Woodbury Train Station, Pt. III08/14/2009
Life is Balance.
For all the great things about living in Woodbury are balanced by the entrenched beaurocracy that exists in the Building code office, and the Water Department, where incompetance and aversion to serving public interest are rewarded with promotion, and sheer stupidity and hostility toward the citizenry seem to be main job qualifications.
Whether with malice aforethought, or from gross negligence, three weeks after the train station was completed, workers from the water department turned on the fire hydrant across the street full blast, and then went to lunch for an hour and a half. By the time they came back, an estimated 100,000 gals of water were pumped into he basement of the station, collapsing 8 feet of foundation wall. In a display of how incompetance turns to evil, the City's position was that the work Restoration Carpentry did was somehow responsible. However, the engineers and adjusters who examined it basically laughed at them, and said the only reason they still HAD a station was because of the work we had done.
Because even with a chunk of the foundation missing, the station had not moved or settled, even a fraction of an inch.
Life is Balance.
For all the great things about living in Woodbury are balanced by the entrenched beaurocracy that exists in the Building code office, and the Water Department, where incompetance and aversion to serving public interest are rewarded with promotion, and sheer stupidity and hostility toward the citizenry seem to be main job qualifications.
Whether with malice aforethought, or from gross negligence, three weeks after the train station was completed, workers from the water department turned on the fire hydrant across the street full blast, and then went to lunch for an hour and a half. By the time they came back, an estimated 100,000 gals of water were pumped into he basement of the station, collapsing 8 feet of foundation wall. In a display of how incompetance turns to evil, the City's position was that the work Restoration Carpentry did was somehow responsible. However, the engineers and adjusters who examined it basically laughed at them, and said the only reason they still HAD a station was because of the work we had done.
Because even with a chunk of the foundation missing, the station had not moved or settled, even a fraction of an inch.
We had completed the interior restoration after doing all the structural work, creating a meeting space for WORC, and a welcome center. Two restaraunts have come and gone since then, and unfortunately neither could make a go of what seems like a great location.
However, there is talk once again of bringing light rail service to this part of South Jersey. It is likely at this point that such a rail line would use existing track lines,and stations where possible.
So hopefully, one day soon, I'll stand on the platform of the station I helped to resurrect, and catch a train into Philadelphia.
And I'll be as excited as G.G. Green must have been when his velvet draped living room on wheels headed out for the first time to cross the Great Expanse.
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