Congers NY Bus vs Train crash 47 years later

[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] on the morning of March 24 1972 35 year-old Joseph Larkin was driving Aniak high school school bus loaded past capacity down hill on Hillcrest Road the bus was filled with 48 passengers 31 males and 17 females with some passengers having to stand due to the lack of room the bus in question was a 1967 Chevy carpenter mounted on a 1968 GMC chassis at the same time Penn Central manifest Train wv1 was on the former New York Central River Line going from talk in New Jersey to sulker New York yard the train was traveling at around 25 miles an hour and had 83 loaded cars with 73 coming from the origin at Weehawken plus ten more picked up Andrew at North Bergen the train was led by Penn Central you 25b 2653 and two other locomotives both the school bus and the freight train were heading toward the Gilchrist railroad crossing located in Kongers New York the crossing was a private one sporting only a cross buck and nothing else these kind of crossings though were considered dangerous as you never know a train was coming unless you see the train or hear its horn at around 750 5 a.m. the engineer began blowing his horn as he approached the crossing joseph Larkin however didn't slow down he instead accelerated toward the crossing hoping to beat the train across the engineer noticed this and threw on the emergency brakes but it was already too late [Music] [Music] the locomotive smashed into the middle of the bus splitting it in two like knife through butter the front half came to rest a quarter mile down the tracks while the rear section of the bus was torn loose and fell off next to the tracks upside down with a number of the students still inside while several others were ejected from the remaining portion of the bus passing through separated floor sections and falling in between the rails into the path of the Train being killed instantly three students 17 year-old Jimmy McGuinness eighteen year old Richard McKay halo and 14-year old Bobby metier were killed instantly 45 more students and Larkin himself were severely injured and rushed to the nearby hospital where 14-year old Thomas gross died from his injuries several days later and 16 year old Stephen Ward died on April 14th some of the children that survived required artificial limbs due to their injuries [Music] public was outraged Larkin was brought to trial and charged with criminally negligent homicide and the death of the five students On February 16 1973 at the time of the accident Larkin was a fireman and a part-time bus driver who been driving on the route for less than a week the surviving children admitted the fact that they didn't really like Larkin claiming he was rather an experienced kept telling the kids to sit down and shut up and he also frequently drove aggressively trying to beat other cars to an intersection usually Larkin claimed he had come to a complete stop and looked both ways before the collision 16 witnesses and factual evidence though proved that was a true after a five week trial ending on March 8th 1973 Larkin was convicted on all five charges and sentenced the five years probation at his sentencing he told the judge I have been punished for a year because of what happened and I think I will be punished for the rest of my life the judge would later remark saying you will be punished for the rest of your life and your deserved however the public was also angry about the safety of the crossing the crossing had no warning lights bells or gates just a cross button which gives little to no warning of an oncoming train the rail line was also covered well by the trees making it very hard to see the Train and considering most Penn Central engines at the time had Brunswick green paint that was rather dark almost black that practically camouflaged the engines so after the accident Gilcrest road crossing was upgraded and now features gates ee bells and warning lights that are triggered by the train some distance away to give a more clear warning of oncoming trains the former Penn Central River Line is now owned by the CSX River subdivision in 1974 the New York State DMV established article 19 a which is a system that requires all bus drivers to be qualified to drive by completing a certain amount of requirements which include biennial medicals with follow ups if needed by annual written or oral tests by annual road tests yearly defensive driving tests yearly license abstracts and fingerprints with criminal history reviews it also resulted in to the federal law that all buses must stop at railroad crossings and drivers must open the doors and look both directions before continuing across the crossing new york was the first state to adopt the law the accident also exposed the dangers of school buses with standee areas and now those kind of buses are a thing of the past the accident also spawned the idea of installing seatbelts into larger school buses as at the time only short buses had them to this day very little has been done to the push the idea and larger school buses with seat belts are relatively rare compared to short buses or practically all of them have seat belts Larkin later died on October 20th 1998 aged 61 and is buried at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery 47 years had passed since the accident despite being one of the darkest crossing accidents in history it was thanks to the lessons learned here that helped change the history of railroads and bus travel forever [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions

Views: 412,935

Keywords:

Id: rTsRmN_IR7U

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2019