The Dalsenget fire was a disaster where the Dalsenget Depot of Trondheim Sporvei

Trondheim Sporvei

Trondheim Sporvei was a municipally owned tram operator in Trondheim, Norway that existed between 1936 and 1974. The company operated the municipal parts of the Trondheim Tramway until it was merged with A/S Graakalbanen and Trondheim Bilruter to create Trondheim Trafikkselskap...

 burnt down, destroying almost all of the modern tram fleet. 26 trams, 16 trailers and one working tram were destroyed, and three cleaners lost their lives. It was the then largest fire in Trondheim

Trondheim

Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, after World War II.

The fire started at 04:15 on 10 October 1956, and quickly the entire depot was ablaze. The fire department was not alerted until 04:23, and little could be done to save the trams or the depot. One tram and trailer survived from within the fire-proof paint shop. Trondheim Sporvei had never discarded its old trams, that were stored at Voldsminde Depot, and eleven old trams were in service within the day. In addition, eight buses were borrowed from Oslo within the week. Damage was at NOK 9 million, of which 8 million was for the rolling stock.

A proposal to replace the tramway with trolleybus

Trolleybus

A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...

 was discarded by the city council. The depot was rebuilt, and 28 new Class 7

TS Class 7

TS Class 6 was a series of 28 trams and 15 trailers built by Strømmens Værksted for Trondheim Sporvei. They were delivered in two slightly different batches; ten in 1948–49 and six in 1955....

 trams were ordered, in addition to 15 trailers from Strømmens Værksted

Strømmens Værksted

Strømmens Værksted A/S was an industrial company based in Skedsmo, Norway, specializing in the production of rolling stock. Founded in 1873, it remains as a part of Bombardier Transportation...

 and Hønefoss Karosserifabrikk, respectively. The bogies and motors were salvaged, and reused on the new trams.

The fire

During the night to 10 October 1956, two mechanics and eight cleaners were working at depot 2. At 04:03, one of the cleaners noticed smoke, and shouted to the mechanics that they should turn off the overhead current. The current was kept on and the pantographs

Pantograph (rail)

A pantograph for rail lines is a hinged electric-rod device that collects electric current from overhead lines for electric trains or trams. The pantograph typically connects to a one-wire line, with the track acting as the ground wire...

 kept up so it would be easy to get out the trams in case of a fire. All the workers were in the annex, while the fire had started in the main wing. Two of the trams at the back were ablaze. One of the mechanics ran to turn off the power, while the other went to phone the fire department. Based on the requirements of the insurance policy, the depot was always to be manned, and in case of a fire trams were to be driven out. At this point in time such actions would still have been possible, but were not done due to the confusion. Both the mechanics and five of the cleaners succeeded in evacuating from the building before a gas tank exploded, killing the last three women in an inferno. The three deceased were Sigrid Dahl (45), Inger Skjærli (41) and Harriet Skoglund (57).

Just as the inferno occurred, an engineer from the Norwegian Institute of Technology

Norwegian Institute of Technology

The Norwegian Institute of Technology, known by its Norwegian abbrevation NTH was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 85 years, after which it was merged into the University of Trondheim as an independent...

 passed by. He asked the mechanics if they had contacted the fire department, but he thought they were acting as if in shock, and ran the 200 m (656.2 ft) home to call the department himself. When he placed the call at 04:23, it was the first message of the fire that reached the fire department. At the same time, the chief mechanic came from his nearby apartment to drive out trams, but it was too late. When the fire department arrived, the main wing's roof was ablaze. Smoke divers were used to try to locate the three people who had not gotten out. Half an hour later the whole main wing roof collapsed. The rest of the firemens effort was concentrated on rescuing the workshop at the end of the building, which had fire-proof gates. The fire was the largest in Trondheim since World War II.

Material casualty

The Dalsenget Depot was used for the operative stock, while the Voldsminde Depot was used for reserve stock. Of the 46 trams, 26 were located at Dalsenget. This included all the sixteen brand-new Class 6

TS Class 6

TS Class 6 was a series of sixteen trams built by Strømmens Værksted for Trondheim Sporvei. They were delivered in two slightly different batches; ten in 1948–49 and six in 1955....

 trams. Nineteen trams not located at Dalsenget were saved. Of the twenty trailers, sixteen were burned, while four were saved. Of these, two were used Belgian trailers there needed to be configured before entering service. A track cleaning tram also burned down, while the one museum and one welding tram both survived.

The building and trams were all insured. Only the roof of the depot was destroyed, and a new roof would have to be built for ; because it needed to be a costlier fire-proof solution, the insurance only covered NOK 663.000. In addition, a fire-proof gate would be constructed between the main wing and the annex of the building. The company was paid NOK 8 million in insurance for the lost rolling stock.

Troubled operations

At the other depot, at Voldsminde, the company had a fleet of 19 trams and four trailers. During the night and morning, these were immediately taken into service. Some were not in proper operating condition, having been untouched since 1951, while others had only been there a year. In the course of the day, eleven of the trams were made available for operation. One of the Class 5

TS Class 5

TS Class 5 was a series of six trams built by Skabo Jernbanevognfabrikk for Trondheim Sporvei. Four were delivered from December 1937 to February 1938, while two were delivered in May 1942....

 bogie trams that was still in regular service had survived because it had overnighted in the other depot. All the ten Class 2

TS Class 2

TS Class 2 was a series of twelve trams built by Skabo Jernbanevognfabrikk for Trondheim Sporvei. They were delivered between 13 September 1913 and November 1917, and used on the newly opened Elgeseter Line....

 and seven of the Class 3

TS Class 3

TS Class 3 was a series of ten trams built by Hannoversche Waggonfabrik for Trondheim Sporvei. They were delivered in November 1922, and put into service on 4 and 22 December. They remained in service until 1962....

 trams could be put into service in the course of a few days. Behind the fire-proof doors at the paint shop at Dalsenget was a single Class 4

TS Class 4

TS Class 4 was a series of five trams built by Strømmens Værksted for Trondheim Sporvei. They were delivered in 1930, and numbered 35–39.Each of the two Siemens motors had a power of . They were the first trams to have the wider bodies, that allowed four-abreast seating. They remained in service...

 tram with a trailer that had survived the fire.

Trondheim Sporvei contacted Oslo Sporveier

Oslo Sporveier

Kollektivtransportproduksjon AS is a municipal owned public transport operator of Oslo, Norway, the name meaning simply "public transportation producer". It operates the trackage and maintains the stock of the Oslo Metro and Oslo Tramway, as well as owning eight operating subsidiaries...

 and Bergen Sporvei

Bergen Sporvei

Bergen Sporvei AS was a municipal owned public transport company that operated in Bergen, Norway from 1898 to 1998. The company operated both the Bergen Tramway, Bergen trolleybus and the yellow buses in Bergen.-History:...

 to organize renting buses. Since Trondheim used a different gauge than Oslo and Bergen, it was not possible to borrow any trams. The company did not ask to borrow buses from the other bus companies in town, nor trams from the other tram company, Graakalbanen

A/S Graakalbanen

A/S Graakalbanen was a private company that built and operated the Gråkallen Line of the Trondheim Tramway between 1924 and 1972. Established in 1916, it bought large land areas in Byåsen, and built a tramway through these to reach the recreational areas in Bymarka. The line first reached Munkvoll...

, who operated trams that ran on part of the track of the city tramway. Eight buses were sent from Oslo, and arrived on 14 October by train. The buses would run in between the remaining trams to create a five-minute headway

Headway

Headway is a measurement of the distance/time between vehicles in a transit system. The precise definition varies depending on the application, but it is most commonly measured as the distance from the tip of one vehicle to the tip of the next one behind it, expressed as the time it will take for...

 on all three routes. The buses were introduced on 16 October. Only 10.6 m (34.8 ft) long and a lot smaller than the trams, the Høka

Høka

Hønefoss Jernbanevogn- og Karosserifabrikk A/S, trading as Høka and at first known as Hønefoss Karosserifabrikk A/S, was a manufacturer of bodywork for buses, trucks and trains. The company was in existence from 1936 to 1968 and was based in Hønefoss, Norway...

/Leyland

Leyland Bus

Leyland Bus was a British bus manufacturer. It emerged from the Rover Group as a management buyout of the bus business...

 buses had seating for 22 or 34

Not until 14 November was the company ready to get the two Belgian trailers into service. They needed to be rebuilt, but the company only had a single tram, the Class 4 (nicknamed the Happy Widow), that had enough power to haul the large trailers. All the old trams were smaller than those that had burned up, and they had wooden, instead of leather, seats. With less trams and lower comfort, ridership dropped 22% the following year. To compensate, the ticket price was increased from NOK 0.30 to 0.40 for adults, and from 0.15 to 0.20 for children. The bus operation was not profitable, and suffered a loss of NOK 123,000 until it was terminated on 1 July 1957. The headway had been down to eight minutes due to lack of stock, but by the fall of 1957, the company increased it to seven minutes again.

New stock

Immediately after the fire had occurred, some politicians launched the idea of instead investing in a trolleybus

Trolleybus

A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...

 system. Similar replacements had been done in Bergen

Bergen trolleybus

The Bergen trolleybus system serves the city of Bergen, Norway. It is the only trolleybus system still in operation in Norway.The system opened on February 24, 1950, as the Bergen Tramway was gradually closed and some of the tramway lines were transferred to trolleybus operation...

 and Oslo

Oslo trolleybus

The Oslo trolleybus system was a trolleybus network operated by Oslo Sporveier in Oslo, Norway between December 15, 1940, and February 15, 1968. The system measured at the most 26.1 km on four lines.-History:...

. Director Fredrik Kleven of Trondheim Sporvei calculated that this suggestion would cost NOK 1.5 million more per year, that operation of trams. 40 more people would be needed, because more buses would be needed due to their lower capacity. Also, the centenary would have to be rebuilt, the tracks removed, and trolleybuses had only a 15 year life expectancy compared to the 35 years of a tram. Buses would have to run more frequently, and could clog up the city streets.

Kleven recommended that there be ordered 28 trams and 17 trailers, but this was lated reduced by two trailers. Costs could be reduced since the bogie

Bogie

A bogie is a wheeled wagon or trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a chassis or framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle. It can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage/car or locomotive, or sprung as in the suspension of a caterpillar...

s, motors, transformers and compressors from the fire could be salvaged, and reused by the new trams. Final decision would be taken by the city council, since Trondheim Sporvei was a municipal agency. The chief of administration recommended 24 October that only the 8 million from the insurance be used for new stock, but also said that NOK 4 million could be borrowed. On 1 November, the city council voted in favor of the suggestion, giving the tram company's board freedom to strike the deal.

A invitation to a tender was sent to Strømmens Værksted

Strømmens Værksted

Strømmens Værksted A/S was an industrial company based in Skedsmo, Norway, specializing in the production of rolling stock. Founded in 1873, it remains as a part of Bombardier Transportation...

 and Hønefoss Karosserifabrikk (Høka) for fifteen chassis and bogies; the bid was won by Strømmen. The remaining ten trailers were offered to Skabo Jernbanevognfabrikk

Skabo Jernbanevognfabrikk

Skabo Jernbanevognfabrikk was a mechanical workshop focusing on design and construction of railcars. It was established by Hans Skabo in Drammen, Norway in 1864; it became the first rail car factory in the country when it took delivery of the cars for Kongsvingerbanen...

 and Høka; the latter had the cheapest deal and won. Delivery started from Strømmen on 27 April 1957.

See also

The Brisbane tramway fire

Paddington tram depot fire

The Paddington tram depot in Brisbane, Australia was destroyed by fire on the night of 28 September 1962, one of the largest fires in Brisbane's history. Sixty-five of Brisbane's trams were destroyed...

in 1962, by comparison, led to the trams in that city being abandoned.