(rshsdepot) Newport News, VA (Lee Hall - C&O)

["J. Henry Priebe Jr." <root_@_bluemoon.net>]

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-82453sy0jul12,1,4179227.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

For more info on the history of Lee Hall Depot, please see
http://www.leehalldepot.org/history/index.html

Henry

J. Henry Priebe Jr.    Blue Moon Internet Corp Network Administrator
www.bluemoon.net       Internet Access & Web Hosting
www.railfan.net        Railfan Network Services

Lee Hall's railroad depot back on track

An agreement with CSX might finally have the museum project moving again.

BY SABINE HIRSCHAUER 
247-4536 

July 12, 2007 

NEWPORT NEWS -- You might think it wouldn't take long to move an old
railroad depot about 100 feet across the tracks.

So far, it's taken almost a decade for the long-vacant Lee Hall Depot in
northern Newport News.

But this week, the City Council took another step toward getting things
moving. On Tuesday, the council approved an agreement with CSX
Transportation, the railroad company that owns the tracks and the depot. It
allows the company to be reimbursed about $155,945 in costs related to the
move.

For more than eight years, city officials and local history buffs have
raised money to move, restore and turn the now-weathered and tired-looking
depot in Lee Hall into a railroad museum and interpretive center.

"It took a long time," said Newport News historian John V. Quarstein, who's
spearheading the effort. "I just try to push everyone along to get the job
done. We just want to save this very iconic building."

The Lee Hall Depot was built in 1886 to connect coal mines in West Virginia
with East Coast ports. It's the only surviving structure from the early days
of the railroad on the Peninsula, according to city history.

A second story was added in 1893; waiting rooms and a ticket office followed
in 1921. Passenger service ended in the late 1970s, and in 1993, CSX
declared the depot unsafe because it sat too close to the tracks.

A mixed bag of state grants and private donations will help to make the $2
million move and transformation of the old depot possible.

The move is scheduled for late this year or early next year.

The myriad of parties involved -- the Virginia Department of Transportation,
the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the city and now the railroad
- - slowed the move.

"It's a complex project," Quarstein said, "and we could not move the station
until we got the (CSX) agreement."

CSX is donating the depot itself to the city.

But the company wants to be reimbursed for costs including timber crossings
at the site, as well as temporarily removing and reinstalling crossing
signals. Grants will pay the estimated $155,945.

Construction bids for a new depot foundation will go out in early August,
said Ed Lyon, acting president of Friends of the Lee Hall Depot.

That's a grass-roots group founded in 2001 to raise money for the move and
the depot's restoration.

Construction of the foundation is expected to start in late August.

The new museum will highlight the history of transportation on the
Peninsula.

"I'd rather do it sooner than later. I would like to get it done as soon as
I can," Quarstein said. "But patience is a virtue."

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org
To Unsubscribe: http://lists.railfan.net/rshsdepot-photo/unsub.html

------------------------------

End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1574
********************************

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org