Nickerson Building Movers

FARMINGTON -- With an entourage of cherry-picker utility trucks, police cruisers and reporters, the flatbed trailer hauling the Farmington Diner on Monday slowly lumbered across town to Wilton.

The long awaited event snarled traffic in both directions on the busy Wilton Road as the five-mile journey, a trip that normally takes about 12 minutes, stretched longer than an hour and a half.

Electrical and phone lines, cable TV and traffic signals all had to be lifted up and out of the way by workers who hovered around the diner inside swiveling buckets atop slow-moving trucks.

All along the route, residents and workers paused to watch. Some waved and many took photos

Jim Nickerson, owner of Nickerson Building Movers of Kingfield, and his crew had to move the unwieldy flatbed and its 35-ton load around a sharp corner onto Cemetery Road. They backed up a slight incline and rotated it into a tight, plowed area on a piece of land owned by the new owner, Rachel Jackson-Hodsdon.

Complicating things further were the huge rock-hard snow banks on the lot. Under the permit from the Wilton Planning Board, the diner had to be 50 feet from the road.

With the trailer backed right up to the bank and angled a bit, there was just enough room.

"We just made it," said a smiling Seth Nickerson, the foreman, after measuring the distance to the street.