The preparation for the move of retired Tower 17 in Rosenberg, Texas has began. The house movers have been working this week to get the upper story jacked up on cribbing. The lower walls will be disassembled today and moved to the new site at the Rosenberg Railroad Museum a half mile east of the present site. They will be reassembled on a new slab with a lot of new timber to replace some of the 100 year old support members. The upper story will be moved sideways about 5 feet to clear a utility pole and then some 37 foot long steel beams will be placed under the structure. They will stick out to about 5 feet from the UP tracks so the UP Dispatcher will issue a “Restricted Clearance” and a 10 MPH slow order for trains until the building is off site. If all goes well that will be by Saturday. I am documenting it on Ektachrome so will be a while before I can post photos. Here is an old one from back in SP days.
That's good news! I'm glad to hear Tower 17 will be saved, a la Tower 16 from Sherman, TX (that tower is now in Grapevine). So very precious few of these have escaped demolition, and there were quite a few towers all over the Lone Star State.
The noise was not too bad inside, but the whole place shook. Especially when a train was hitting the frogs in the diamond at 65 MPH. The ballast literally dances and sometime a piece pops up on top of the rail and when hit by a wheel either is pulverized or shoots out the side. Also things like broken springs, brake shoes and loose container cam clamps (hopefully ones not from between containers) fall off and go bouncing along the ballast. Not a good place to be standing outside next to the track. Yesterday all the walls were finally cleared from under the upper floor and it was lowered to almost ground level. There was a lot of rain today so the move is now scheduled for Monday. Boxcab, thanks for posting the flimsy. The Victoria Sub is no longer active except for some local switching on the end next to the tower. They store bad order cars way down what is left of the line. KCS bought the right of way and hopefully will rebuild it for a shorter route to get to Corpus Christi instead of going all the way to Flatonia on the Sunset Route before going south to Corpus.
The #2 was about 4 hours late here. It was taller than the tower now. End of day, ready to hook up the wheels and go.
Excellent Russel, As a signal engineer it is great to see these signal box's preserved. I am currently overseeing a resignalling project that will see the box becoming redundant in 18 months time. Unfortunately the first floor is brick so the box will most likely be demolished. However I will be looking at donating the pistol grip frame to a historical museum.
We moved the tower a few hundred yards. Still on UP propery but well away from the tracks. Tomorrow it will make it to the museum we hope. The slow order on the UP Sunset Route past the tower site has been lifted. However there were not very many trains today as things were tied up over in San Antonio. UP told us they had a collision where one train had not cleared the interlocker and a second train hit the last two cars. The crew on the second train jumped and are OK but two engines ended up rolling down into the San Antonio River. Big diesel fuel spill to be cleaned up.
On Monday they hooked the beams under the tower to the wheel boggies and a cross beam with the fifth wheel attachment for the towing tractor by about 2:00 PM. Then we had to wait for the local to do some switching on the shoe fly that went by the tower on the south side. However they could not get clearance from BNSF, to make a few moves on their siding east of the tower, for a long time. I thought they sat the dispatchers next to each other in the joint dispatch center in Spring to communicate. But it seems they don't look at each other. Anyway, they finally brought the engine past the tower on the shoe fly (some of the worse track I have ever seen, not many solid ties under it). It was one of those new GP20Ds, CEFX 2011. They picked up a string of cars and pushed them back past the tower just as a container train came by heading for San Antonio and the big bottle neck there. The tower was boxed in with trains on both sides. After the traffic cleared out they hitched the truck on to the tower and got ready to go. The GP20D came by again on the main line heading to Houston as train #LHT 042. It was the last train to pass before they moved the tower at 4:30. They only moved it a few hundred yards but well away from the tracks. The window to tow through the streets of Rosenberg before rush hour had passed so that is as far as they could go. Then this morning at 9:00 A M, with police escort, they went the rest the way to the museum. Took only 11 minutes to get there. By 5:00 this evening the second story was over the new slab and up on cribbing about 5 feet off the ground. They will jack it up more tomorrow to rebuild the first story under it. [ 05. May 2004, 04:14: Message edited by: r_i_straw ]
GP20D on the Shoe Fly Sandwiched between trains It's gone. Me shrugging my sholders when the BNSF local crew asked where the Tower went. [ 05. May 2004, 13:10: Message edited by: r_i_straw ]
This article is in today's Houston Chronicle. Jim is a good friend and fellow N scale modeler. Tower 17 I edited this with a link to the newspaper archives. I don't know if anyone can get it without being a subscriber or not. [ March 21, 2005, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: r_i_straw ]
Glad to know the move has safely been completed. Am looking forward to the reassembly process. Also curious as to how it will be situated on the new property for display. Boxcab e50
I finally got my latest roll of film developed so am able to scan in some more photos on the move. Here is the second story as it arrived at its new home. The rebuilt walls are about in place. The windows are being refurbished yet.
Am looking at the bottom photo, and I'll bet you had days when you wondered if the project would ever get that far! Nice to see it's coming along so well! Boxcab E50
Someone told be I should look at this web page. I had totally forgot this "incident" took place. Monkey Boy? [ July 19, 2005, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: r_i_straw ]
