By Shavonne Potts
spotts@salisbury
post.com
LANDIS — It took Crouch Brothers House Moving Contractors the better part of a day to move the historic post office from the downtown area to its new location.
The Mooresville-based company began early Tuesday digging and leveling the structure and moved it by the afternoon.
In relatively no time at all the crew moved the historic jail from downtown last week. It didn’t take long for the crew to raise the tiny building from its foundation and place it on a trailer.
When the crew moves the former Southern Railroad train depot next week, it won’t be so quick.
The depot is more of an undertaking, Recreation Director Andrew Morgan said.
The movers will have to dig and level the depot, lift it and move it.
But before it can be moved, Chuck Crouch, owner of Crouch Brothers, estimates it will take a day or so to level the building and then some time to actually move it.
The move will include Landis Power, Time Warner Cable, Windstream and Norfolk Southern.
Crouch said in order to move the depot, which he believes weighs 60,000 to 70,000 pounds, the crew may have to remove the two chimneys, and they will take down utility lines and cross the railroad tracks.
“It will take three to four days to load,” Crouch said.
The building sits 2 feet below grade and must be shoveled out.
“We’ll have to dig around the perimeter,” he said.
The railroad will have to be called in to make certain the company is not disturbing any underground signals.
Landis Power and other utilities will likely have to take down their lines.
On Tuesday, Landis Power was able to lift the lines over the post office, but the depot is much bigger and taller.
Crouch said the post office weighs 10,000 pounds.
Once the depot is loaded onto a trailer, it will then take anywhere from three to five days getting it to the final resting place.
All the buildings will be at a permanent place beside the Landis Police Department on North Central Avenue, the site of the future passive park.
The buildings have to be moved from the corridor where the state plans to add a second set of railroad tracks.
Those tracks will extend from Salisbury to Kannapolis.
Town Manager Reed Linn said the plan is to make the depot available for event rentals. The jail and post office will eventually be restored and operate as museums.
It is costing the town about $35,000 to move the structures. The N.C. Railroad Co. sent a letter to the town in February pledging to reimburse up to $20,000 of the cost to relocate the buildings.
The additional cost will be taken from the Recreation Department’s budget.
Contact reporter Shavonne Potts at 704-797-4253.