THE WILMINGTON RAILROAD MUSEUM EMBARKED ON A MAJOR MOVE IN 2007

In December of 2006 the Wilmington Railroad Museum leased the 1883 Atlantic Coast Line warehouse (505 Nutt Street) from the City of Wilmington and started a major renovation of the front sections of the building to house the Museum's collection of railroad artifacts.  By April of 2007 the building was ready to accept the Museum contents but a major hurtle remained.  Several rather large objects had to be moved in conjunction with the relocation.  The largest were the 86 ton locomotive, ACL 250, along with its tender, a box car, and our caboose.  In the following sequence of photographs you can see some of the effort that was necessary to move these safely across the 50 foot parking lot that separated our old home from the new.

ENGINE, TENDER, & BOX CAR MOVE

CABOOSE MOVE

The caboose was moved by lifting the body onto a flatbed truck and the trucks (wheels) onto another truck, then driving them to their new location.  There was no track available at the new home so ties were placed and rail installed to support the caboose.  This move took longer than expected and you will see in the photographs the move was completed in the dark.

BELL, LATHE, SPEEDER, and SAFE MOVE

Moving the rolling stock was our major concern however we found there were many challenges in moving a number of the Museum's other heavy artifacts.  Most of these items would have been impossible without the tools, equipment, and know-how of our able moving crew.  An example was the lathe that was so heavy that it could not be lifted with the cranes on hand and had to be partially disassembled to make the move.