# Railroad Gazette/Volume 38/Number 5/Locomotive Fires

Two Remarkable Locomotive Fires.
BY C. H. CARUTHERS.
Although locomotives have often passed through serious fires in connection with collisions, or burning shops and engine sheds, it has rarely been the case that the engines so burned could not be repaired and again placed in service.
Pittsburgh Roundhouse, after Fire in 1877.
Such an instance, however, occurred in 1884 at Hunker, a station on the southwest branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh. The branch at that time had but a single track, and immediately east of the station named was a long passing siding. About midnight, an engine drawing a long train of empty coke cars was approaching this siding rapidly, when it ran into a westbound engine drawing a long train of cars laden with coke, which had disregarded a red samaphore signal one mile distant from the scene of the accident.
The crews of these trains escaped serious injury by jumping, but the engines were instantly covered by nineteen cars, most of which were loaded, and these piled up in a lofty mass which took fire and burned furiously for forty-eight hours. The flames were finally extinguished by a steam fire engine which was brought from Pittsburgh, and pumped water from a nearby stream, but the engines were so utterly ruined that the wrecking crew simply blew them into sec-- ​tions with dynamite and loaded them in this shape on cars.
Great, gaping holes were burned through the steel sheets of the boilers and fireboxes, and the cast-iron wheel centers while retaining their general outline were apparently on the verge of melting when the intense heat was subdued. The brasses of the rods, and their steel pins were actually fused together.
A notable incident in connection with the destruction of these engines, was that they were of consecutive numbers—430 and 431—notable, because at that time the company owned over 1,000 engines numbered consecutively, and these were distributed over the various divisions of the road regardless of the numbering. Both were of the class “I,” consolidation type—now known in the new classification as class “H 1,” and both were immediately replaced by two of the same type, building at the time at the Altoona shops.
Another memorable fire in the history of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was the burning of the round houses and shops at Pittsburgh during the memorable riots of July 22, 1877. In this fire, 104 locomotives were burned. The large proportion of these stood in two round houses, a few were in the repair shop, and a few others stood among the burning cars at various places in the yard. No. 210, one of those in the shops, had just completed an overhauling and stood in the paint shed. The burning away of the supports of the track allowed this engine to fall into a cellar in which a large quantity of paints and oils were stored. In the intense heat caused by these highly inflammable materials, No. 210, received such a roasting that it was deemed unwise to repair it—especially as the boiler was that of a Smith & Perkins locomotive built for the company at Alexandria, Va., in 1853, but placed on new running gears of Mogul type at Altoona, in 1866, and under a new number.
The 103 other engines were taken to the shops of the company, and some to Baldwin’s, and again put in running order, remaining on the road for many years. Some, however, gave trouble from a tendency to leak, but no instance is recalled where any of these boilers exploded.
The photograph from which the accompanying illustration is made, shows the Twenty-sixth street roundhouse (now torn down), about one week after the fire. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​