The old paint shop of the Western Railway of Alabama, in Montgomery, last year made the Alabama Historical Commission's top-11 list of endangered sites. Photographer: News Staff Photo/Charles Nesbitt

MONTGOMERY - Most of the burnt-orange brick walls still stand at the abandoned shop where trains of the Western Railway of Alabama came to be painted.

But most of the roof and the west wall have collapsed, and the east wall is leaning.

Andrew Waldo, president of a preservation group called Old Alabama Rails, thinks the paint shop, built in 1901, can be salvaged and rebuilt. But he worries that the east wall, if it collapses, will bring down much of the rest of the building and the massive timber still suspended between the east and west walls.

"So we're in a hurry to get all this done, at least get it stabilized," said Waldo, a 45-year-old Episcopal priest who grew up in Montgomery with a love of trains.

He now serves a church in Shorewood, Minn., but comes back often to visit his parents and drum up support for buying the paint shop, a 437-foot-long train shed and the rest of the deserted 38-acre site where the Western Railway of Alabama once repaired and refueled its trains.

The site, which last year made the Alabama Historical Commission's top-11 list of endangered sites, lies five blocks north of St. John's Episcopal Church, where Confederate President Jefferson Davis worshiped in 1861. A 170-foot long, 70-foot wide planning mill and pattern shop built in 1908, where workmen made replacement train parts, stands about 20 feet east of the paint shop.

Scrub trees, weeds and poison ivy cover the ground between them. Waldo walks between the brick walls and says it would be a great place for a food court for hungry visitors to a living-history museum. "It's a mess right now, there's no question. You've got to have a long eye," said Waldo.

Began as railroad
Western Railway started life in 1834 as the Montgomery Rail Road, the second in Alabama. Alabama's first passenger train left Montgomery in 1840, but by 1841, the line ran just 32 miles to Franklin in Macon County.

A new company, the Montgomery and West Point Rail Road, took control in 1843, and by 1851 it ran two daily passenger trains 88 miles between Montgomery and West point on the Georgia border. The line largely followed the Old Federal Road and lies just north of Interstate 85 today. Slaves did most of the work laying the rails.

Union troops burned the railroad's depots at Loachapoka, Notasulga, Auburn and Opelika in July 1864 and ripped up 30 miles of rails, but the company repaired the damage by that fall, according to a history of Southern railroads written by Richard E. Prince.

Union troops destroyed the Montgomery site in April 1865, three days after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

Western Rail Road of Alabama took over the line in 1870 and reorganized in 1883 as the Western Railway of Alabama.

"Early in this century, it was one of the main routes between New York and New Orleans," said Waldo, adding that posh passenger trains such as The Crescent Limited and the Piedmont Limited ran through Montgomery all the time.

The massive reinforced concrete arches of a coal tower built in the 1920's still loom over the site. In its heyday, four engines could huddle under the tower for refueling, Waldo said.

The conveyor belt that linked the tower to mounds of coal dumped nearby is long gone, as are the coal-fired steam engines. Western Railway switched completely to diesel engines about 1954, Waldo said.

Train repairs continued at the site until 1971, when the parent company moved all repair work to Atlanta.

Vagrants use site
A few other railroads used the site until 1983, Waldo said, but it's been vacant since, save for scrub plants and vagrants who, judging from a few old mattresses, sometimes sleep in empty buildings.

Heaps of rubble dot the 38 acres. So do rotting wood rail ties. Sulfur nuggets show up here and there, bright yellow reminders of long-gone coal-burning engines.

"It does look desolate. It is desolate. We want to change that," said Waldo. "it's desolate, but it's really historic."

CSX Transportation, which absorbed Western Railway of Alabama, wants $325,000 for the 38 acres, paint shop, coal tower and all.

Waldo said he hopes Old Alabama Rails can talk the price down, then buy the land, stabilize the crumbling walls of the paint shop and start mowing weeds for starters.

"Our interest here is going to be to remember and preserve the history of Montgomery railways," Waldo said.

He also said he hopes Old Alabama Rails one day will build a museum on the site and rebuild the 300-foot wide round house and other structures, including the crumbling paint shop.

"This is a large building. It's a treasure. You have to have eyes for it," said Waldo.

Group starts work
Old Alabama Rails, which has applied for not-for-profit status, has a governing board that includes Frances Smiley, acting director of the state Bureau of Tourism and Travel; and Brandon Brazil, executive director of the Alabama Preservations Alliance.

Waldo has asked state archives director Ed Bridges for help documenting railroad history and talked with state historical commission officials about fund raising.

Brazil said the U.S. Department of Transportation offers grants specifically for transportation museums. "I think there's a lot of potential," he said. "It's great a group has the vision and wants to go and do something now. Time is of the essence."

Waldo said rebuilding ruins, opening a museum, restoring rail cars and engines for display and resurrecting old machines to start repair work again could cost $30 million, so work would have to get done bit by bit.

Bridges said operating costs alone could run $1 million a year and warned that raising money to restore the car and engine shops could siphon money from other historic places.

"It's a wonderful site. Andrew has done an enormous amount of research. It would be an interesting story to tell But it's just going to be a real challenge," Bridges said.

Waldo's father, Mark, a retired Episcopal priest who runs a bed and breakfast in downtown Montgomery, agreed that Old Alabama Rails faces obstacles.

"We're way away from purchase," said the elder Waldo, vice president of the group's board. "We've got to put a lot of things together before we get to that point."

But his son remains optimistic and hopes one day he'll help bring to life the architect's drawings displayed in his father's bed and breakfast, which show a restored site and museum.

"I just said to myself, they can't tear this down," said Waldo. "We are talking about a wholesale renewal here."