Published: July 07, 2009 07:50 pm      

Back on track

Work resumes on railcar restoration at visitor center

By Janet Jacobs

Daily Sun



Corsicana’s railcar, No. 305, is out in the open again, free from its tarp cover, as work resumes on the restoration project.

The car is being worked on by Patriot Construction, which put the car back on its trucks, or wheels, when it was returned from its four-year odyssey out of state.

“He (Buddy Kirk) is working on the outside to try and get it stabilized,” said Connie Standridge, city manager.

This project is included in the original cost, she said.

The next step, however, is still uncertain. The city had the money for a pavilion, and for the exterior work, but does not have all the funding for restoring the interior, Standridge said.

“We don’t have a plan for the interior yet,” she said. “We have some leads on some experts, so we’re making progress.”

The railcar once plied tracks between Corsicana and Dallas, before the construction of an Interstate highway that made private travel so easy. The Interurban No. 305 was built in 1913 by the St. Louis Car Company. It carried passengers between Corsicana and Dallas until the line closed in 1941. The car was transferred to the Waco-Dallas line until 1948, when that line was also closed, the result of a boom in personal car ownership and new highway construction. In 2002, the Interurban was rediscovered in a Granbury Mobile Home Park, where it was being used as a house. In 2003, the city signed a contract with the Edwards Railcar Company to restore it to the car’s original factory state, but that deal came off the rails around mid-2004 after the last payment had been made.

The Edwards Railcar Company was paid $153,428 out of the general fund in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, the city sold $200,000 in bonds for the pavilion for the car. Since 2005, the pavilion money has been sitting idle until last November, when the city paid $28,000 to go fetch the car from Alabama. In addition to the money spent on the railcar’s shelter, the city will spend some money on putting in a wheelchair ramp, and parking lot improvements.

Based on the current budget, the city will have about $45,000 left over from the pavilion money to spend on restoring the interior.

Last spring, the city won a $93,000 judgment against the Edwards Railcar Company, but it hasn’t recovered any of that money yet, according to Terry Jacobson, the city’s attorney.

“The owner, Steve Torrico, has dropped off the map. Edwards Railcar is no longer in business,” Jacobson said Tuesday.

The Edwards Railcar Company had the car for four years and worked on it periodically. Torrico, the company’s owner, claimed he underbid the project and didn’t have the funds to complete the promised work.

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Janet Jacobs may be reached via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com. Want to “Soundoff” on this story? E-mail: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com.