ROANOKE, Va. – The Commonwealth Coach and Trolley Museum, home to several vintage buses, was destroyed in a fire along with many of its vehicles.
The fire consumed the 44,000-square-foot museum in the early morning hours of November 1. No one was injured.
The museum was opened in 1999 and housed transit coaches collected by the Virginia Museum of Transportation.
Bev Fitzpatrick, executive director of the transportation museum and president of the trolley museum, said the future of the museum was unclear because the building and several vehicles were destroyed.
However, he said several buses parked in a yard outside the building survived, and they’ll be moved to the transportation museum until another building is found.
“We are getting information together right now on the fleet,” Fitzpatrick said three days after the fire. “We were not allowed into the building until last night and it appears nothing survived. We lost 13 buses and had three more damaged. We believe with help we can find the parts to restore them.”
He told a local television station that the museum has an old trolley that originally was a Roanoke railway and electric company trolley that ran on rails in the streets of Roanoke.
“It still needs to be restored, but it apparently made it though the fire,” Fitzpatrick said.
A museum volunteer described some of the casualties, including a tangle of blackened metal he said was a rare 1955 split-level design Greyhound Scenicruiser. Toward the back of the building lay the remains of a 1959 Southern Coach that was in service at Camp Lejeuene in 1959.
A massive collection of tools and parts used to maintain the fleet also was destroyed in the fire. The buses were insured for transporting the public, but not for physical damage.
The museum was not well known, but its contents attracted bus enthusiasts and other visitors from around the country. Nonprofit organizations used the buses, and they were also brought out for community events, such as parades.
They served as shuttles for Explore Park, Mill Mountain Zoo, the National D-Day Memorial and churches.
The Virginia Museum of Transportation, which recently took the Commonwealth Coach and Trolley Museum under its umbrella, has included a link to a donation section on its website, http://www.vmt.org/.
Fitzpatrick announced in July he would be retiring from the transportation museum at the end of this year. He planned to spend more time at the trolley museum. But at 71 years old, he said, “I can’t re-invent the museum. It’s a terrible way to go out.”
Although a full list of the vehicles destroyed or damaged by the fire wasn’t immediately available, museum curator Fred Donaher said the following buses survived:
- 1991 Gillig Phantom
- 1997 Gillig Phantom
- 2000 Orion V (DASH)
- 1962 TDH-5302
- 1973 TDH-3302
- 2001 Gillig Phantom
- 1998 New Flyer D40LF
- 1982 GMC RTS T70-604
- 1989 TMC RTS T70-206
- (2) 1947 Mack C-41
- 1953 Mack C-37
- (2) 1948 GM PD-3751
- 1974 AM General
- 1970 GMC PD-4903
- 1969 GMC TDH-3301
- 1990 Flxible Metro #184
- Possibly salvageable: 1991 Orion I
