The Board of Selectmen last week approved a $12,000 contract with a Stamford-based company to remove graffiti and repaint parts of the Talmadge Hill Train Station.
Metro-North Railroad currently has a shutdown on weekends “so we want to try to take advantage of it,” Bill Oestmann, buildings superintendent in the Department of Public Works, told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held April 21 at Town Hall and via videoconference.
He continued: “They [the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Metro-North] requested that we try to do some of this work during the weekends. So our first request is going to be with Talmadge Hill. There’s graffiti. Now we want to power wash off, which requires us getting actually on the tracks to do it. During the weekend, the tracks will be shut down, power will be shut down. So this will allow us to spend an all-day Saturday and Sunday, two weekends, to power wash all the graffiti off. And then what we’d like to do is apply a clear coat of a coating on it so that if any graffiti happens in the future, it comes off a whole lot easier. So we’re trying to dress it up a little bit.”
According to Metro-North, weekend service on the New Canaan branch line will be replaced by bus service through June 8, with the exception of May 22 to 25, for “facility upgrades.”
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Aladdin Services.
The work will be paid with monies generated from the railroad station downtown—a “Railroad Fund” that is DOT money that the town is required to “reinvest” in the New Canaan stations each year, Oestmann said. (During the same meeting, the selectmen approved a $16,200 contract for platform repairs, primarily at Talmadge Hill, also with monies from the Railroad Fund.)
The DOT has been “pretty good” about allowing the town to spend the money wisely, Oestmann said.
“The biggest issue is scheduling,” he said. “It’s just a very difficult thing to schedule. So with that said, hopefully there’s no rain those weekends that we’re trying to do painting or graffiti [removal].”
The selectmen asked whether Aladdin sprays on the graffiti treatment (no, they roll it on) and how long the seal protects the concrete (don’t know).