Milwaukee Road depot, saved from demolition by fundraiser, on its way to new home
By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com
There aren’t any “blink and you missed it” moments when you’re moving a 300-ton brick building — at least there shouldn’t be.
Not only does the actual movement of the building creep along at a speed that a toddler could outpace, but the planning and the preparation are also methodical, practiced and precise.
After weeks of work at the old site of the depot to provide access for steel beams, jacks and wooden cribbing to lift it, and at the new site to have the new basement ready and waiting, the depot began its journey Tuesday evening as the crew from Thein Moving Co., of Clara, Minnesota, rolled the building off its foundation.
The depot began moving again Wednesday morning, lumbering along on 10 hydraulically controlled dollies, each with four pairs of wheels — 80 tires in total — that support the huge steel beams that in turn support the building.
The dollies are all hooked together through hydraulic lines, that are powered by a huge pump that hitches a ride on the building itself.
Tim Thein, one of the company co-owners, adjusts the speed and steering with a wired handheld controller.
If he really wanted to “gun it,” top speed would still be a comfortable walking pace, he said.
Thein can also adjust the height of the building. Sixteen inches of vertical travel in the hydraulic cylinder on top of each dolly provides enough leeway to keep the beams fully supported and level even as the individual dollies underneath go over small dips and rises in the ground.
If there’s too much of a height difference that the building needs to go over — such as Friday morning over railroad tracks — then metal plates, beams and wood cribbing can be used to make the rise and fall more gradual so that it’s within the dollies’ 16 inches of vertical variability to manage.
Thein talks and jokes as he monitors the progress of the dollies over the ground. Every now and then he’ll bend low and give them a closer look to make sure everything is working as expected.
The front pair and the back pair of dollies can be steered, while others can move freely “like the casters on a shopping cart,” he said. “When you make a corner all the dollies have to align. It’s all about angles and lining up all the axles.”
He quipped, “There are probably easier ways to make a living,” as he made a small adjustment in the steering, but it’s something he’s been doing since he began working in the family business in 1988.
Asked if they’ve ever dropped a building, Thein laughs and says, “No, but if you don’t get it balanced the building will fall apart.
Thein knows precisely what this depot weighs — “a little over 300 tons; probably 350 with the dollies and steel; I’ve got the exact weight in the truck.”
He also knows how that weight is distributed.
Once it was being jacked up the pressure in the jacks and the diameter of the cylinders can be used to determine the force that’s on them, and can be used to determine the weight and where the dollies need to be placed.
“You notice some of the dollies are out and some of them are in? That’s for the weight of the building so everything balances right. If you don’t get that right then you’ve got problems,” Thein said.
Asked how this building was holding up, he said, “Pretty good.” The weight of the bricks piled on top of each other actually works in their favor, by helping keep everything stable.
The 1920 building — which was saved from demolition by a fundraiser that collected more than $350,000 — will travel roughly half a mile to its new home along 11th Street, near the corner with North Grand Avenue. It made it about half way on Wednesday, parking for the rest of that day and Thursday on the old concrete of the former White Tractor factory.
Early this morning (Friday), the depot is expected to traverse the Canadian National Railroad tracks and turn onto 11th Avenue. This part of the move is being coordinated with the railroad company, to get the building over the tracks without any train traffic threatening.
Once over the tracks, the depot will turn and travel down 11th Street toward its new home, stopping alongside the new foundation.
Dolly runways were being built across the new foundation out of steel beams supported by wooden cribbing. Other cribbing was also being built up with jacks on top of it.
On Monday morning, the depot will be aligned with the foundation and the dollies will be turned 90 degrees so the building can be moved sideways, then the depot will be moved over the new foundation.
The dollies will be replaced by wooden cribbing to keep everything in place while the dollies are removed, then masons will fill in the gap between the building and the foundation with concrete blocks.
Once the blocks and mortar have sufficiently set, the pressure will be released from the beams and they will be removed, then the remaining holes in the new foundation will be filled in.
Then the depot will be at rest in its new home, ready to begin the next phase of its life — probably as part of the American Passenger Train History Museum, possibly as a trailhead for Charles City’s recreational bike and pedestrian trail, maybe for other uses as the future and opportunities present themselves.
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