Progress – and donations – continue toward historic Charles City depot relocation

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The latest donation to the Milwaukee Road railroad depot relocation project just adds assurance that there will be enough funds to get the job done, said the president of the American Passenger Train History Museum.

Bob Moen, accepting a $5,000 donation from CUSB Bank and the Thomson Charitable Foundation on Wednesday afternoon, said that puts the fund at $359,000.

The groups working to raise enough money to save the historic depot from demolition and move it off its current location on Canadian Pacific property had announced previously that they had reached the $350,000 goal they had established as necessary to accomplish the move.

Still, Moen said, “This is going to be important for us, because you just don’t know what costs are going to come up that you don’t expect. We’re getting little surprises here and there.”

Currently a hole has been dug for the basement foundation that will support the depot in its new location  at 1010 North Grand Avenue.

“A little snag” has developed, Moen said, because the company previously selected to do the foundation work has decided the job is not within its capability because of the requirements to build a foundation robust enough to support the large brick building.

“He said, ‘This is more than I can deal with.” He recommended some other people who do more commercial stuff who have larger crews, … but everybody’s kind of booked,” Moen said.

“We’re working to see if we can find someone new to do the foundation, which is a little hard to do, but we can still keep going with all the rest of the pieces of the puzzle while this is going on,” he said.

Moen said he had talked with people from the moving company, Thein Moving Co., of Clara City, Minnesota, and they said if necessary they can lift the building and move it to its new location, then let it sit there on the dollies until the foundation is ready.

Even originally, the plan had been looking like a two-day move — one day to get it to the new location, another day to set it in place.

The first part of the move is still planned for the week of Sept. 6-10, Moen said.

Kamm Excavating will be essentially digging a ditch around the depot to provide access underneath for Thein’s workers, Moen said, joking about all the red tape he’s had to go through at the various Canadian Pacific offices to get permission for a crew to start digging on railroad property.

Workers from Thein Moving Co. are expected to arrive on Aug. 16 to begin getting the building ready for transport.

It’s going to take three weeks just for Thein to get under the building and put all the beams in place to support it during the move and then to place the dollies under it, Moen said.

He said the effort continues to accept donations to make sure there is enough money available for the move, and after that the big fundraising launch for money to renovate the building will begin.

Contributions can be sent to Save the Depot Fund, PO Box 683, Charles City IA 50616.