well.

 In late July I noticed that there was some kind of work going on with the railroad near the Amtrak station. Tie plates had been put on all the ties. However, because of other commitments, I did not get back to see what was going on.

 On Friday I finally did. It appears that one of the rails on the curve has been replaced. You can see the old one lying to the right. Both the old one and the new are continuous--the various sections are welded together to form a single rail.

 The Cullen Street crossing has been torn up and will be redone.

 There were a lot of maintenance of way machines parked on the siding by the elevator.

 I thought this machine was especially interesting. You can see it has a track, but it also has railroad wheels. I do not know if the rail wheels can be removed and if it can then move on its track.

 Finally, I visited the construction site of the new fire station on Friday and was very surprised to see that much of the foundation had been poured. The long boom allowed pouring of sections of the basement. If you look closely you may also see that the outline of the part of the building that will hold the vehicles has concrete footings. The building is closer to the front of the lot than I expected it to be.

Update: A MetLife blimp flew over Rensselaer late Saturday morning, traveling east to west.