Woo! Woo! City council buys train caboose

By Jim Young / jimyoungreporter@gmail.com

June 01, 2009 04:59 pm

— The Crossville City Council handled a lot of business in a 45-minute called meeting last week including the purchase of a train caboose to be put on display at the downtown depot.
In addition to the called meeting the council met as the beer board and held public hearings for several upcoming capital improvement projects including improvements to meadow Park Lake dam, water harvesting and a new fire station.
Ever since the Crossville Depot was restored and opened for community use the city has been interested in putting a caboose on display. After some 12 years, members of Downtown Crossville, Inc. have located a caboose and the Crossville Noon Rotary Club has agreed to pay the purchase price of $4,000. Crossville city manager Ted Meadows explained that the caboose was privately owned and located in Whitwell near Chattanooga.
The exterior of the caboose is in good shape and recently painted but the interior still needs some restoration. In addition, the cost of moving the train car to Crossville would be the responsibility of the city. Meadows asked the city council to approve up to $4,000 for the cost of moving the car but added he was working to get a large part of the transportation cost donated.
The council approved the plan to bring the caboose to Crossville. Currently the plan is to locate the caboose on the north side of the depot toward Main Street where the railroad tracks were originally located. Meadows said he understands that the rails are still in the ground but have just been covered over with earth. In addition the city has several pieces of original track in storage that came from the depot when the restoration was done.
“This is part of our history,” explained Crossville Mayor J. H. Graham III. He added that he would like to see some type of an exhibit explaining the community's ties to Alvin C. York once the caboose is ready to open.
As part of the consent agenda council members passed the second readings of the budget and tax rate in title only for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. While the council has already decided that there will be no property tax increase for the new fiscal year the final version of the budget has not yet been completed.
The council also approved planned purchases of radio read water meters that allows meter readers to simply drive through an area to get the meter readings reducing the amount of time required for that work. Also approved were the annual bids for coarse salt and uniforms for the coming fiscal year.
A beer license application was approved by the council sitting as the Crossville Beer Board for the Just One More Sports Bar and Grill in the name of William Edward LeGraff Jr.
One of the big reasons for holding the meeting was to hold required public hearings for several projects that the city is hoping to get partly funded with federal stimulus money through the state revolving loan fund or the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Development programs.
The projects up for funding include wastewater plant improvements costing $5 million, raw water harvesting project costing $5 million, Meadow Park Lake dam renovations and expansion costing $10 million, Highway 70N water line improvements costing $2.5 million, a new fire station and equipment costing $3.2 million and the Dooley Street sewer and drainage project costing $1.2 million.
Comments made during the public hearing included a request that the new fire hall cover the area of Holiday Hills. City manager Meadows said that the city is currently looking at the southwest side of the city for the station and currently owns two lots in Holiday Hills already that may be used for the location. A final decision is waiting consultation with city consultants.
Tansi resident Duke Coyn requested information about the water harvesting project and what options the plan had looked at. ECE Services Scott Christian said his firm had studied four options. Those options included doing nothing and harvesting water from sources including the Caney Fork River, Lake Tansi and Watts Bar. The capital costs of the projects were estimated at $15.5 million for using the Caney Fork, $5 million for Lake Tansi and $61.5 million for Watts Bar. In addition, operation costs including maintenance and utilities were estimated at $987,000 annually for the Caney Fork, $126,000 for Lake Tansi and $1.25 million for Watts Bar.
Engineer Jim Hilborn of GRW Engineers explained some of the work planned for the Dooley Street sewer improvement project. The work should help with problems in the area including stormwater inflow and problems with erosion of the creek bed.