VALPARAISO | Residents in lawn chairs lined Franklin Street Monday morning to watch history on the move.
Workers from Dillabaugh Inc. had eight hours, beginning at 5 a.m. to maneuver the former Grand Trunk Railroad depot, jacked up about six feet atop eight sets of wheels, across the railroad tracks now operated by Canadian National.
"It's nice to see them preserve this instead of just demolish it," said Paul Johnston, a train buff from Morgan Township. He and his wife, Mary, have come out everyday to watch the depot make its way down the street.
Today, the historic building will be placed across the street from the Porter County Career and Technical Center. Tomorrow, it will move onto the center's property, right next to the stakes that mark its future home.
"There's going to be a fair amount of action (Tuesday)," said Jon Groth, director of the Porter County Career and Technical Center.
The move progresses at a snail's pace. The men build a make-shift road of wooden beams and metal gratings to keep the building level. Every few inches, the building comes to a stop and the pieces of the make-shift road are moved forward.
"You can see how fast it doesn't move," said Jan Dick, president of the Valparaiso City Council. "People have likened it to watching paint dry."
The team has an eight hour window to move the station across the tracks, starting at 5 a.m. Canadian National scheduled a track closure during that time to do their own repairs.
The project has been a community affair. Businesses along the Bush Street from Calumet Avenue to Franklin Street agreed to let the station move across their property. Miracle Water Company even agreed to let the team cut out scrub trees at the back of their property, Dick said.
"Obviously the community came together," Dick said.
On Monday, NIPSCO crews removed some wires and Canadian National removed train signals to allow the depot to cross the tracks at Franklin Street. Tomorrow, utility companies will rearrange cables to clear a path onto the Career Center's property.
John Blosky, an engineer from Amereco Engineering, coordinated the move with all the companies involved and the city, pro bono.
"I just wanted to do it to help the school out, to help the city out," Blosky said.
The Porter County Building Trades Corp. has been collecting donations since May to cover both the move and the refurbish project. The move came with a price tag of roughly $160,000 and has been completely funded. Groth expects the refurbishing to cost about $100,000. Donations are still being collected for that.
"This is the end of the beginning," Groth said. "We still have a lot of work to do refurbishing this building."