Former train station burns
CHICORA — If you’ve lived in the borough for some time, you probably know the wood and metal building off Slippery Rock Street as “the old train station.”
But neighbors say passengers haven’t boarded a train there in decades, and in recent years the building was all but falling down.
The building, which was steps from the railroad tracks and blocks from the fire station, was destroyed Friday afternoon by fire.
“It was fully engulfed when we got the call,” said Rick Craig, assistant chief of the Chicora Volunteer Fire Department.
Butler County emergency service records say the first call was made at 1:40 p.m., and neighbors confirm that by then black smoke was billowing up the hillside.
With the raging flames and afternoon heat, Chicora’s fire department called for assistance from other fire departments, including Bruin, Petrolia, Sugar Creek, West Sunbury, Unionville and Oneida Valley.
No one was injured.
Craig said officials were immediately unsure what started the fire or who owns the building.
At one point, likely in the 1930s, the building was a passenger stop for people who needed to travel to Butler or Petrolia or beyond, said longtime resident Don Hershberger.
“Maybe they’d take the train to work or go to get groceries back then,” said Hershbergher, who was steering traffic away from the property for the fire department.
And some neighbors said for a time after that the building was used for storage of freight.
Trains still pass through the borough. In fact, one passed by just hours before the fire was reported. But the building’s use as a station or storage ended long ago. And there wasn’t even a clear address to the location available.
“Yeah, I remember as a boy we’d come down here to watch the trains when they still had a caboose,” said Jeff Pyle, 51. “It was empty even back then.”
Over the years the building became more and more in disrepair. One neighbor described it as “pretty much on the ground even before today.”
