Altoona man puts vintage machines on the move

June 29--After fixing up a vintage 1964 car this summer, Richard Hajek plans to drive it into Lake Altoona.

And if the seals on the bottom of the European-made Amphicar hold, it should float across the water with the help of a four-cylinder engine and two propellers.

"I want to get it fully restored and take my big trip across Lake Altoona," said the town of Seymour resident, who's in his mid-70s.

His goal is to get the German-manufactured vehicle ready by Labor Day to drive it off a boat landing and pull the lever transferring engine power from the wheels over to the propellers.

With the front wheels steered like rudders in the water, the car is meant to float at speeds up to 8 mph.

The amphibious car is one of Hajek's personal projects, but he's also been a leader in efforts that got big pieces of local history on the move.

Hajek's latest high-profile project was transporting an 18-foot-tall Chinese pagoda several miles through Eau Claire last month.

Prior to demolition of the defunct Woo's Pagoda, 1700 S. Hastings Way, to make way for a CVS pharmacy, local history buffs got the chance to salvage the iconic, ornate structure that stood atop the former restaurant.

With less than two weeks before the building would be leveled, Hajek volunteered his leadership of the salvage operation to the Chippewa Valley Museum. He called local companies to see who would be willing and able to volunteer a crane, a flatbed truck, other equipment and expertise for the move.

On the morning of May 22, volunteers severed the pagoda from the roof, lowered it onto a cradle and drove the four-tiered tower several miles to its temporary home while the museum plans an outdoor setting for permanent display in Carson Park.

The entire operation took three hours, he recalled, including an eight-minute drive along Hastings Way and Galloway Street with a police escort.

It wasn't Hajek's first experience with moving a big, bulky piece of Eau Claire's history.

A historic steam locomotive and tender had been a fixture in Carson Park for decades, but the Locomotive and Tower Preservation Fund sought to return Soo Line 2719 to the rails in the mid-'90s.

Reading a newspaper article on the Eau Claire group's efforts inspired Hajek to volunteer his time and skills to the project.

He served as chief mechanical officer in the restoration effort for the 1923-built locomotive and made arrangements to get it out of the park.

Hajek did welding, helped restore the generator, worked on signal lights and was among those to remove asbestos. But perhaps his biggest contribution was seeking donations and volunteers.

"I was out banging on doors," he said.

For companies leery of donating money, Hajek thought "outside the box" by asking them to contribute store credit, use of tools or skills to make engine parts.

"Some people donate money. Some people donate time. And some people say, 'I'll just give you materials,' " he said.

The result was more than a hundred individuals and corporate contributors to the project, Hajek recalled.

"It was no one-man-show, I can tell you that," he said.

The locomotive had stood in Carson Park since 1960, but on a snowy December day in 1996, it was slowly and carefully moved from the park to a vacant parking lot down below. The next day it traveled along Eau Claire roads to the old railroad roundhouse in Altoona -- a building that since has been demolished.

The locomotive's restoration finished in that building. It was put back on tracks in Altoona in fall 1998, offering tourist rides on western Wisconsin rail lines.

The train ran on Union Pacific Railroad tracks for about five years locally, including routes all the way to Spooner in the northwest region.

"What killed the project was the cost of insurance," Hajek said.

For the past half-dozen years, the locomotive has been on loan to a museum and scenic railroad in Duluth, Minn.North Shore Scenic Railroad had been running Locomotive 2719 on scenic trips between Duluth and Two Harbors, Minn.

The locomotive had to be taken off-line last fall as it needs a mandatory 15-year inspection of its boiler, which is expected to cost thousands of dollars.

"At this stage of the game we're in the earliest stages of finding money," said Tim Schandel, the railroad's operations director.

The railroad has another steam locomotive that's almost ready to run, which Schandel said takes the pressure off the complicated and time-consuming process of 2719's boiler inspection.

That means the historic Soo Line locomotive might not return to the rails for a while. It will remain parked at Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth.

"For the moment it's a display piece," Schandel said.

During a series of salvage expeditions in the late 1990s to the resting place of the Titanic, Hajek got a ticket aboard a cruise ship that took tourists out on the Atlantic Ocean for a view of those efforts.

Video screens on the ship aired live footage of the undersea operation, but Hajek sought a more hands-on experience.

Tug boat crews involved in the salvage ate their meals on the cruise ship, and Hajek mentioned his Naval experience to them.

"One thing led to another and away I went," he said.

Instead of the comforts of the cruise ship, Hajek got to help with rigging on one of the Canadian tugs that attempted to raise a large piece of the Titanic.

Rough seas eventually caused the cruise ship, Hajek now back aboard, to return to port in Boston. On the return trip, he heard the ropes holding the piece snapped, returning it to the bottom of the ocean.

A subsequent salvage operation raised "the big piece," which is now part of a traveling museum display.

Hajek has made his living as a real estate investor and owner of a rural Eau Claire trailer court. But his lifelong passion has been working on different types of machines.

"Ever since I was a little kid I've been interested in rigging and locomotives and old cars and old planes," he said.

Hajek's experience fixing up cars came from his U.S. Navy service in the 1960s at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. Though he was a signalman, he knew other sailors who specialized in welding, metalworking and other skills needed to maintain the fleet.

He learned about wiring, welding and fixing old cars from Naval buddies in their off-duty hours. That aptitude for fixing old cars continued as a hobby in his free time.

He's restored Studebakers, Packards and VW Beetles. He's even helped fix an electrical problem on a rare Tucker -- a vintage car known for safety and styling, including a third headlight linked to the steering so it swiveled in the direction you're driving.

"It's not a profit-maker. It's more a labor of love and fun," he said of the restorations.

He spotted the Amphicar in a farm field and bought it for $500. He estimated he's put about $3,800 in parts into it already, but he said he's seen fully restored and operational Amphicars sell for $30,000.

The car, built between 1961 and 1968 in Germany, has a following in the U.S. The Amphicar company sold 90 percent of its cars in the U.S., until federal regulations halted its importation in 1967, according to the International Amphicar Owners Club website.

Aside from the Amphicar, Hajek also owns some antiques, an old farm truck, an old gas pump, a bulldozer and a host of items he's acquired for trading and taking to auctions.

"This is my little slice of heaven here," he said, standing in his storage shed.

Though Hajek is paring down his collection as he heads toward retirement, he plans to spend his golden years traveling and continuing to tinker with vehicles.

Because his real estate investments have worked out well, he's a bachelor, and he's heading into retirement, he said he's in the perfect spot to leave at the "drop of a hat" on his next adventure.

Dowd can be reached at 715-833-9204, 800-236-7077 or andrew.dowd@ecpc.com.

___

(c)2014 the Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wis.)

Visit the Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wis.) at www.leadertelegram.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services