Burke County says the North Carolina Department of Insurance said retired cabin train cars being sold in Hildebran can’t be used to live in permanently.
Retired railroad worker cabins are lined up on the tracks in Hildebran, waiting for workers of Innovative Bridge Company to strip the railroad bed from them before they are sold to the public.
Burke County Chief Building Inspector Steve Holden said his department has been looking into ways train cabins can be used after a company in Hildebran started removing the cabins from train cars to be sold as living space.
Holden said the manufactured home division of the Department of Insurance said people can use the train cabins to sleep in temporarily, while hunting, for instance, but the cabins can’t be used to live in or stay in on a regular basis.
The cabins have two bedrooms, each with two twin beds, and two bathrooms, but lack a kitchen.
Innovative Bridge Company in Hildebran is selling the retired train cabins that were used by Norfolk Southern to house people working on the railroad. Each cabin is being sold for $5,500, according to the company.
People are also reading…
The company has been removing the train cabins from the metal rail beds to sell the cabins as living spaces. In addition to the bedrooms and bathrooms, the units also come with a mini fridge and AC unit, hot water heater and holding tank, according to the company website.
Holden previously said the only way the train cabins can be set up in Burke County is for an engineer to sign off and explain where the unit would be set up, where the electrical would be and how water and sewer would connect.
Holden said last week the Department of Insurance told him an engineer couldn’t sign off on the entire train cabin. The engineer would have to sign off on each specific component, such as the foundation, he said.
In May, a contractor helping the members of Marshallese New Beginnings Church bring the church’s living quarters up to county code said he planned to buy several of the train cabins to house church members while the work is being done.
The church has six months to renovate the annex building of the old George Hildebrand Elementary School that the church has called home for several years. County inspectors previously deemed the building unsafe due to peeling lead paint, inadequate plumbing, unsafe electrical wiring, defective construction and decay.
Holden said that the use of the train cabins would be allowed for the Marshallese church because the cabins would be used temporarily just for sleeping. He said the church has cooking facilities inside the main school building.
Holden said the train cabins can only be up for 18 months, according to zoning law.
