A brief respite and other stuff

We are getting a break from two weeks of bitterly cold weather, but with the warm-up comes precipitation, both rain and snow. A few warm days will be followed by a return of very cold weather. The poor road conditions and the cold have kept me mostly inside, hunkered down.

However, I have gotten out a few times to see what is happening at the site of the train derailment. On Friday a crew was still working on repairing the main track. On Monday the track crew was not there when I stopped by.

In the picture above the men were welding a rail. Below a truck is unloading a rail.

In addition to the main line, there are two side tracks at this intersection and neither has been repaired. Here is the view as you look to the east of the south tracks.

A company named Sunpro is on site doing something with the tank cars. I have not learned yet what the fate of these cars will be. The two that are nearest the tracks seem to be the most heavily damaged and I doubt if they can ever be returned to service. These cars hold more than 30,000 gallons.

Although the cars did not derail until Scott Street, whatever the problem was with the wheels was already causing damage as the train went past the depot. They gouged out bits of concrete from the edge of the platform.

The skeleton of a new apartment building on Elza Street is in the process of being erected. I suspect the weather is delaying work.

In news from Remington, the rebuilt Pilot station is expected to open on Saturday.

The Rensselaer City Council began 2018 with a short and mostly uneventful meeting on Monday evening. They approved the minutes from the last meeting, which I did not attend or write about. You can read them here.

The Council approved a gas tracker increase of 9.5 cents per hundred cubic feet. It also approved a change in the contract with Grimmer to extend a water line near the Mt. Calvary Road/US 231 intersection so it will not be under the highway when that intersection is redone next summer. INDOT wanted the extension to be longer than originally planned, hence the change. Appointments to various boards were announced.

The electrical utility is planning to send four workers and three trucks to the Virgin Islands to help rebuild their power grid. The mission will last between 36 and 43 days, with all expenses being paid from FEMA monies. There were questions of whether that might hurt Rensselaer in case of an emergency. The utility was given approval to proceed with the plan. This item was probably the most newsworthy item from the meeting.

The conversion of the old fire station into a police station has had some hiccups. There were unexpected floor problems in the office area, termite damage to wood was discovered, and the cold weather has limited some tasks. Nonetheless, the move-in date is expected to be June. The Watt substation is undergoing tests and is expected to be energized in the week of the 22nd. The company that has been lining the sewer from the library to the lift station is expected to be back in town this week to complete the final section.

I found a website that has the sunrise and sunset times for every day of the year for Rensselaer (and anywhere else). Days are 47 minutes longer at the end of the month than at the beginning.

I like to check ice cover on the Great Lakes. The cold snap got the ice cover over 29%, but with warmer weather, the ice cover is now dropping. The next cold wave will cause it to grow again. There is still a lot of relatively warm water in Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Ontario.

A cold start to a new year

Rensselaer is in the midst of a cold snap. On Tuesday morning the City weather station recorded a temperature of negative 16.9 degrees. Many people had problems starting vehicles. The County Highway Department reported that eight trucks would not start.

The Commissioners met in an uneventful meeting Tuesday. First order of business was electing officers, with Kendall Culp again chair and James Walstra vice chair. William Wakeland from Community Corrections sought approval for submitting a grant proposal that would fund two additional full time positions. The current budget allows 6 full time and 4 part time. If the grant is approved, he would like that to go to 8 full time and 3 part time. The Commissioners were somewhat concerned about what would happen if the grant were approved for one year and then not reapproved, but they gave their approval to the submitting of the proposal.

A couple of buried cable requests were approved. The Council questioned whether one of the newspapers designated as place for county legal announcements needs to be daily as the Rensselaer Republican starts the year as a twice-weekly paper. A bit later the County attorney said that the paper did not have to be a daily and the Commissioners designated the three County papers for legal notices.

Veteran's Affairs had a request to approve the purchase of a surplus Sheriff's vehicle by the Veterans Council, a not-for-profit organization. The vehicle would be used to transport veterans to area VA clinics and hospitals. The hangup on this discussion was whether the County was able to dispose of surplus property to a not-for-profit rather than auction it. The County attorney found that there were provisions in State law that allowed such a transfer. The vehicle is a 2007 Trail Blazer with over 100,000 miles.

The Commissioners approved some conferences and appointments to Boards as they waited for 9:00 when a bid opening was scheduled. The bids were for four roads funded by CCMG grants. There were four bidders and later in the meeting, after the highway engineer had examined them, the Commissioners approved the low bids, all from Town and Country. At 9:15 a series of other bids, for tires, stone, sand, hauling, and machine rental were opened. As is their custom, the Commissioners accepted all bids, which I think allows them to choose the best supplier for any particular project during the year.

Because of deadlines for submitting paper work for road funding, the Commissioners spent a lot of time signing a host of documents, all in the required blue ink. For some reason black ink is not acceptable.

The final bit of business before the Commissioners went into executive session to "conduct interviews and negotiations with industrial or commercial prospects relating to a proposed energy savings contract for maintenance and repairs of Jasper County Courthouse" was approving a contract to have County roads re-assessed. This is necessary in order to get Community Crossroads grants approved, and those grants are important in maintaining County roads.

The County Code is now on the County Website. You can find a link to it on the home page at www.jaspercountyin.gov/.

If you have a paper subscription to the Rensselaer Republican, you can now access their electronic edition. Go to their web page at http://www.newsbug.info/eedition/rensselaer_republican/. Click on the picture of the paper or the button that says subscribe, and you should get a form. Fill it out and follow the directions.

A couple of new things to start the year: a new judge and soon a new state senator. Russell Bailey was appointed to the Superior Court replacing James Ahler, who left to become a bankruptcy judge in Hammond, and soon a new state senator will replace Brant Hershman who resigned to join a law firm in Washington D.C. The State legislature starts its short session soon so for at least a while part of Jasper County will be without representation in the State Senate.

2018 should see a new business across the street from the Court House. I have heard it will be coffee related.

A couple weeks ago a new front was put on the new WIC office.

2018 will see a revised federal income tax. One of the changes is a limit on the amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted for those who itemize. The limit is $10,000. There have been reports that some people were prepaying property taxes so they could take the deduction for 2017. Before the Commissioners meeting I stopped by the County Treasurer's office to ask if Jasper County residents were prepaying and was told that a handful had. Some were farmers and others were following advice of their tax accountants. I wonder if the change will encourage those farmers who have not incorporated or formed a LLC to do so. One has to earn a lot more money than I get to be affected by that change.

Let's end on a happy note--the days are getting longer. It is not really noticeable yet, but in a few weeks we might notice that sunset is a little bit later.

Missed

I spent the days around Christmas visiting family so I missed several things that happened in Rensselaer. I missed the onset of the very cold weather (missed in the sense of I did not experience it, not in the sense that I felt sad). However, the forecast says that I will get to experience plenty of very frigid weather in the next week.

The roads were snow and ice covered when I returned and that may limit my ability to get around for a few days.

 Below is College Avenue as it appeared Friday evening.

 The river has frozen where the current is slow. The picture was taken from the College Avenue Bridge looking east.

The big event that I missed was the train derailment before Christmas, a major local news story. Fortunately no one was injured.

On Saturday I was surprised to find that the derailed cars had not been removed from Rensselaer but were mostly lined up along Walnut Street. All the wheels seem to have been taken off the cars. The news reports said that a faulty wheel on one of the cars was the cause of the accident.

Below is a view showing two cars still along the tracks with the eleven cars along Scott Street which was still closed to traffic on Saturday. The picture was taken from the Scott Street rail crossing.

 Below is a closer look at the tanker car closest to the camera in the picture above. It shows the scars of the derailment.

There are a couple of pieces of railroad equipment for track repair on the siding east of Scott Street. There are piles of rock that will be used in making repairs, but the snow makes it hard or impossible to see what needs to be done.

I have not heard or read about what will happen to the cars that derailed.

Other events I missed were a City Council meeting and the Commissioners end of the year special meeting. In a few months I would have forgotten what happened at these meetings, but I will remember the family adventures for the rest of my life.

Here is hoping that 2018 bring good adventures to Rensselaer.

Some highlights from 2017

The biggest news from 2017 was the closing of Saint Joseph's College. The announcement was made on February 3rd, only a few weeks after the College had a ribbon cutting for its new Shoppes in Halleck Center. The closing then led to transfer fairs and job fairs and a series of lasts: last play, last concerts, last Little 500, and last graduation. In the summer barricades went up to shut off the campus and in the fall there was a large sale of equipment that lasted for weeks followed by an auction.

There was happier news. An expanded Marathon station opened on North McKinley. A new O'Reilly Auto Parts store was constructed at Kannal and College. Downtown, the Station at Embers opened, as did the Fenwick Farms Brewing Company and Endless Treasure. The Sayler Apartments on Elza Street were finally finished and opened to tenants.

Downtown also saw closings. Doggers and the Pub III are no more and Stunt Dawg is also gone. The Bowling Alley will sit idle this winter. Some businesses and offices that moved include Paul's Auto Repair, E-Zea Detailing, American Rentals, the Jasper County Impact Office, WIC, and Birthright. Superior Sales and Service built an addition to an existing building on North McKinley and moved to it in mid December. Strack and Van Til changed ownership.

In City and State projects, a section of Grace Street was rebuilt, the high rate treatment plant was finished, old water wells on Bunkum Road were capped, a new electrical substation on Bunkum Road was constructed, and the deck of the Washington Street Bridge was rebuilt.

Two adventures in which this blogger was a participant were Aviation Career Day and the ribbon cutting for a grave marker for Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, an author of some renown who was born and buried in Rensselaer.

During the year the way was cleared for connecting a water well on Sparling to the City water works and for constructing a second solar farm, this one north of Rensselaer. They should be in the highlight post a year from now.

I am sure I have missed a few things that should be included, but even with what I remembered, it has been an eventful year.

(Here are highlights from 2016)

Old news 2

Below is an ad from a January 1915 issue of the Jasper County Democrat. Santa is riding the latest in flying technology.

First National Bank opened a new office in 1917. The building now hosts Consolidated Insurance, which a few years ago restored the building to its original appearance.

Did you know that Mt Ayr once had a bank? It was quite successful in its day, despite being robbed in November of 1919. This article was from the Evening Republican.

Jasper County has interesting banking history. Quite a number of banks have come and gone. In 1904 one of the banks went out of business because of embezzlement by the bank president, Thomas McCoy (who was also the first Mayor of Rensselaer, elected in 1896). He spent a few years in jail but came back to visit friends in 1912.

Some people at the time of the collapse of the bank were so upset that one dynamited the McCoy house on Milroy Avenue.

In 2017 we have watched the death of Saint Joseph's College. A century earlier it was still young and growing. The article below is from the Jasper County Democrat, Saturday, Dec 1, 1917.