A visit to the Whistle Stop

It has been a while since I have visited the Whistle Stop Restaurant north of Monon (about three and a half years). A few days ago some visitors invited us to lunch there because a little boy had developed a fascination with trains and what better place to get a train fix than the Whistle Stop?

The museum is full of things that fascinate people who have a serious interest in the history of railroads. Our visitors were happy to examine the outside displays. There are three cabooses on display, one of which allows people inside. For our young visitors, it was the highlight of the collection. One of the others was recently added and I do not know if it was the one most visible from the road.

 Or the one that is near the back by the caboose that people can enter.

 In next to the caboose in front is a flat car with old farm equipment.

A great, great, great grandfather of of this boy was a section foreman and every day he and a worker would take a handcar like this to check the tracks. In the 19th century many tracks did not have a good base and track spreading was a problem. A section foreman was supposed to spot this problem and fix it. Another great, great, great grandfather of this boy was killed in a train derailment caused by spreading tracks. There were a lot of people killed in train accidents in the 19th century.

 Here is a closeup of one of the other handcars in the picture above. It is missing many of its pieces. It looks like it was motorized. Now the role of handcars is taken  by trucks that have rail wheels that drop down.

 Every station had carts similar to the one below. Many stations, including Rensselaer, had water towers to provide water for the steam engines. The W signs were common along the railroads even when I was young. I do not know if they are still used. They told the engineer that a road crossing was ahead and that he should sound the engine's whistle.

 The boards in the cart shown above have seen better days.

 The little depot building serves as a gift shop. It was not open when we were there.

 This crane is relatively new.

 A couple box cars at the back provide a scenic backdrop but do not seem to draw much attention from visitor.

 I liked the pattern of the metal grill that served as the platform of the caboose that people can enter. If you would like a technical analysis of its symmetry and tessellation type, go here.

Business After Hours at the Rensselaer Republican

On Thursday evening the Rensselaer Republican hosted a Business After Hours event as a way to celebrate their 150th year anniversary. The attendance was much better than it has been at some of the recent Business After Hours events.

The Rensselaer Republican is part of a larger company that owns newspapers and magazines from the East Coast to Iowa. The division that the Republican is part of has three dailies (Rensselaer, Monticello, and Watseka) and eight weeklies, plus ten editions of Shopper News. All are printed in Watseka, Illinois. The advertising and news staff for the Republican work in Rensselaer and the paper is laid out here, then sent electronically to Watseka where an aluminum printing plate is made. The paper takes a bit more than an hour to print. It is then delivered to the post office in Rensselaer (and a few other places) so it can be delivered in the daily mail. The printing plant in Watseka prints the dailies overnight and everything else during the day.

I asked what happened to paper boys and girls. There are still a few places where the paper is delivered that way, but in large cities the threat of crime curtailed them and in the rest of the country the busy after school schedules of many students greatly limited the pool of kids available to deliver papers. Also, the density of the routes has declined. Thirty years ago about 70% of Rensselaer households subscribed to the paper. Now it is between 50 and 55%.

On Friday the Rensselaer Republican will publish a supplement with highlights from its first 150 years.

There are always interesting conversations to be had at the Business After Hours events.

Also Thursday evening a group of garden enthusiasts met to plan for next year's community garden. There will be one and it will be located south of the county annex that houses the Extension office and the Surveyor's office. (There was no community garden this past summer.) There are a lot of details to be worked out yet. One thing that will be different next year will be that gardeners will be allowed to sell their vegetables at the local farmers market. During its first two years the rules forbad sales. Signup will probably occur in January or February.

Ribbon cutting RPJ Truck and Equipment Sales

Today a new business, RPJ Truck and Equipment Sales, had its Chamber of Commerce Ribbon Cutting. It is located in the building just south of the John Deere dealership that previously housed MacAllister Equipment (before they moved to a new building east of the airport).

 I remember writing about this business many months ago when it was looking for a variance to open near Remington, but I cannot find that post. Plans for opening in Remington were abandoned and instead Rensselaer now has a heavy truck dealership.

 Most of the business is not local. The owner, Patience Taruwinga, teaches business at Saint Joseph's College and has for a number of years had an export business specializing in selling heavy equipment to Africa.  He now sells throughout the United States, with some of that local. The trucks in front are used and were once operated by Schilli. I learned today that if a semi is properly cared for, it can run for two million miles. (That is equivalent to four trips to the moon and back, or around the world about 80 times.)

The building does not have much in the front part other than a reception desk and a small side office. In the back there is space for truck repair and the business is searching for a mechanic. Currently repairs are being done across the highway at the Hopkins Trucking Company and if you look carefully at the first picture, you can see the owner of Hopkins Trucking on the left partially hidden behind in the second row.

Mr Taruwinga comes from Zimbabwe. The picture above includes his parents, wife and children, and a brother who I know from my association with CDC Resources. (I am on the board of directors.) Earlier this week CDC Resources had its annual meeting/banquet and at that banquet Sodexo Food Services of Saint Joseph's College won an Employer of the Year award for its efforts to hire people with developmental disabilities. The event was held in the gymnasium of the Reynolds School, and unfortunately I forgot my camera so I have no pictures. However, here is a picture of the crowd holding candles (a fun part of the evening) and of the featured speaker, who is president of  the ARC of Indiana, along with the executive director of CDC Resources and two of our local state representatives, Doug Gutwein and Don Lehe.

Something a little unusual for a dark and dreary day

Last night as I was on my way to the City Council meeting, I noticed workers in what was Larry's Shoe Repair. Today I stopped to look through the window and saw that the inside was being remodeled into what appears to be an office.

Today I checked an e-mail to see what was going on this week at SJC and noticed that the football team was playing a school I had never heard of, The University of God's Chosen. Curious, I looked them up on the Internet. They are a new school, started on July 14, 2014. I could not find an address for the campus, if any exists. The first sentence on their home page is, "We are the University of God’s Chosen (UGC), a non-profit university dedicated to using sports to build relationships in multiple cultural settings." Checking their academics page, you read this, "Our goal is to improve our students academically and provide them the opportunity to play sports at the collegiate level. Students of UGC are required to be enrolled in an accredited online college to earn credits towards a degree." It seems to be kind of weird, but higher education is full of weirdness these days.

Something to brighten up an otherwise dark and dreary day as we get some rain from what is left of Hurricane Patricia.

Two short meetings

Tonight's City Council was very short--it was over in about 15 minutes. The most interesting bit was in the administrative comments with a discussion of the Internet/TV Cable outage on Saturday. (Must have been tough for people wanting to watch football.) The farmer farming a field at SJC cut the TV Cable feed. It was in the same trench as a city power line that is 30 inches below grade. The TV cable line had to be at least a foot away from that cable. It was less than 20 inches below grade, and apparently a lot less than 20 inches. The mayor said that TV Cable will probably have to do a separate trench so they can get their cable deeper.

A couple recommendations from the ad hoc insurance committee were approved. The Council chose a dental/vision insurance provider and opted to continue continue funding employee Health Savings Plans at $1500. The tax laws will not affect that until 2018. 

The water will be shut off in Weston Cemetery this week and the Street Department would like to remind residents to separate piles of leaves from piles of branches to make life easier for those picking up leaves and branches.

City elections are almost upon us. There are three contested elections.  Steve Wood and Russell Overton are running for mayor.  In Ward 3 George Cover is being challenged by Todd Luddington. In Ward 4 Ernest Watson is being challenged by Richard Comingore.  At-large Councilman Scott Barton and Ward 1 Councilman William Hollerman are unopposed, as is Rich Odle who is running to fill the Ward Two seat now held by Russell Overton. Frieda Bretzinger is unopposed for the Clerk-Treasure position.

Forty five minutes later the monthly BZA meeting convened in the Court House. The only item on the agenda was for a meteorological tower in Carpenter Township. It would assess wind resources for a possible wind farm. The project is in a very early development stage and, if I heard the presenter correctly, it is being considered by a group that has done one of the White County wind farms. It will be a temporary structure 298 feet tall and will have an expected life of 4 years. This duration caused some discussion by Board members because the county code only allows 18 months for a meteorological tower. The variance was approved but the Board noted that in 18 months the owners would need to come back and apply for an extension.

The Court House Tree on the second floor now has its Halloween decorations.

The Fall Sports season for RCHS came to a close this past weekend. The team that did the best was the band team (marching band), which placed 6th of 14 according to today's Rensselaer Republican. Last year they also made it to the state finals but finished 14 of 14. There are two classes in the state competition and obviously Rensselaer competed in the one for smaller bands/schools. (The band's Facebook page is here.)

Over the weekend I stopped by the quarry again and there is now very little equipment left at the bottom. A picture in this post show what used to be there.