The Wreck of the Broker: The Woodbridge Train Disaster of 1951

on the Misty evening of February 6th 1951 the residents along Falton Street in Woodbridge New Jersey heard a thundering crash opening their doors they saw the deadliest train wack in State history the worst in American history since 1918 I tried to get the broker as much as I could enjoyed it this was the broker which came off the rails taking the lives of 85 people and injuring hundreds more scarring many for life all of a sudden the lights went out everything and we went over on the side it was officially deemed as a simple case of excessive speed but frustrated investigations failed to get to the bottom of things leaving many questions unanswered I was looking for yellow lights those lights weren't there we're using the advanced technology of Unreal Engine 5 to piece this wreckage back together bringing the history to life like never before Guided by historians exploring the rec s and hearing the stories directly from survivors were reexamining the 73-year-old case and hopefully answering these questions once and for all little things that you would never give a second thought to made all the difference literally between life and death that would change the center of gravity and probably helped it whip the tender away from the locomotive and down the embankment this is the story of the Woodbridge train disaster of 1951 I I'd like to extend my gratitude to the historical Association of Woodbridge Township for their generous support in the production of this documentary it's here in Woodbridge Township that this terrible disaster took place the spot where the crash unfolded hasn't changed much since the 1950s the most noticeable change however is this the New Jersey Turnpike within shouting distance of the site is busy today but in 1951 it was still under construction my name is Tom Linsky I've been making documentaries about history for years and when I found out about New Jersey's worst train wreck I had to come see the site I'm here with Gordon Bond New Jersey historian and the leading expert on the wreck of the broker as well as author of the book man failure the main source for this project we are de the site we are along Fulton Street in Woodbridge New Jersey the 1951 investigations into the disaster fell short they missed key evidence and had their own agendas we're here to reexamine the wreck and get a better understanding of just how this terrible crash unfolded we're joined by John tur Kelly a railroad historian who has Decades of experience restoring private rail cars and was one of the last people to operate the only surviving operational k4s steam locomotive the same type that was pulling the broker that fateful night hard to imagine the uh the ruction that occurred here such a peaceful neighborhood so Gordon I have a a tangential family connection to the broker also with us is Steven schanker historian documentarian and friend of mine as well as a relative of the man at the controls of the train that night Joe didn't want to talk too much about Albert during his testimony because he felt that Albert had died and that it wasn't fair to try to pin any blame on someone that couldn't defend themselves having occurred nearly 3/4 of a century ago the wreck of the broker is beginning to fade from memory but the impact that it had on those on board as well as the legacy of heroism and compassion of Woodbridge Township where the disaster took place is worth preserving you know once it's cleaned up it's easy to walk away and continue with your life but again the people that lived in the immediate area who had to live with that you know with the rest of their lives still seeing evidence for many years after that had to have a really personal effect on these people the rail line came right down from Jersey City New Jersey through Newark and continuing down through Woodbridge and then South Amboy from there it continues down to the state's Northern Shore towns such as Long Branch and Asbury Park and finally terminating in bayhead in the complicated business of railroads it sometimes makes sense for different companies to to share the same assets the tracks involved here for example were owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad from Jersey City to a point just south of Woodbridge Township after that they were owned by the New York and Long Branch Railroad a company that was owned by the Jersey Central Railroad the peny leased track rights from them the right to operate Pennsylvania trains on New York and Long Branch tracks Jersey Central could in turn run their trains on the Pennsylvania railroad tracks it made better economic sense than building and operating two parallel sets of tracks in practice they operated under mostly the same rule books and it worked out for both there was however one policy on which the peny differed that would come to play a critical part in this unfolding tragedy the massive Pennsylvania Railroad ran two trains on this line each with their special name one was the broker and one was the banker being named for their primary clientele New York City's Financial District work workers commuting to and from their homes in New [Music] Jersey February 6th 1951 the broker and the banker had made their early morning runs up from Bay Head to Jersey City as usual and then made their way over to The Meadows maintenance yard near Jersey City to prepare for their evening ride back along the same route as the train sat at Meadows from the late morning through early afternoon two important situations were developing that would impact the Train's return trip one was a construction project along the train line at a place called Woodbridge Township a special order had been issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad to all train Crews passing through there general order 1806 instructing Crews to slow down to 25 mph in that area starting that afternoon the printed order was posted a week ago with others on the bulletin board that Crews were expected to review each day Fitz Simmons saw it for the first time that morning the second and more Dynamic situation was a labor strike unfolding with the Jersey Central Railroad with whom the pencilvania railroad shared this route and therefore it shared a lot of the same customers Jersey Central going on strike would mean a ton of additional commuters that the Pennsylvania Railroad needed to accommodate as the strike was confed confirmed the Pennsylvania Railroad got to work immediately in preparation for the evening commute with more passengers coming more trains were needed the cars from that morning's Banker were removed from its locomotive and then added to the back of that morning's broker to make the broker nearly twice the size it usually was with another long train being arranged to run as the banker now let's take a look at the broker's new consist locomotive 2445 was a k4s class 462 engine built in Juniata Pennsylvania in 1917 the uh locomotive on the broker was one of 425 of a similar type of steam locomotive high-speed passenger locomotive that the Pennsylvania rail developed in 1951 it's 34 years old it's an older engine but still one of the best suited locomotives for the northern New Jersey run the k4s ran their last miles in New Jersey on what we call the North Jersey coastline which used to be the New York and Long Branch Railroad next was its tender capable of holding 22 tons of coal and 13,500 Gall of water for the production of steam following the locomotive and tender were 10 p70 passenger cars these were all steel cars and the standard passenger car for the Pennsylvania Railroad of the time capable of carrying 80 passengers each these cars were well lit on the inside with luggage racks overhead and long rows of large glass windows on either side tacked on at the end of the train after the 10 passenger cars was a Club Car leased out to the Jersey Shore commuter Club this was a modified p70 coach with a vestibule only on one end and with a warmer parlor style setting inside the club leased this car out exclusively for their members to give them a bit more of a comfortable commute while I'm sure it was crowded on this run it wouldn't be nearly as crowded as the rest of the train as this morning's broker and Banker were combined into just this evening's broker the crews of the two trains merged now let's look at the broker's crew the broker's locomotive 2445 and its crew were kept on the Train's engine men which was the Pennsylvania railroad's preferred term for engineer would be Joseph Fitz Simmons Joe had been born in Ireland came to this country came to the United States and he worked for the railroad just about his whole career you know he he worked there for 42 years he had a pretty average record about the time of the broker wreck you know there were a few things going on there was the construction going on at Woodbridge so he had those orders in his head um there was the Jersey Central strike also going on at about the same time um and also on a personal level his wife had just had a heart attack in early Fe then and had just been released from the hospital so there are other things kind of going on in the background as all of this is you know starting to take place Fitz Simmons's fireman was Albert Patty Dunn also from Ireland and nearly the same age as Fitz Simmons like Fitz Simmons Dunn also had a reasonable service record he actually called out sick from work this morning but changed his mind 10 minutes later a tragic mistake for him as he would become the only crewman lost in the the disaster Fitz Simmons and Dunn were in charge of the locomotive while head conductor John Bishop was in charge of the rest of the broker Bishop was on this morning's banker and had been transferred over to the broker for the evening Bishop was from Pottsville penssylvania and assisting him were four [Music] breakmen has the busy Tuesday workday was coming to an end in lower Manhattan the fairies were already shuttling workers across the Hudson River to New Jersey on the first leg of their commute home some of these commuters travel up to 2 hours each way every day but the money was worth it especially for those who worked in New York City's Financial District the evening was hazy with the ground damp and the air chilly the faeries pulled into the Exchange Place station and the passengers continuing their commute by rail didn't even need to go outside to board the train waiting for them departing shortly the broker loaded with a rush of passengers disembarking the fairies of course not everybody who boarded the train here in Jersey City came from one of the fairies John Ryan was a junior in college in Jersey City and had picked up a part-time job at a bank right across the street from Exchange Place I had picked up a little job after uh my last class uh at The Exchange Place right across in the harbor side terminal there so it was very convenient for me at 5:00 to leave the bank walk across Exchange Place and get on the [Music] broker as the clock counted down to departure conductor Bishop checked in with Fitz Simmons one final time he said to him that the train is carrying 11 cars and that everything is in good order he then added one final reminder for Fitz Simmons to watch his speed at Woodbridge so what exactly was happening at Woodbridge that required caution on their part Woodbridge is a town along the railroad about 14 Mi down the line from broker's first stop in Newark it was a small town with a raised Railroad Bed elevated about 30 ft above the ground on a dirt embankment now the brand new New Jersey Turnpike was being built right through the town cutting across the path of the Pennsylvania Railroads track the track that the broker was to be traveling on with this new super highway cutting its path it was decided that two parallel overpasses would be built one to carry the railroad tracks and one for Street traffic to replace a civilian road that was also being cut into by the highway this road was fton Street which ran right beside the tracks you have to create a temporary Trestle that's going to carry the trains over the construction site while this new bridge is new per permanent bridge where the main line is being constructed this temporary track would run parallel to the main line as the embankment was widened once all was ready the mainline tracks were cut off and all trains would be re-rooted over this temporary track while the mainline railroad bridge was constructed complicating the matter is Le in place which crossed underneath the existing Railroad by cutting through the embankment now the construction work on the turnpike overpasses required widening the embankment and lengthening the cut that Legion Place carved out this was one of the first steps that the construction team did piling more dirt on the western side of the embankment and constructing large concrete retaining walls on either side of Legion place as the tracks needed to cross Legion place as well a temporary wooden Trestle was built spanning the Gap the track laid across this Trestle was not attached to it instead notches were cut into the bottom of the wood ties That keyed into wooden beams this might seem surprising but would be more than adequate to withstand a train rolling slowly over it this detail would be important however in what was to come if you look at the geography here uh it's very tight you don't have a lot of room to work with to move a track to move tracks off the main line and so it was a fairly tight curve off of the mainline onto the temporary track it started to curve off just before Legion Place back there um because it was so tight the there was a speed restriction normally trains could pass along these tracks at a maximum speed of around 65 mph because of this jog off onto this temporary track it was reduced to 25 mph so they could take that negotiate that curve successfully today was the very first day that the broker's crew would be passing through the area with these new speed restrictions they weren't even in place yet for the morning run the broker got underway at 5:07 p.m. leaving Jersey City behind and steaming toward its first stop Newark New Jersey when it left the train was packed in fact it was so crowded that there were cases of passengers stepping back off the train because they couldn't find a seat and didn't feel like standing with 10 cars open to the public and 80 seats in each we're looking at around 800 people on board not even counting those who might might be sitting in the exclusive Club Car at the rear shortly after Fitz Simmons brought the broker to a halt in Newark a few disembarked here but a flood of additional passengers came aboard you see normally Jersey Central Railroad passenger trains also serviced various stops along the same route however due to that labor strike Jersey Central was completely shut down that day so every passenger that would have been commuting home with Jersey Central was now standing on the Penn Station platform trying to find another way home Pennsylvania Railroads broker rolled in with standing room only but standing on the crowded train beat sitting around on a cold wet platform standing on that platform were three students Victor Vino of Red Bank New Jersey his girlfriend Beverly Borman and his friend the three usually took the broker home from school together but as it was swamped by passengers Victor's friend suggested that they wait around for the next train Victor decided that he and Beverly would squeeze in since her parents were waiting for her but the friend decided to stay behind and wait for the next train Victor and Beverly boarded the train together and managed to find a place at about 5:26 about 5 minutes after arriving the old k4s began riding down the long stretch toward its NE stop the town of South Amboy in about 25 minutes or so that's where the broker should be making its first drop off stop Sunset had come at 5:22 that evening which was right as the train sat at Newark Pen Station so now at dusk many of the passengers on board tired after a long day at work took advantage of this time to nap I usually took a nap the conductors knew me you know they would kick me off in case they didn't wake up in Red Bank things were quieting down on board the crowded broker especially in the sixth car whose lights were malfunctioning leaving the car in total darkness just after 5:40 the broker approached Woodbridge station the train would not be stopping here and the construction site was about a quar of a mile past the station platform but the approach to Woodbridge was mainly an uphill grade Fitz Simmons increased the Train's throttle to help it climb that grade the train sped up as it surmounted the hill rocketing through Woodbridge station it rounded a slight curve heading Southward it was dark Misty and disorienting as Fitz Simmons looked out his window suddenly the light at the front of the locomotive illuminated a sharp curve the construction site that Fitz Simmons had been warned about with no time to lose he cut the throttle and slammed on the emergency break but the curve came up too fast for the train to sufficiently slow down the train jerked to the right as it hit the first curve everyone inside the train who had been standing was thrown forward with the slamming of the emergency breake and against the left side with the sharp right turn a moment later the train jerked to the left on the second curve throwing everyone on board across the train again to the right with that the train came off the rails [Music] it took a moment for the town of Woodbridge to realize what had hit them Anthony to Austine was in in his Loft when he witnessed the accident and was one of the first people to run to the crash site everything was silent and quiet like the dust still still hadn't settled from from uh from the accident and uh I say about 5 minutes that took place that people started to realized what happened like even the people that lived along Pon Street they were standing out on the porch realizing what they were seeing a few streets over Frank leento was just getting home I parked my car in front of my mother's house on School Street in Woodbridge as I went to turn off the ignition of the car I heard somebody running up the street calling my name it was my neighbor and friend um dannyel lanio uh he informed me a train just went off the track down by his uncle's Factory on Fon Street as we parked on Fon street across the street from the Train the side of the accident I could see the train and it was everything was very quiet the dust was starting to settle around the accident uh there were railroad cars on a Trestle they were kinked and they were hanging there were railroad cars scattered along the rail line some were twisted and laying on their side the cold car from the train had rolled down the embankment and was laying in the middle of the road as I looked up at the train it appeared empty there was no movement not a [Music] sound the silence of the wreckage was terrifying the locals arriving on the scene saw people inside the train but no movement and heard nothing there were people sitting on the Windows of a car that was laying on its side and their legs were hanging inside but there still was no [Music] sound and L Monaco lived on the other side of the tracks the mother of four was in her kitchen when she saw out her window the wreck unfolding crashing down the hill away from her she rapidly called the police but even then she was not the first caller when her husband got home from work shortly after he ran over to help out and was there most of the night John Ryan was in car number two and he had fallen asleep as the train started its run but now found his car flipped over on its right side and we were hanging down his embankment uh and I remember uh waking up you know they had those oldfashioned lights and I I was pretty much wrapped around one of those so uh but you know I felt everything and everything was I'm not hurt you know you know very lucky I did help two people get off I pulled the seat off of one and uh this girl was this lady young young lady was there and I helped her get get off the train too we we worked our way through the all the crap that had come down from the ceiling and we got out through the door and uh they they started back along the uh the track and I was going to do that I said I went down the embankment and uh I walked across the street to were housing and I just asked them if I could use their phone know and of course they had seen what had happened and I said of course finally the silence was broken by a fire truck roaring onto the scene it was equipped with a tall hydraulic ladder one that was a bit ill-fitting for the township of Woodbridge people in the community at that time wondered why we needed a truck with such a large ladder when the um tallest building in our community was only three stories high well that new fangled fire ladder proved to be exactly what was needed that night it was put into place and gave rescue workers direct access to some of the cars the forward seven train cars were a mangled wreck of Twisted steel and broken glass the broken glass by the way being responsible for so many of the casualties Harry Leber was a welder and just getting home from work he happened to have his welding tools in the car with him I was in the uh was in the third car in order to get into the uh car there was a ladder and I had to climb up the ladder get into the uh uh as just sitting on the train was on his side welders like Harry Leber were working hard to cut through the mangled steel to free the Survivors by this time with the help of the first local on the scene survivors were beginning to climb out of the wrecked cars and out onto the street very soon people started running and helping those that were coming down from the train and when that ambulance arrived I felt sorry for the the guys that were in that ambulance because the people just mobbed him that were hurt people were trapped absolutely everywhere yeah I climbed a wooden ladder and got up on the Trestle there and uh somebody asked me for a cigarette hey you got a cigarette I all right I'm looking around I don't see anybody the whole I looked down and my god there the whole train was on top of this man he was the whole Corner the only thing sticking out was his head and the part of his shoulder I gave him a cigarette and somebody was going to get the welder and uh to get him burn him out and then the next thing I know somebody grabbed me one of the first aid men from woodb and I was on the end of a stretcher and we were going down the bank with that stretcher fireman Patty Dunn had been thrown from the locomotive as it tipped over a passing truck driver happened to see him lying on the ground and picked him up and put him in his cab dun who survived both shrapnel and gas during the first World War expired inside the truck on the way to the hospital as for Fitz Simmons himself uh he received some very serious injuries uh concussion back injuries he manages to crawl out of the locomotive now remember it stayed up on the on the embankment but it was over on its side the stuff is falling on him and you know out of the cab and he's able to crawl out from through the window out under the cab and get out and he slides down the embankment you can imagine the shock and the horror of what had just happened and he sees looks back to where his train should have been and just sees this this m these mangled masses of metal and all the people so he's walking through all of this and he walks from the Rec site down to Main Street and he finally gets to the corner where the police are directing traffic and he says to the cop hey you know I'm the the engineer I need somebody to help me you probably want to talk to me and the story is that the the cop basically stopped somebody a couple put Fitz Simmons in the back seat and said drive to the hospital and they would go to perthamboy General Hospital the modesty of many of the rescue workers is worth mentioning a welder named Ray Ruland was called out to assist as he had some of the best welding equipment in the area he came out just after he was getting home from work he worked for over 20 hours straight returning home the next day his family said that he ate some food and went right to bed missing work the next day Ry never talked about his work and refused any press interviews feeling that his work didn't need any attention he just did what had to be done his family didn't even know how extensively he was involved in the rescue efforts until years later when our historian Gordon Bond showed the wreck photos to his children who were able to pick him out among the people helping in the rescue efforts were a handful of nuns from the little servant sister of Woodbridge as all of them were also trained nurses helping where they could covered in mud by the end of the night joining them was a priest Father Joseph Lupe of the Holy Rosary Church of South Amboy helping where he could and administering last rights among them were other clergy as well all doing whatever they could to help another church just down the road was also lending a hand so after the train wreck the phone company came and they strung extra phone lines into the United Methodist Church here and this became kind of an operations Hub if you were wondering what happened to somebody that you knew who might have been on the train this is where you would have come looking for information and hopefully for some good news the word went out on the radio with the story spreading rapidly across the state and soon the whole country this is Frank wi reporting to you from the home of Mrs Barbara lipac at 263 fton Street in Woodbridge great many communities are here working L to remove the injured and the dead from this holar Spectators are actually hindering the work of the rescue operation they're lining the streets and uh police are sorely pressed to push them back and keep them out of the way it's estimated that as many as500 people had crowded around to watch what was happening with Spectators sneaking into people's yards and crowding around the rescue workers Woodbridge was bound so that you couldn't get in it or you couldn't get out of it from from tourists and people that came down and want to see the accident many of the people in the houses across the street on Coy Street and the whole neighborhood were very gracious in that they opened their doors to the wounded people on that train many of the homes they ruined their rugs their carpets because these people were just bleeding from all over they didn't know where to go the impact that it had on the community is obvious in the first few days the weeks that sometime after you know you have to have that resiliency and you have to have something you have to live with the rest of your life to see something like that so you know you clean up the crash but the people who lived on Fulton Street they went home every night and the trauma that's something you really can't clean up several of the nearby hospitals and morgs were completely overwhelmed with an estim ated 500 or more people injured in the disaster there were multiple investigations into the disaster to get to the root cause with two specific ones taking the lead one of those two was by the Interstate Commerce Commission or the ICC and the second was by the Board of Public Utility Commissioners or the Pu ultimately both investigations knew that this wreck was due to excessive speed but they wanted to find out if there was more to it than just that as Fitz Simmons laid in his hospital bed he was questioned repeatedly by the police the press and many investigators and over time his story about the speed changed I don't think he was lying I don't think he was trying to to deceive anybody but I think he as a self-defense mechanism rationalized the investigators studied photographs of the wreck taken as it was being rapidly cleaned up keeping the wreckage here for too long would delay the turnpike's construction so the wreckage needed to be removed right away in the meantime the National Guard was brought in to keep the Rec site secure a wrecking train was brought in and the fourth car was gone before nearly any of the photographs were taken except for this frightful one the caption that the press used for this Photograph was that this was the death car car number three however in putting together our animation for this documentary we were able to identify that this is actually a photograph of car 4 a car that fared only slightly better than K 3 what did K 3 the actual death car look like in the end well it was completely obliterated it couldn't be rolled away like the other cars because of how bad it was and when The Wrecking Crew moved it it flattened out into a heap of metal and had to be hauled away in pieces the other cars followed shortly afterward being hoisted up and rested upon wheel trucks and being rolled away to a nearby Rail Yard there two high schoolers from Perth Amboy New Jersey Don rer and John Beno would later jump the fence into the rail yard and snap these chilling photos photographs of the inside of the wrecked cars for their school's photography club the violence of the disaster is apparent in the wreckage that remains newspapers and magazines litter the floor what passengers were reading when the train went off the tracks most if not all of the p70 cars in the wrecked portion of the train were simply scrapped although car 6 seems to have been repaired and put back into service some of the cars towards the rear of the train that were undamaged continued their careers for decades although around 15 or 1600 p70 coaches like the ones on the broker had been built only a handful of them remain today staying in New Jersey we can see eight of them in various conditions preserved or waiting to be preserved at the Cape May Seashore lines in tuckaho New Jersey this may be the largest collection of them in one place they had the clar story roof as we see on this car here at since the round windows boarded over with a square uh piece of wood becomes representative of the generation car that you would have seen on the broker and although they are mostly later remodels of them visiting them gives us a unique glimpse into what the broker's Interiors looked like you could be in these seats for hours and hours and be comfortable one question that was everybody's Minds was whether or not the temporary Trestle across Legion Place collapsed and was that a major contributing factor to the crash after all the tracks on The Trestle were held in place by gravity and were engineered to only be there for a few months remember the rails were not a fixed but sitting in small grooves on top of it this sounds like a critical weak point in this stretch of track but believe it or not The Trestle remained virtually undamaged the rails that rested on top did lift off and bend but they were never meant to be hit by a full train coming at full speed in fact although The Trestle had only been in use for 4 hours by the time the broker wrecked it wasn't the first train to cross these rails seven trains before it all of which obeyed order 1806 and slowed 25 mph made it safely across without accident The Trestle was not at fault the rails on top of the Trestle had been completely dislodged as with the rails on the Solid Ground embankments of the first curve it was a matter of speed that caused the train to derail so how fast was the broker going we don't know there were no speedometers in K4 locomotives at the time they experimented with them but they found they got out of calibration way too easily to be relied upon so it was all done kind of by feel uh by experience by uh Engineers that would time their their speed with a stopwatch and and the and the post until they could do it pretty much just by feel so as Fitz Simmons had become an unreliable witness there was no way to know for sure just how fast the train was going initially Fitz Simmons had claimed that he slowed down to the required 25 mph by the time he had hit the first curve off of the main line This is at odds with the testimony of conductor Bishop who stated that he noticed the train was going too fast as it passed Woodbridge station he says that he tried to pull the emergency brake line within one of the cars but couldn't reach it with too many standing passengers in his way survivors gave a wide range of speed estimates anywhere from 40 to 60 MPH but the best estimate came from a passenger named Roger Austin who was a bit of a rail fan himself and was timing the speed just before the disaster he put the train at approximately 54 mph in the minutes leading up to the crash and this is probably the best estimate of speed that we have Fitz Simmons later testified that he was applying the brakes at the time of the derailment and at least one Survivor attested to this they could feel it so the broker was traveling around 54 mph and slammed on its brakes at the last second investigations determined that the Tipping speed for the locomotive was 44 MPH meaning that the train needed to be going at least 44 mph when it hit the specific curve for it to come off the tracks so it was going at least 44 then right well on investigating the wreckage they found that the locomotive didn't actually tip over on it own as the crash unfolded Fitz Simmons heard a snapping sound behind him followed by a dragging on the locomotive and then a great twisting force on the engine something greater than the natural momentum of the train corroborating this investigators looked at the wreckage and found that the tender derailed first and then pulled the locomotive off with it the locomotive itself made it through the first curve and well into the second curve before it had been pulled off so Fitz Simmons likely managed to bring the train down to at least slower than that 44 mph tipping speed but now why did the tender derail and what did Fitz Simmons witness in the chaos this little car when full of cold and water could easily weigh well over 75 tons the majority of that weight being water in the massive sistern John tur Kelly in his work restoring and operating an old k4s and its tender has some unique insights into the function of this tender one of the things that was mentioned to me was the fact that there's a series of wooden baffles inside the sstn of the tender so that kind of helps prevent the water from really sloshing around you know in a in a turn in a curve um and also forward and backward the old wies tale was that the that particular tender did not have the wooden baffles for whatever reason of course that's hearsay that's been passed down decades later but there is some stronger evidence that this specific tender was flawed long before the wreck occurred however George Chadwick was working on the broker's locomotive and tender the night before the disaster as it was moving about the rail yard Chadwick was hanging onto the side of the tender his foot was on the lower frame while his hand gripped an iron rung on the water tank the upper part of the tender he noted that as the train moved over the uneven rails the frame and the tender rocked and wobbled in two different directions with his 11 years of experience he found that especially strange the frame and the body were not firmly attached to each other as they should be on the back of those tenders there's just like two braces that are riveted to the bottom of the tank that have long threaded bolts and it's just basically bolts and washers and the tender the center of the frame it has a piece of wood on top of it so that's what cushions it by the time you know 1951 rolled around what was the condition was the wood gone was it just riding I mean this is that's an interesting thing what if the wood is rotted now you have like a 2-in up and down plate after noticing the motion being out of syn on the tender Chadwick shined his flashlight through through the space where the wooden layer should have been and he could see straight through to the other side he then checked and saw that the bolts holding the upper and lower parts of the tender together were loose the whole tender could be dismounted from the frame virtually by hand Chadwick reported this to his superiors but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears so how did these compromises to the tender stability play into this disaster as the broker approached the construction site at a high speed Fitz Simmons Cut the throttle and threw the air brakes into emergency essentially slamming on the brakes the water in the tender surged forward with momentum and as the train rounded the first curve off of the mainline the water was thrown to the left side of the tender likely causing the tender to swing a bit that extra couple of inches of flex in the separated body allowing it to lean just a bit more the tender straightened back out of the first curve the water sloshing back hard against the right side causing the tender to lean that way and at that very moment the locomotive now turned left moving parallel to the main line across the temporary tracks now with the force of Rushing Water the extra swing of the tender's body and the momentum of hitting that second curve the tender was thrown off the tracks to make matters worse the weight of the cars slamming into the back of it actually caused the tender to buckle as the tender flipped the twisting motion actually caused the chassis frame to break in half leaving part to the front to drag behind the toppling engine Hanging On by the extra Stout draw barss that coupled it we can later see remnants of the tender's frame and floor deck plates hanging off the back of the wrecked engine the rest of the frame remained under the tender's body as it flew down the embankment having yanked the passenger cars packed with terrified commuters down with it but one question remains why did Fitz Simmons take so long to hit the brakes when he knew to slow down at Woodbridge station a half a mile back Fitz Simmons gave an explanation for this he did confirm that he was aware of the orders to slow down at Woodbridge Having learned of them that very morning I was looking all the way down there for yellow light which is customary one yellow light that would notify you that you were approaching the restricted territory then there's another one that tells you you're at the restricted ter after you pass through that a green light tell you you're leaving the territory those lights weren't there he says that he was watching for some sort of yellow signal lamp along the tracks giving him the signal to begin slowing down there weren't any the Pennsylvania Railroad unlike seemingly every other comparable Railroad in the United States and Canada at the time felt that there was no need for track side reminders and relied entirely on the memory of the engine man and only deployed them if the speed restriction was established last minute he'd spent most of his career working on the portion of this track owned by New York and Long Branch and their rules did require a yellow signal light for the speed restriction regardless of when it was issued chances are he forgot that the Pennsylvania Railroad being responsible for this portion of the track wouldn't be using signal lights when the investigators questioned the Pennsylvania Railroad about this the railroad insisted that the policy says no signals were needed for this when there was enough time for the order to be issued the investigators then pursued with the question wouldn't it at least help avoid confusion to which the railroad clumsily dodged in much politer words the investigators then called the railroad Executives morons Fitz Simmons looked out the window of his train looking for some sort of signal for when to begin slowing down as the instructions on the general order were quite vague and all the while he was speeding closer and closer to the turnoff while it is impossible to know exactly what happened some educated guesses can be made based on the evidence and certain known parameters at some point Joseph Fitz Simmons must have seen the tracks curving off to the right away from where the mainline normally headed and realized he was going too fast probably realized when he saw the switch that's when he probably said oh and reach for for the brake Fitz Simmons cuts the throttle and throws on the air brakes the brakes begin to grab almost immediately in the locomotive but it takes time for the air pressure to evacuate the rest of the cars as much as 3 to 5 seconds for the last car depending on circumstances that meant that for a few moments while the locomotive and tender is slowing down the back of the train is still traveling at the same speed the moment of shoving the cars into one another against the tender and locomotive as the slack is run in the locomotive enters the first curve and while it likely rocks it remained on the rails the water and coal surges to the forward left as the tender is pulled by the locomotive to the right as the train enters the second curve the locomotive turns back to the left the Stout draw bar is still holding the front of the tender in place while it is pummeled by the water sloshing and the cars behind it as the water soses back to the right the momentum of the still speeding train cars behind it pushes it further out in that same direction the locomotive now pulls the tender to the left while the cars push it to the right the chassis frame breaks this is likely the loud snap Fitz Simmons testified as hearing just before the locomotive toppled over the coal bunker and water sstn bodies still attached to the back half of the frame flipped over and were pushed down the embankment by the first car while the locomotive made it through both curves the violent derailing of the tender twisting off off to the right pulled it over onto its right side coming to rest more or less parallel to the tracks the first car is guided off the tracks by the tender with the tender being launched slightly into the air coasting over the concrete abutment alongside Legion place the wheel trucks of the tender detach and now the tender is dragging in the mud with the first car shoving it forward the whole remainder of the train adding to the force the second car follows the first car across The Trestle off the tracks and down the embankment the car with John Ryan inside of it topples over onto its right side landing on top of one of the wheel trucks from the tender until now the first two cars still traveled across the wooden Trestle but the outward momentum now pushes the third car over The Trestle Edge car 3 now Soares Airborne across the Gap with the back truck of wheels detaching and falling and the car jack knifing outward from the force of the truck behind it the right side of car 3 slams hard against the concrete abutment smashing open the backside wall the fourth car then slams into the concrete 2 getting thrown upwards and tearing along the side of the third car it's in cars three and four where most of the casualties would be the impact of the fourth car knocks the third car onto its side the fifth car follows the fourth and slamming into the now overturned third car tearing itself up on the concrete wall and the bottom of car 3 as well car 6 flies off The Trestle and slams harder into car 3 pushing it farther down the embankment car six comes to an abrupt stop bearing the crushing weight of the rest of the train behind it and wedging itself on the concrete wall bringing the whole train to a complete stop and buckling in place the front of the seventh car dangles above Le in place its front end smashed by the sudden stopping against car number six the remaining three Passenger cars and the club car at the rear are mostly spared of damage and [Music] casualties the turnpike construction project was completed before the end of 1951 and the site hasn't changed much since many of the same houses line Falon Street the main line still spans Legion place even the same catenary pole suspend the electrical line above the track what's incredible is that as we're walking around the recre site today there are still scars on what remains you can see at the top of this concrete wall you can see where the cars broke it off and they had to replace it and pour more concrete right on top the cacks of that seam between the original concrete and the replacement concrete are still visible and then right here where the tender came to rest you can actually see a difference between the new and the old concrete and even a crack right here now and looking at aerial photographs we know for sure that it is this spot because we can line it up relative to the houses across the street John Ryan was lucky he survived the wreck mostly uninjured I called my uh father and he and my brother came up and got me I didn't go home they had called Dr Whale and he said bring him right in take him to the office there wasn't any bro nothing broken and so you know very very very lucky very very lucky but of course the next day I couldn't move John had several connections to the wreck not only himself his future father-in-law was in the club car and survived and his wife's friends brother was on board too but was killed while he's moved on from the wreck John still remembers it vividly I admired it was a young couple who used to sit on the train on the other side of the aisle and you know I wondered what happened to him I never you know I didn't know their names or anything but I do remember them every night they would be in the same spot that I I would be across the aisle I I do have one question throughout the couple that you said is this the man is that picture of is that who you ever seen you know it could be he was always with his girlfriend I guess or fiance or they weren't married I'm sure but oh oh wait a minute Victor Vino oh that's that's Margie's I know I know you and he died I know I know that he died in that train r that was my mom's Best Friend's Brother 72 years later John realizes that the young couple that he saw on the train almost every day was the family's Friend's Brother tying the disaster even closer for him Victor venturino and his girlfriend Beverly Borman were the young couple that John saw nearly every day their friends stayed on the platform in Newark but those two two boarded anyway so as not to worry her family neither of them survived the Pennsylvania Railroad ultimately ended up paying out around $13 million in settlements against survivors and the families of the victims that's about $154 million today the investigations made multiple recommendations to the Pennsylvania Railroad most notably on the way orders were communicated and signaled initially they rejected them but then almost humorously nearly every other Railroad in the state of New Jersey held an intervention to yell at them finally they accepted after the investigation into the broken tender and the Trackside signal policy of the Pennsylvania Railroad one middle sex County prosecutor went so far as to say that Joseph Fitz Simmons was nearly as much of a victim as the rest of those on board the train that may be true more than it seems while Fitz Simmons was legally exonerated the public still condemned him the broker was speeding as it hit the curve and he was the man at the throttle there's no getting around that simple fact by all accounts Joe was extremely guilt-ridden um he really believed deep down that the accident was not his fault and that's that's you know I think one of the reasons that he felt so bad about it was that you know these people had died but that it wasn't his fault the union never stuck up for him they never said anything um on his behalf um you know it was just just kind of a tragedy he he spent most nights crying himself to sleep it was just something that that he never really seemed to get over Fitz Simmons was permanently disabled by the crash and retired early uh Joe Fitz Simmons I knew him uh when I was probably about uh eight or nine years old he were kind of like uh kind of mop around that's what I I remember about that he was always he like moping around you know he'd be like tinkering with something in the backyard and he's like you know wouldn't really say too much Joseph Fitz Simmons died at the age of 83 in 1976 still deeply troubled by the disaster 25 years later he's buried together with his first wife who had a heart attack prior to the crash which was on his mind and a second one as a result of the stress that it caused the family Fitz Simmons became a widow 6 years after the accident almost to the day on the one-year anniversary of the disaster a passing train dropped 85 roses on the spot one for each victim of the crash as the years passed Woodbridge resident Frank leento realized that the story of the train wreck was fading and he wanted to do something to preserve it in in 1993 he organized a panel discussion with the help of the historical Association of Woodbridge Township a group that he was an early member of to record the stories of those who were there that night in 1951 in the following years with the 50th Anniversary then approaching Frank and his wife Audrey along with the historical Association Reverend David Houston of the First Methodist Church of Woodbridge and Woodbridge councilman Charles Kenny spearheaded an effort to erect a bronze plaque near Woodbridge train station that was financed by New Jersey Transit in 2001 the plaque was unveiled an interpretive marker was eventually put up in 2013 in downtown Woodbridge this one with pictures and more of the history and finally a third marker placed by the historic preservation Commission of Woodbridge Township right at the site of the disaster beneath the overpass that spans Legion place where the temporary Trestle once crossed author and historian Gordon Bond was a keynote speaker at this dedication in 2021 good afternoon everyone thank you so very much for coming out and thank you for allowing me to be a part of this Gordon's book is the culmination of years of research and collecting firsthand stories going into incredible detail and handling the sensitive material with respect going through two additions now it includes many photographs some rarely seen by the public and is a musthave for anyone interested in railroad or New Jersey history it can be found at Gordon's website gardenstate legacy.com thank you to Steve Laro of K andl trains for modeling the broker for us and my buddy Alex Muller for bringing it to life in the stunning animations that we saw in this documentary the historical Association of Woodbridge townships work with the broker Memorial and assisting with this documentary is just a small portion of their many efforts to preserve Woodbridge history we even got to film some of our interviews in their beautiful new building in Downtown Woodbridge we're here today from 86 Green Street in Woodbridge the location of our new Museum that hopefully will have the keys for in a couple days the historical Association was formed about 40 years ago in 1984 we have a variety of different subjects we have membership but we we update our Facebook pages and our web page frequently they give uh as much information not about only our organization but about the history of wood ship a special thank you than you to my supporters on patreon especially Marlo Perez Kelly black Kaiser vilhelm II Kaiser Friedrich II third Zack Richards Donald Anderson Cody Henrik Joan Haynes sha Kimble Glenn biscom Steven schwankert Gabriel colom RGB Tara molar Keith Holland Rob M Amos Mayu Corey Andrews Nicholas Mella col tanic Sophie babber Rob Oliver chinan John maloi David witika Tiffany ridan M time media Nathan Gutierrez Max metf David Little John Shan saahi Frasier Nicki Chan 92 Corbin McDonald Matthew Burns Goblin of the salt Plains Luke Stevens Gordon Robbins Aaron Stark Troy Wentworth clarky Sam forer bzy B Christopher Rosendale Road weary and kitty bits

Channel: Part-Time Explorer

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Length: 59min 53sec (3593 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024