(rshsdepot) Willimantic (Columbia Junction Roundhouse)

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From the Hartford Courant.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
'The Turn Of The Century'
Railroad History Gets New Life In  Willimantic
BY PETER MARTEKA
 
Courant Staff Writer
 
June 6, 2008
 
WILLIMANTIC —
 
Sometime between 1927 and 1935, the original Columbia Junction roundhouse  
was torn down and bulldozed into the six pits where steam locomotives were once  
repaired and stored. The turntable that spun the locomotives into one of the  
roundhouse's six bays was later scrapped to feed the blasts furnaces of World 
 War II.
 
In a steady drizzle Wednesday, Andover resident Robert Hassett backed a  hand 
rail car out of one of the bays of the rebuilt roundhouse, its squeaky  
fingernails-on-chalkboard wheels coming to a halt in front of a hand-operated  
"armstrong" turntable. Nearby, Jeffrey Laverty pushed a large handle spinning  the 
turntable to a halt in front of the main tracks. With a mist hanging heavily  
in the air, the two railroad structures seem to be ghosts of Columbia 
Junction's  past.
 
But for a group of 70 men and women from the Connecticut Eastern Railroad  
Museum, the roundhouse and turntable are real. Since 1991, the all-volunteer  
group of railroad enthusiasts has been preserving the railroad history of  
eastern Connecticut in the former New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad  freight 
yard — known as Columbia Junction — off Bridge Street. According to  museum 
officials, the restored turntable and roundhouse are one of only a few  working 
combinations in the United States.
 
On Sunday, the group will dedicate its restored 60-foot armstrong turntable  
during an event called "The Turn of the Century." For the first time since the 
 roundhouse was originally abandoned in the early 1900s because locomotives  
became too big, the group will spin an engine and drive it into the 
semicircular  brick building. The group said it will be a "coming out party" for a 
restored  Maine Central rail bus that has been "landlocked" in the roundhouse and a 
25-ton  locomotive known as "Lil' Tugger."
 
"The restoration is a sort of centerpiece for our grand plans out here,"  
said Mark Granville of Mansfield, president of the group. "Our first big  
accomplishment was rebuilding the roundhouse on its original foundation. It's  all 
taken a long time and a lot of blood, sweat and tears."
 
The restoration plan began when a member of the group found a similar  
turntable bridge in the middle of a field at the Edaville Railroad in South  Carver, 
Mass. The iron bridge was built at the turn of the 20th century by  Boston 
Bridge Works for the Providence, Webster & Springfield Railroad yard  in Dudley, 
Mass.
 
The bridge and ring rail it spins around on were transported to Willimantic  
in 1994 where they sat for seven years as members worked on laying track,  
refurbishing engines and cars and restoring the roundhouse. In 2001, member  
Bruce Marcus helped purchase a new bearing, and a crane was brought in to put  the 
15-ton turntable bridge into the original pit and granite support slab next  
to the roundhouse.
 
"My first time I went there, I saw these middle-aged guys slaving over  
putting down track," said Marcus, owner of a Manchester communications company  and 
model railroad enthusiast. "But I was hooked. It's like a full-sized model  
railroad with big toys. There's a lot of clever guys putting it together."
 
Over the next six years, countless man hours were put in on Saturdays to  
straighten the bridge, replace deteriorated pieces and remove protrusions at  
both ends of the bridge. Stones in the pit were restored and the ring rail was  
installed. A concrete pad was poured to support the ring rail. Each tie had to  
be cut and sized for a specific position on the bridge.
 
The rocker assembly, which sits on top of the bearing the bridge is  
suspended on, presented a huge challenge. The central cylinder was "frozen" in  place 
and could not be budged for two years. Finally in 2006, the rocker body  and 
cylinder were separated by a Worcester, Mass. company using a press that  
applied 110 tons of pressure. The steel cone the bearing and rocker sit on was  
moved into position and was bolted down. Tracks were laid to the turntable and  
into the roundhouse.
 
"We did it the old-fashioned way," Hassett said. "All with picks and  
shovels. The whole site is original, we are just re-developing it. ... This was  the 
place to be for trains early on. Then everything got too big and heavy for  
the area."
 
The armstrong turntable got its name because a locomotive could be spun by  
two men (and $60 worth of grease) pushing a bar at both ends.
 
"Once it gets going, it's hard to stop. Inertia, you know that other force  
in the universe," said Hassett as he struggled to stop the bridge during a  
demonstration.
 
For nearly a century, Willimantic was a major railroad hub in Southern New  
England. In the early 1900s, 50 trains came through Willimantic every day. The  
museum located along the former Air Line railroad includes an 1872 station 
from  Chaplin a 1900s freight house from Groton, a 1920s telegraph operator's 
shanty  from Versailles, Conn., and a section house from Willimantic as well as 
dozens  of engines, cars and cabooses.
 
"Right now we are consumed with the physical stuff of building a museum,"  
Granville said. "It's tough physical work. But you look around at how the place  
is shaping up and, yeah, it's all worth it."
 
The museum will open at 10 a.m. Sunday with the dedication ceremony taking  
place at 1:30 p.m. At 3 p.m., the public will get an opportunity to operate the 
 turntable.
 
Contact Peter Marteka at _pmarteka_@_courant.com_ (mailto:pmarteka@courant.com) 
.



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