Great wood Lackawanna depot and restaurant burns.  http://bit.ly/1xe2P7

The East Stroudsburg, PA depot has burned. Located on the DL&W main it has seen many great trains and recently Steamtown excursions, private car trips and the D-L ALCo show. It was a good casual restaurant called Dansbury Depot.

Rob

Too bad to hear about East Stroudsburg. The eternal problem with railroad stations made into restaurants: they seem to catch fire, for some reason.

In Connecticut, we had the well-known Canaan station (partly a restaurant/bar) severely damaged by fire (and subsequently rebuilt with a state grant) and the West Willington station of the Central Vermont suffered a serious fire.

Howard P.

It does seem to happen. The DL&W wood depot at Factoryville, PA (on the original alignment) was a bar that burned around 1988 or so. I am sure there are others that aren't coming to mind at this hour.

The East Stroudsburg depot was far from being the last wooden DL&W depot, but it was one of the largest - if not the largest - wooden DL&W structures left.

Rob

The former Norfolk & Western depot in Bedford VA, operating as Old Liberty Station Restaurant, suffered heavy damage in a fire Sept. 18 caused when a workman touched off the blaze in the attic area. Owner plans to restore and reopen. Here is a link to the Roanoke Times story:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/219562

Has anyone heard of any restoration to this station/restaurant? I am heading up that way in a week and would sure love to eat there again...or some time in the near future.

Sadly, an email list is reporting that it is going to be torn down.

Joshua

The story we are hearing is that it is going to be torn down. As of last Friday there was no sign of an imminent demolition. Supposedly, the owner is going to build a replica on the station site but more "friendly" for a modern restaurant. The building is fairly much boarded up so I'm not sure if it is worth a trip for photos - the Alco's that pass by might do!

Back in the 60's, there was a proposal to convert the Pacific Electric depot in Monrovia (CA) into a restaurant (rail service had disappeared years earlier); there was even mention of using Richard Fellows' rubber tired Red Car "PE 1058" to shuttle between the Santa Anita Park race track and the eatery. After a closer study, the project quietly faded away, and the last "adaptive reuse" was as the office for a Christmas tree lot. Came the next year and the station was dismantled, with usable timbers last seen leaving the area on trucks with Baja California license plates. One station that seems to have made a success of restaurant conversion is "The Steaming Tender" in Palmer MA. They have good food, ice cream, and plenty of railroad action.
Regarding depot fires in general, wood-framed buildings that have been around a long time, and have had good roofs during their existence, will have wood that is very dry and thus burns very well. Also, restaurants are a low-margin business, and while we shouldn't cast aspersions without investigation, the owners may be tempted to hire the local handyman to do repair and modification work, and this person may not have had training on how to safely work with torches and other sources of intense heat. When I worked for a major electric utility, we had regular safety classes on how to protect areas where cutting, welding or torch-soldering were performed. We also had "live fire" training (usually in August!) on the proper use of fire extinguishers. (Pull! Aim! Squeeze! Sweep!)

I do hate to see this. But this is not the first one here is it? We'll just have to build a new one when we do get a New Phoebe Snow direct this time with a one seat ride to New York's Penn Station. Too bad the buses have such a strong lobby we'd have our train by now.

How about catching a train there? I think the town should consider making it a stop for the buses enroute to NY. That way you could get some of that bus lobby money to fix it up. Like Syracuse which really is a bus station or New Orleans And other places that are really bus stations with a hidden rail service in the back of the property.

Hi Howard--is CRHA rebuilding the lost wing, or just stabilizing and repairing the one that remained? If the former, I am a happy camper!