Putnam: Old Lansing train tower gets new life
Buildings aren't made to tilt.
LANSING - Tuesday was a pivotal moment in Lansing railroad history.
At 10:20 a.m., a crane lifted the battered Michigan Avenue Tower from a concrete pad in an Old Town parking lot. The tower sat there for the last three decades, waiting in vain to be part of a train museum.
The four-ton tower was suspended from a hoist, a horizontal metal bar slid through the open windows on the top story. The crew then tilted the the narrow, two-story structure and slowly swung it onto a flatbed truck, laying it down on its side.
Roland Bunting, a retired structural engineer who volunteered to help with the move, held his breath. Buildings aren't made to tilt, he said.
But the structure, buttressed with metal brads, held. It took just five minutes to lay the building down.
The Lansing Model Railroad Club plans to restore and display the rare train tower, which dates back to the late 1800s. Once common near railroad crossings, such towers were used by railroad employees to lower the crossing gates and to control the intersection of railroads tracks, allowing trains to switch tracks and pass each other. The height allowed the workers to look down the line.
Michael Frezell, president of the model club, estimates that Lansing at one time had five such towers. The rest have been demolished. The Michigan Avenue Tower originally stood at the railroad crossing at Michigan Avenue at the site of the former Clara's Restaurant in the old train depot.
In December 1986, the tower was moved to the parking lot at the Grand River Avenue and Turner Street intersection to be part of a now-defunct train museum.
Now only one other tower in Kalamazoo remains in Michigan, Frezell said.
"There are very few left around the country," Frezell said about the tower. "It's exciting. This is a great moment for our club."
Frezell last year asked the city to donate the Michigan Avenue Tower to the model club and officials agreed. At one point, it was used as a sleeping spot for the homeless. The roof was shot and the building was falling into disrepair.
Bunting, a model railroad buff, got an anonymous friend to donate a crew from CMTE 1, a steel fabricating company, and Hi-Ball Crane, a heavy equipment rental company, to move the tower.
The club budgeted $9,000 to get the structure ready to move and for the move itself. But the money wasn't needed. S.C. Environmental of Lansing, a recycling equipment company, donated its services to remove old asbestos shingles, and the move was donated, eliminating the need to raise those dollars. Club members will do much of the remaining labor though some costs will need to be covered, Frezell said.
The club has spent $3,200 for a concrete pad at the clubhouse on Old Lansing Road in Delta Township. The site already has an old depot, from the town of Millett, which houses a model train display.
A group of mostly guys hung out to watch the move Tuesday morning. They ranged in age from retirees all the way down to George Dines, a 2016 graduate of Grand Ledge High School. Dines, 18, has been a member of the club since age 8.
Dines plans to help with the restoration.
"Without us, it would probably still be rotting until the city demolished it," he said.
Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Write to her at300 S. Washington Square Suite #300 Lansing, MI, 48933. Follow her on Twitter @JudyPutnam.