Just after 3 am this morning, one of the vacant trackside buildings at the NVF (National Vulcanized Fiber) site in Yorklyn, DE, burned to the ground - it was reported as arson. This particular building was a popular photo spot at the Wilmington & Western Railroad. The entire site has been slated for stabilization/preservation/renewal - with plans to put a turntable in for the W&W, but not a lot of progress has occured recently, as I can tell.

Link to the article regarding the fire here: https://www.wdel.com/news/fire-ravages- ... 63001.html

I'm also including a video grab shot from this past Saturday as W&W 0-6-0 #58 led a train past the building.

Oh man, what a bummer!

That was a cool building.

I'm always curious about the whole "arson" thing on derelict structures though.

Was an intentional "I want to see that sucker burn" action, or was it "oh shit, I dropped my cigarette" situation?

In many cases it is homeless taking shelter, and building a fire to warm themselves and the fire gets away from them....

The other extraordinary common accusation (if not for really, REALLY good reason) is arson to eliminate the demolition costs of an "albatross" building (at least the interior) and eliminate the prospect of "historical preservation" law being used to force a property owner to renovate/restore the structure at a much higher cost than simply knocking down the walls and redeveloping the property.

When a massive former B&O tobacco warehouse in Baltimore's Locust Point area burned one night in the 1990s, and I got the phone call, I grabbed an associate from the Baltimore City Fire Department, and with his badge we got past the roadblocks. The one thing I distinctly remember was my friend discretely pointing out three gentlemen clustered and talking at a distance across Fort Avenue:

"You know any of those guys back behind me in those trench coats?"
[looking]............. "not offhand.... what are you thinking?"
"Can you get a picture of them?" [this was pre-digital days]
"........ not without getting their attention, may I ask why?"
"........... any time you get someone in shiny shoes and executive dress laughing at the scene of a vacant warehouse fire, it's an arson-for-hire case."

I think he did report his sightings to investigators, but naught came of it, to my knowledge.