The Roundhouse Fire... 20 Years Later
by Ted Holteen

Steve Jackson knew the news wasn't good when the phone rattled him from sleep early in the morning on Feb. 10, 1989. It didn't get any better when he dressed hastily for an unexpected drive to work at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

When Jackson arrived at the depot he was met with the sight of the roundhouse - the building that six D&SNG locomotives called home - in flames. The historic building's 101-year life was drawing to a close, but its ensuing rebirth would become the stuff of
Durango legend.

The fire spared any human victims, as only a security guard was on premise when it broke out in the middle of the cold night. But everything else burned to ash, save for two brick walls that now form the heart of the rebuilt roundhouse.

The locomotives were also badly burned, but Jackson said because of the tireless work of the crew, many of whom are still employed today, the railroad didn't miss a scheduled train that summer.

"It's a pretty remarkable feat, and as I look back on it, I don't know how we did it. We had a great crew," said Jackson, who now is the chief mechanical officer at the railroad.

Unseasonably warm weather made it possible for the Roundhouse crew, now working without a roundhouse in the open winter air, to pile up overtime over the next three months. In May, car painter Jeff Ellingson, now the curator of the D&SNG Museum, said the paint wasn't even dry when the first train of the season left for Silverton.

"We had to rush them into service; they were building the roundhouse around us as we were trying to get them running," Ellingson said.

Railroad owner Charles Bradshaw lived in Florida at the time of the fire but was visiting Durango that night and was only a block from the blaze as he slept in a room at the General Palmer Hotel.

"I told him to look out the window and watch the roundhouse burn," said Amos Cordova, who was a vice-president of the D&SNG and drew the ominous task of waking the railroad owner with the grim news.

"He came down, we walked around watching it burn, watching (the fire department) do their thing, and we decided to rebuild immediately."

Neither Cordova, Bradshaw nor current owner Al Harper can put a dollar figure to the financial loss caused by the fire but Cordova said none of the company's owners have ever been of the "penny-wise, pound foolish" variety.

"How can you put a financial loss on a building like that from 1881? He was completely into the historic preservation, which is why the building looks like it does today," Cordova said.

As the yard crews rushed to restore the locomotives, Durango architect R. Michael Bell set to work designing the new building, which was built by Belmont Construction and cost about $2 million.

Similar but larger than the original, the new roundhouse opened with much fanfare one year to the day after the fire. The new roundhouse included eight more maintenance stalls, a 5,000-square-foot machine shop and enough extra space to add the Railroad Museum.

Ellingson, who now spends his days keeping a watchful eye over the memorabilia from the 1989 fire, said the publicity and community support surrounding the rehabilitation, while memorable even 20 years later, paled in comparison to the pride of those who made it happen.

"To see a locomotive under steam again after that fire - we like to consider ourselves grouchy old men and we don't get moved by this stuff, but there wasn't a dry eye in the house. It wasn't just our jobs - we cared, and we still care about this place. It was pretty cool," Ellingson said.

Current Vice President and General Manager Paul Schranck, who at the time was a purchasing agent in the parts department, said the most evocative memories aren't those walls but a less tangible remnant. Even today he and other workers occasionally come across a box in a warehouse that has the unmistakable smell left over from the fire. "It never goes away," he said. "That smell reminds us of that time when we were just devastated; we didn't know if we'd have jobs, if there would be a train or what it would mean for Durango.