(rshsdepot) Riverbank, CA AT&SF depot burns

["Alexander D. Mitchell IV" <LNER4472_@_bcpl.net>]

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/7555501p-8466993c.html
Riverbank fire spreads quickly
(Photos at website by noted rail photographer Ted Benson!)

By MICHAEL MELLO
BEE STAFF WRITER

Published: October 7, 2003, 07:45:40 AM PDT


RIVERBANK -- A century-old piece of railroad history burned to the ground
Sunday morning, leaving the train company that was still using it without an
office.
The old Amtrak depot on Talbot Avenue caught fire just before 5 a.m. Sunday
and quickly burned to the ground, Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Department
Capt. Paul Spani said.
Though the first engine arrived within five minutes, Spani said, "half the
building was involved in flames. It spread that quickly."
Preliminary estimates listed damages to the building and contents at
$300,000.
The depot had served as a passenger station for 25 years until Amtrak built
a new station in Modesto in 1999. The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe
Railway still used the building and several employees were working when the
fire broke out, Spani said. None was hurt.
Although the fire's cause had not been determined, it started in an old
freight loading platform, Spani said. The space underneath the platform is
hollow and had accumulated bits of paper and other debris.
One of the railroad employees heard a noise and went outside to investigate,
finding the burning platform. He retrieved a fire extinguisher from the
depot, pointed at the flames "and found out it didn't work," Spani said. "By
the time he came back out with the second extinguisher, (the fire) had grown
considerably."
The employee hustled others out of the building, and they called 911.
More than 20 Stanislaus Consolidated firefighters responded, as well as
several personnel from Oakdale city and Oakdale Rural fire departments.
"The decision was made, since the fire was spreading so rapidly (and
everyone had escaped the building), it would be safer for the firefighters
not to go in there and try to stop the fire," Spani said.
According to "Coast Lines Depots," a history of Santa Fe railroad stations,
the depot first shuttled passengers and freight onto the rail line in 1904.
Forty years later, it was moved to its Talbot Avenue location to be closer
to the roundhouse.
On Monday afternoon, Tony Granucci sat watching a contract crew haul away
carbon chunks and half-melted metal, all that was left of the building.
Granucci, a car inspector for the railroad, had an office on the second
floor.
"They were going to move our office, because (they said) the stairs were
unsafe," Granucci said. When he came out to the site on Sunday, shortly
after the fire, "the stairs were the only thing standing."
Granucci said he liked working in a historical building.
"Now we'll probably have one of those portable buildings," he lamented.
The company is working on placing a new modular building at the heavily used
switching site, spokeswoman Lena Kent said. She did not know when it will be
installed. The employees who were based in Riverbank have been temporarily
moved to the railroad's Modesto yard.
The loss of the building won't affect railroad traffic, Kent said.


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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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