Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1901-01-03
BONFIRES OF OLD CARS.
A brooklyn Trolley Company's Why
of Clearing Out Its Useless
Conveyance.

In the railroad cut near Third avenue
on the old Sea Beach route to Coney Is
land the Brooklyn Rapid Transit com
pany of late has been making big bon
fires of old cars. The burning of the
cars has aroused considerable interest
among people passing the spot, because
an old trolley car when properly set on
fire does not make a mean blaze. Then,
too, some of the cars destroyed have APP
peared to ordinary observers us though
they were still good for something and
their destruction has caused some won
der. In the eyes of the railroad people,
however, the cars are good only for the
Junk to be found in their ashes, says
the New York Sun.
For a long time the Brooklyn Rapid
Transit company has had morgue Tor
Its old cars at the foot of Sixty-second
street, Brooklyn. When the company
acquired the Nassau lines great many
old cars came into its possession and
the morgue's capacity of late has been
overtaxed. For this reason the COM
pany decided to set fire to the Oldest
cars in the morgue which would not be
At for service even on country lines.
Two hundred and ten cars were con-
demned in all and for several days
strings of these have been seen moving
slowly to the crematory in the railroad
cut where one after another they have
been consigned to the flames.
The cars are burned at the foot of the
cliff on one side Of the cut. A derrick
has been erected there and as the cars
are brought up they are lifted of their
trucks and tilted on one side. The win
dows and doors are taken out of them
to save the glass. Holes are cut in the
roof to improve the draft and then
lot of oil-soaked waste is put under
them and ignited. The blaze for
time Is fierce one, for the cars are
old and dry and burn like finder. The
spectacle always attracts a crowd. The
men in charge of the burning of the
cars know their business so well that
in IS or 20 minutes after the fire is start
ed nothing is left. At first the cars
were burned down near the water
front and there about 20 cars day
went up in smoke, but the residents
complained of the smoke. So the cars
are now burned farther inland and only
six or eight are set on fire in day.
The destruction of the cars does not
mean a total loss to the railroad COM
pany, as the spectators may possibly
imagine. A lot of the trucks can be
used. again and the ashes always yield
a profitable return in junk. After each
car is burned the ruins are carefully
overhauled and every scrap of iron is
saved and taken to the junk pile. The
21O cars are expected to yield about 200
tons Of junk and for this bids will be in
vited from big junk dealers.
Every big railroad company finds it.
self at times with lot of old cars on its
hands, but efforts are always made TO
dispose of them to small country lines.
Cars in fairly good condition which
have been discarded because the size
and pattern are not up to date are often
seized upon by small lines running
through sparsely settled districts
where the trolley is blessing, no mat
ter what the cars may be. AS result
of the acquisition of lot of old Brook
Ign car lines, the Brooklyn Rapid Tran
sit has come into possession of cars
whose antiquity is shown by the fact
that in their prime they were moved by
horses. Most of them ran on the At
lantic avenue line. which was absorbed
by the Nassau, and. when the trolley
craze struck Brooklyn they were turned
into trolley cars. In the horse car
days these cars were considered elabor-
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