The Chardon Trestle and Fire

The Chardon Trestle and Fire. . , This is the trestle of the Cleveland and Eastern electric railroad as it passes over the tracks of the B&O railroad at the southwest corner of Chardon Village. The car on the trestle is headed east, toward South Street. A short siding located west of the trestle connected the electric railroad with the steam railroad. This allowed coal cars to be switched between the two lines., According to the Ohio Railroad Commission (ORC) inspection report published December 31, 1907, some of the pilings were sap-rotted in the swamp portion of the valley and should be checked regularly for deterioration and make needed repairs within a year. Keep in mind this trestle was only 6 years old and built in the spring of 1900., After the inspection, a period of time had passed before the company began to fill-in the trestle with cinders to support the structure, as it was built on swamp land and prone to erosion. The long term solution to minimize deterioration and the need to continually replace rotting wood would be to fill-in the entire structure, keeping water out and using the fill to support the trestle. While this may have seemed to be the long term solution, the decision would eventually create one of the company's worst nightmares and left Chardon residents to breathe clouds of sulfur, which eventually led to the closing of this section of track., To fill in the structure, two hundred coal cars filled with cinders, and unburned coal were driven onto the trestle and emptied one car at a time until the 30 ft. drop was filled-in and the trestle no longer visible. A dressing of furnace slag topped-off the fill hermetically sealing the trestle., Once in place, the fill created spontaneous combustion and eventually caused smoldering over a long period of time. According to a report in the Geauga Republican newspaper dated September 29, 1920, the fire had been burning for five years. During this period, portions of the trestle flared-up causing clouds of smoke as the original wooden structure along with the unburned coal smoldered under the surface., The fire had eventually spread across the entire trestle from end to end. Finally, on March 1, 1920, the fire reached the surface as flames were now coming out of the structure. Railcars filled with water were dumped over the sides to quench the inferno, but it made things worse as large clouds of sulfur covered the village of Chardon creating dangerous breathing conditions., The company immediately closed this portion of the track and re-routed passengers and light freight. The company tried diligently for six months to bring the fire under control but could not, so they hired a professional fireman who had experience in extinguishing coal fires at railroad yards in other parts of the country.