Water Tower Begins Its Move To Danbury

By Jan Howard

Members of a local historical museum took the first step last week in preserving part of Newtown and railroad history for future generations.

Members of the Danbury Railway Museum completed what is the first phase in their effort to dismantle the Botsford Depot water tower, now located on property owned by Wickes Lumber on Swamp Road, and reassemble it in the railroad yard on White Street in Danbury.

In October, the museum received the go-ahead from Wickes to remove the tower, and planning for the project began in earnest by its volunteer members.

The Danbury Railway Museum, which was formed in 1994, is dedicated to preserving railroad memorabilia and facilities related to Connecticut or Danbury.

“We’ve never gotten involved with a job of this caliber,” museum Board of Directors member Ira Pollack said.  A water tank company in Philadelphia is giving them advice on proper procedures to follow, he noted.

To have the tank professionally moved would cost about $18,000. The museum members hope to do most of the work with volunteers. They also plan on investigating funding sources to help with some of their costs.

The work on the first phase, removal of the tower’s roof, began on April 26 when Mr Pollack, Gerry Herrmann, and Harry Burke climbed up inside the 40-foot tower with tin snips to remove the pipe hangers that held the roof down.

On April 28, with the help of a crane donated by Mariano Brothers and operated by John Bagley, the roof of the water tower was lifted from the structure and placed on the ground beside it.

The roof removal was not accomplished without a period of frustration, according to Mr Pollack.

“My first priority was safety first. I didn’t want to have anyone go on the roof,” Mr Pollack said.

 “We had two plans,” he said. “The first was using a sling to get in each side. That didn’t work out. The cables kept slipping.”

That was when it was decided to cut four holes, large enough to get an arm through, in the roof. The men inside the tank ran the sling along the rafters to support the roof and reached through the holes to attach it to the cables while a man on a ladder outside aided Mr Bagley in properly positioning the cables.

After much effort and discussion, the cables were in place, the crane was started, and the museum volunteers saw the fruition of their work as the roof slowly began to pull away from the tower and rise above it. Slowly, Mr Bagley turned the crane to bring the roof away from the tower and lowered it onto cement blocks that had been placed to keep it off the ground.

The next phase, according to Mr Pollack, will be to cut the roof in two and transport it to Danbury via tractor trailers. The 26-foot diameter roof is too large to transport in one piece over the highway.

Once the roof is cut, the men must get underneath it and build trusses to stabilize the two halves, he said. “We’ll have our crane there to move it around.”

“I’m writing up the phases that have to be done, and trying to get everything to coincide,” Mr Pollack said.

“My main priority is to get it out of Wickes,” Mr Pollack said. He is contacting a towing company to take care of permit work for transporting the roof. Once the permit is approved and the roof is cut, trucks will take it to the railway museum.

The next phase will be to disassemble the water tank itself. Mr Pollack said the Philadelphia company will give the volunteers the proper procedures to follow. “It’s just boards. We’re working our way down the tower.

“It’s all part of the learning curve. We will look at it, how it’s put together, then dismantle it,” Mr Pollack said.

While he would like to see the work completed as soon as possible, Mr Pollack said it would be about a month before the tank is completely disassembled. Each section must be identified so it can be accurately reassembled later.

The volunteers must then receive permits from Danbury to reconstruct it at the museum site.

The water tower, which is 24 feet in diameter, was probably built between 1916 and 1918 to replace a prior tower. It once held 250,000 gallons of water, and steam engines on the Housatonic Line filled up there.

The Botsford Depot was part of the Housatonic Line that was constructed to connect Bridgeport with the trade center of Albany and points west. The first passenger train on the line made the trip from New Milford to Bridgeport on February 14, 1840. The line was the third of its kind in the state.

In the beginning, Botsford was only a stopping place at a road crossing. Later, it became a junction where the New Haven and Derby branch, the Maybrook Line, joined the Housatonic. Here, connections were made for Derby and New Haven.

The Botsford Depot was used until just after World War II. The abandoned station burned down in the 1980s.

The Danbury Train Museum, which is subsidized by the City of Danbury and the State of Connecticut, has 40 pieces of railroad equipment on display, and its collection is constantly growing.

Plans are to reconstruct the water tower near the museum’s turntable.