(rshsdepot) Minot, ND

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From the Minot Daily News.
 
Original article and historic photo at:
_http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/514930.html?nav=5010_ 
(http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/514930.html?nav=5010) 
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Train Day to kick off depot restoration
By JILL SCHRAMM, Staff Writer _jschramm_@_minotdailynews.com_ 
(mailto:jschramm_@_minotdailynews.com)  
POSTED: May 7, 2008 

The committee heading up the restoration of Minot’s Amtrak depot plans to  
kick off the reconstruction during the observance of National Train Day on  
Saturday.

The depot will get a new roof and new brick exterior this year. 

Saturday’s open house runs from 8:30 to 10 a.m., at the depot, 400-1st  Ave. 
SW, to coincide with a scheduled arrival and departure of Amtrak’s Empire  
Builder. 

There will be a ribbon cutting, refreshments and an exhibit showing how  the 
new depot will look. Committee members will be on hand to provide  
information. There will be a drawing for two free Amtrak tickets to  Chicago.

This is the first National Train Day sponsored by Amtrak. It recognizes  May 
10, 1869, as the date the “golden spoke” was driven into the final tie at  
Promontory Summit, Utah, to join the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific  
Railroads, completing the first transcontinental railroad.
 
The restoration of Minot’s depot also has historical overtones. The  
reconstruction will restore the building to its original condition.
 
“It will look not identical but very similar to what the depot looked like  
when they built it in 1905,” said Dennis Lutz, chairman of the restoration  
committee.
 
The exterior will be the same old-style brick from North Dakota’s Hebron  
Brick Co. as existed on the original building. The stucco exterior that covered  
the old bricks already has been removed.
 
Craft Builders of Minot will be erecting the new pitched roof. Once the  roof 
project is complete, Hight Construction of Minot will put a new brick  
exterior over the existing bricks and place new windows.

The expense totals about $373,000. Funding sources were a $300,000  federal 
grant through the North Dakota Department of Transportation and the City  of 
Minot.
 
The restoration committee will have about $13,000 remaining in its treasury  
to cover any contingency costs and to use as seed money for future work.   The 
committee has been working about five years to achieve funding to restore  
the depot exterior and intends to continue raising money for additional work on  
the building interior and grounds, Lutz said.
 
The committee hasn’t determined what type of interior work will be done  
because the remodeling will depend on available money, Lutz said. The committee  
would like to reproduce the wainscoting and tin ceiling of the original  depot.
 
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad owns the depot, which is leased by  
Amtrak.
 
Amtrak decided to initiate National Train Day because its ridership is up  
nationally, Lutz said. In Minot, ridership increased from 35,829 passengers to  
38,254 passengers between fiscal year 2005-06 and 2006-07. For the first six  
months of the current fiscal year, which began in October, there have been  
21,049 passengers.

Lutz said those numbers reflect people who board or get off the train  but 
not passengers who pass through Minot. More than 100,000 people a year come  
through on Amtrak, and many of them step off the train because Minot is Amtrak’s  
only 20-minute stop in North Dakota.
 
Minot’s Amtrak depot is the one view people get of Minot and North Dakota,  
Lutz said.
 
“That’s why we think this is the depot, of all the places in the state,  
that warrants this type of restoration,” he said. 



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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1724
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org