The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-09-17
BURNING OIL TRAINS
Bit Of History ofthe Early Day
Shipments.
TRAINS OF FIFTY CARS
REMINISCENT DRILLER DWELLs
ON RAILROAD DANGERS.
CLOS Angeles Herald.)

| say, said driller yesterday as ne
stood in derrick mechanically turning
| the temper screw, invoIuntariIy keep
| ing time with the chug of the drill.
you people out here in California
| never saw a train of oil cars on fire,
/ did yOu?" The Herald man confessed
| that very few oil trains had been con-
sumed in this state. at least in recent
years.
We'll, sir it is a sight of life
| time You know, in the early days of
| the oil business in the east. before
/ Henry Harley'S idea of building pipe
nnes became general, they carried all
! their oil in tank cars on the railroads.
| A train of forty or fifty of these cars
was no uncommon sight in those days.
GU Know that eastern stuff is most
aWfully inftammable. A spark was all
| that would be required to start a fire
I that-well, / don't know anything about
| hell only reading about it and hearing
ministers talk about it, but if il is half
as not as a burning oil train, excuse
me- L don't want to get any nearer TO
1t than necessary Most of the oil
was shipped down along the Ale
gheny Valley railroad. l don't know
| how many millions of dollars il cost
that company for trying to carry oil
N cars. With all the care il was pos
slble to exercise, those trains would get
| on f1re once in while, and the way
money went up in smoke was plenty
Nothing would be left but a twisted lot
of iron and rails Many time, too.
| the ashes of d brakeman or two might
1 be mixed I'D with what was left You
see, it didn't take all day to burn an
! oil train. and it didn't take long to set
one on fire. There was so much gas
in the oil, you know, that the minute
| fire started, the whole train would
burst into a flame. 1t was surprising;
almost like lightning stroke. and, of
course, it was generally all off with
the hrakemen. They really didn't have
time to jump, and if they did they We're
just as likely as not to jump into a
pool of burning oil The tank cars
would explode and throw burning oil
all over the neighborhood. 1t was
something fierce, I'll state. 1 remem-
| Der of an oil train catching on fire near
! Bully Hill, down the river about eight
miles from Franklin. At the time I
was I'D on the hill, 500 feet above the
| track, and it is a fact that the flames
from that fire IeaDed into the air al
most as high as that hill. 1t was a
magnificent sight. Volumes of smoke
black as midnight. rolled up and near
ly hid the sun from view. There were
some funny freaks performed by these
! tank cars, too, sometimes. One night
train got on fire near Oil City, and
as one tank after another exploded, it
sounded like that artillery duel at the
battle of Gettysburg No. 1 wasn't in
/ the battle. but 1 was plenty near
enOugh-up in Canada working in a
lumber camp. Well, the noise was ter
rife, anyway. All at once as one of
| the tanks let go, we were left in total
darkness, and there was not a sign
of a blaze anywhere-just a lot of
SmOldering ruins. The force of the ex-
plOsion-the concussion-had put out
! the fire. and that's no joke, either 1t
| is fact; I saw it myself.
But speaking of burning trains. that
BOrdell & Kinzua narrow gauge road,
which winds around the mountains
there. was the worst / ever knew about.
1t was in the winter of 1881. At that
time Bradford was the business center,
as it is now, of a lot of little towns,
and the trains coming into Bradford
were always filled with people on their
way to market. you know. All along
the line of this little railroad are hun
dreds of oil wells It seems that some
one in running oil from one of the
tanks one day had forgotten to plug
il properly; and the oil escaped and ran
down the hill TO the railroad track,
which formed for the oil nice bed.
and it simply ran along between the
rails. soaking the snow and actually
making a little river of oil almost a
mile in length. You know what that
would mean if spark touched it. Well,
il touched ii all right A passenger
train filled with people came along and
the minute the fire box of the Iocomo-
tive came near that gas. there was a
river of fire about a mile in length.
stretching ahead of the train through
which it had TO plunge. There is a man
here in Los Angeles who was on
the train. His name is John Burke
and the story he would tell you would
make your hair stand on end, or SINCE
it off. rather. There was hot old time
around there for awhile and no mis-
take. He says the minute the locomo-
tive struck the spot where the oil was,
the entire train was enveloped within
walls of fire. Every pane of glass in
the car was broken from the heat in
an instant, and every man, woman and
chiid's fate in that car seemed to be
sealed. And it was sealed for sixteen
of them, for they persisted like rats in
a trap. The engineer stood to his post
like hero, but, of course, the instinct
of self-preservation was in him the
same as in every other man. and he
jumped-not, however. until he was so
terribly burned that he died from the
effects of ii a short time after. When
he let go the throttle stem TO jump.
the entire inside of his hand was left
on the stem. He was a hero. but that