Croydon Company Plans To Rebuild After Massive Fire

As Tom Calkins looked at the smoking facility where his family business was based, he vowed to rebuild his company at 2979 State Road in Bristol Township’s Croydon section.

“It’s the worst day of our lives, you know,” he said Saturday afternoon. “This is the kind of devastation that could eliminate us.”

Calkins said he doesn’t intend to allow the massive three-alarm that ripped through his 1900’s-era facility to shut down the business his family started. Railway Specialties Corporation makes watertight doors, hatches, manhole covers and fabricates other metal products, employing 35 people. The company is known for manufacturing doors for the nation’s aircraft carriers.

Less than 24 hours after the fire began, Calkins was talking with the insurance company and local contractors about plans the rebuild. Just yards away, firefighters poured water on the smoldering remains of the building and fire investigators probed the cause.

Fire Marshal Kevin Dippolito said Saturday that the blaze appears to have started in the ceiling void near the machine shop. He added that the cause had not yet been determined.

The fire was dispatched around 5 p.m. Friday and quickly grew in size, with the black column of smoke being spotted as far away as Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood. Embers from the blaze started a small brush fire or two and caused nearby rail cars to be moved away from the scene.

Throughout the evening and into tonight, more than two dozen pieces of fire apparatus, including numerous ladder trucks, worked to squelch the flames. Firefighters said throughout the night that hot spots remained and were being fought.

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The fire marshal said the right half of the complex was destroyed, including a machine shop and a two-floor office area. The left side of Railway Specialties Corporation complex was undamaged.

Overnight and into Saturday afternoon, crews used heavy equipment to pull apart the building under the collapsed roof and walls, Dippolito said.

Railway Specialties Corporation General Manager John Hofer told LevittownNow.com he was the only person at the facility around the time of the fire. He saw a

mist on a security cameras but couldn’t find much when he investigated in person.

Aside from a very slight smell, Hofer said he left to grab dinner and returned to find out the building was ablaze.

Calkins said he learned of the fire through an employee and saw the massive column of smoke as he rushed up I-95 to the scene.

“When I got there, it was fully engulfed,” Calkins said.

Aside from telling fire officials where dangerous chemicals and materials were inside the building, all the two men could do was watch as local firefighters went to work.