Dan Alex MacLeod Interviewed by Ron Caplin– I move houses CB MAG number 35 Pages 13-19
Moved from Stirling
So that was the start of it. When we started first moving buildings, when the mine closed (Stirling Mine), we got rails. And we discovered that rails were no good, so we went and got 40-foot edge beams. And then we reinforced them with iron back and forth--and that's what we used. We took rear ends out of four trucks, and made four sets of wheels, dual wheels. I cut the rear ends out, and we made a pit, and we welded that edge beam to them and welded another one on top of that--inch and a quarter bolts. And we could move those wheels wherever we wanted, without the house on. If it was a small house, we just used one set on each side. If it was a big house, we used two sets.
Ron: Did you ever drop a house?
No. I dropped an old schoolhouse belonging to myself. A rail bent on me. But I never dropped, or did any damage, to any other. I took the fire station out, in Grand Lake Road there, I took that from the mine here.
The houses off Murphy Rd
Another time we took a house up to Murphy Road, and got along okay. Then we came back and got another one, the same kind. We got over to Coxheath-there was a big cable coming up from the hollow here, going across the road, only 11 feet from the bank of the road, that's all the height it was off the ground. So, I called the Power Commission. Oh, they'd see what they could do tomorrow. I said, "You've got to see it within the hour." "No, can't." "Well," I said, "we'll hit it." "Oh, there's so many volts on." "I don't care how many," I said, "I'll hit that so fast, boy, and it will come down." And I said, "I'll give you one hour to be here." I said, "You should be put in jail for a wire only 11 feet, if it's high tension, like you were saying." I'll bet you in half an hour there were 5 trucks there. And he wasn't going to come for us till next day. We always were careful. But they've got to move wires. I don't know, I think they've changed the law. But at that time, if you gave them 24 hours notice, they had to move them. See, when those wires were put across the road, there was an act--if it's not changed in the last 15 or 20 years-- where anything was going through the road, they had to move the wires to let that thing through. It didn't say "house," or anything, but that was the act. They weren't to block the road with those wires.
Now, I don't know if that's changed today or not. That'd be hard, to move houses on roads today. Traffic is so much heavier. You're dealing with a different class of people. We could see that, the last years we were moving. When we were moving first, people wanted to get out of your way--you know, they were courteous. Later years, they weren't. I think they want to do things the hard way for you. The only thing I know is, if you move a house, it's got to go on the third foundation. Pretty near, I'd say, 80% of the houses we moved, we moved them the second time, or somebody moved them the second time, or they had been moved before we moved them. They've got to go on the third foundation--why, I don't know. And I always said, when we'd be moving a house, it'd be moved again. And a lot of the houses we moved were moved again. http://capebretonsmagazine.com/modules/publisher/item.php?itemid=1591
Moved from Stirling
So that was the start of it. When we started first moving buildings, when the mine closed (Stirling Mine), we got rails. And we discovered that rails were no good, so we went and got 40-foot edge beams. And then we reinforced them with iron back and forth--and that's what we used. We took rear ends out of four trucks, and made four sets of wheels, dual wheels. I cut the rear ends out, and we made a pit, and we welded that edge beam to them and welded another one on top of that--inch and a quarter bolts. And we could move those wheels wherever we wanted, without the house on. If it was a small house, we just used one set on each side. If it was a big house, we used two sets.
Ron: Did you ever drop a house?
No. I dropped an old schoolhouse belonging to myself. A rail bent on me. But I never dropped, or did any damage, to any other. I took the fire station out, in Grand Lake Road there, I took that from the mine here.
The houses off Murphy Rd
Another time we took a house up to Murphy Road, and got along okay. Then we came back and got another one, the same kind. We got over to Coxheath-there was a big cable coming up from the hollow here, going across the road, only 11 feet from the bank of the road, that's all the height it was off the ground. So, I called the Power Commission. Oh, they'd see what they could do tomorrow. I said, "You've got to see it within the hour." "No, can't." "Well," I said, "we'll hit it." "Oh, there's so many volts on." "I don't care how many," I said, "I'll hit that so fast, boy, and it will come down." And I said, "I'll give you one hour to be here." I said, "You should be put in jail for a wire only 11 feet, if it's high tension, like you were saying." I'll bet you in half an hour there were 5 trucks there. And he wasn't going to come for us till next day. We always were careful. But they've got to move wires. I don't know, I think they've changed the law. But at that time, if you gave them 24 hours notice, they had to move them. See, when those wires were put across the road, there was an act--if it's not changed in the last 15 or 20 years-- where anything was going through the road, they had to move the wires to let that thing through. It didn't say "house," or anything, but that was the act. They weren't to block the road with those wires.
Now, I don't know if that's changed today or not. That'd be hard, to move houses on roads today. Traffic is so much heavier. You're dealing with a different class of people. We could see that, the last years we were moving. When we were moving first, people wanted to get out of your way--you know, they were courteous. Later years, they weren't. I think they want to do things the hard way for you. The only thing I know is, if you move a house, it's got to go on the third foundation. Pretty near, I'd say, 80% of the houses we moved, we moved them the second time, or somebody moved them the second time, or they had been moved before we moved them. They've got to go on the third foundation--why, I don't know. And I always said, when we'd be moving a house, it'd be moved again. And a lot of the houses we moved were moved again. http://capebretonsmagazine.com/modules/publisher/item.php?itemid=1591