WELLINGTON, OHIO Diner building from '20s makes a move to New York location

The current operator plans to open a larger facility.
WELLINGTON, Ohio (AP) -- Cecil's Trackside Diner, which under various names served railroad workers and other hungry customers for 76 years, has packed up for upstate New York.
The landmark in this village 36 miles southwest of Cleveland opened in 1927 and previously was known as Hazel's and Carl's. It was renamed Cecil's to honor the most recent operator's grandfather, an engineer for the New York Central Railroad.
It was taken apart last weekend, loaded onto a truck and taken 367 miles to Gilbertsville, N.Y., where a new owner, Mike Engle, plans to restore and reopen it.
Sandra Aden, 44, who had operated the 21-seat diner since 2000, said it was too small. A larger Cecil's will open in the spring, along with a party center, also to be operated by Aden.
Fond memories
"I'm very sad to see it go," said Jeanice Richmond-Johnson, 72, a dishwasher at Hazel's Diner in the 1940s. "People came to gossip, make friends, as well as to sober up after a night on the town."
Harold Wiles, 75, a lifelong Wellington resident, remembers people lining up outside Hazel's after the end of World War II.
"Railroad workers, engineers, conductors ... everybody wanted to eat there," Wiles said.
Engle, 30, said he became interested in diners after getting tired of the local chain restaurants. So he tried the Miss Johnstown Diner in Johnstown, N.Y.
"I knew immediately that this was unique, and I was hooked for good," Engle said.
Engle, a volunteer with the American Diner Museum of Providence, R.I., and Dan Zilka, the museum's director, came to Wellington to help with the move.
The museum is interested in saving as many vintage diners as it can.
Goodell Hardware of Silver Creek, N.Y., made the diner, and it is the only one of its kind left.
The original 30-by-10-foot diner had a Philippine mahogany interior, with 12 stools, one double- and one single-nook booth.