Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 10, 1994                   TAG: 9404110146
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Madelyn Rosenberg
DATELINE: PULASKI                                 LENGTH: Medium

KEEPING WATCH AS THE OLD DEPOT'S SHAPED UP

One sunny afternoon in 1989, my first year working for the Roanoke Times & World-News, I watched from a ladder as volunteers patiently scratched away layers of green paint and dirt, leaving behind the naked walls of the old Pulaski Train Depot.

It is delicate work, chipping away history. And it's a slow process, especially when you rely on mostly volunteer labor.

Some days, four or five people would be out there scraping. Other days, more.

This week, nearly five years after the scraping started and only a month or so from a final brush stroke, there was only one man working at the site.

This has been Brian Akers' assignment from the town for the past month: peeling away neglect and covering it with a fresh coat of white or green or burgundy.

The town is locked into a date now: On June 11 the depot will officially open for business. That means Akers, who usually works in the recreation department, will work here, steadily until it's done. He starts at 8 a.m. with the radio turned up loud.

His wife brings him lunch in the afternoons.

In the evenings, he is joined by his boss, Tom Compton, who was one of the first volunteers to work on the project.

On the weekends, they have company, old railway men, mostly, who stop by to help out or look at the symbol of Pulaski's past, and Pulaski's future.

Clarence Gallimore is one who's spent more than an occasional weekend at the station. He worked with Norfolk and Western for 43 years, inspecting cars in Pulaski, among other things.

"I've seen a lot of progress," he said. "One of the reasons I want to see this finished - I have a grandson who's interested in the railroad. I'd like for him to see it."

Gallimore's grandson has visited the station a couple of times over the past five years of its reconstruction. He's seen the trash moved out and new window panes moved in.

"Just this room left," Akers said this week. It is the old railway express room, the one that will become a railroad museum.

It has taken thousands of hours of volunteer work to complete this station, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. When it's complete, the station will also house the Chamber of Commerce. It will be a visitors and community center.

Or perhaps it's that already.

Madelyn Rosenberg is the Roanoke Times & World-News' assistant New River editor.