Newark Bay, New Jersey rail crash

The Newark Bay rail disaster occurred on September 15, 1958 in Newark Bay, New Jersey. A Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) morning commuter train, #3314, ran through a restrictive and a stop signal, derailed, and slid off the open Newark Bay lift bridge. Both diesel locomotives and the first two coaches plunged into Newark Bay and sank immediately, killing 48 people. A third coach, snagged by its rear truck, hung precariously off the lift bridge for two hours before it also toppled into the water. As the locomotive crew was killed, no absolute determination for the accident was reached, but a medical emergency in the cab was theorized.

Conditions

There were three signals spaced at three-quarters of a mile, a quarter of a mile, and 500 feet from the draw bridge, and an automatic derailing device fifty feet beyond the third signal. The bridge span had to be down and electrically locked before the signals and derail devices could be cleared for movement on the track. Conversely, all the devices had to be in their most restrictive positions before the bridge could be unlocked and raised. The train ran through two signals and was automatically derailed; the automatic derailer was designed to knock the wheels off the track so that the resistance of the ties and ballast against the train's wheels would bring a slow moving derailed train to a stop. Train #3314, although derailed, was moving at such a high speed that it did not have sufficient distance to stop before plunging off the bridge.

Causes

The Interstate Commerce Commission, the New Jersey Public Utilities Commission, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers each conducted separate inquires into the wreck, and all three found that the absence of a "dead man's control", was one primary cause of the wreck. After the inquiries, the New Jersey Public Utilities Commission ordered the railroads to install such devices on all passenger locomotives operating in New Jersey. Some Jersey Central locomotives were already equipped with such devices, but this did not include the engine leading CNJ train #3314 on the day of the wreck. The railroad claimed that such a device was not always necessary, because all their trains had two crewmen in the locomotive cab. If the engineer was somehow incapacitated, the fireman would assume control of the locomotive.

An autopsy found that the engineer, 63-year-old Lloyd Wilburn, showed signs of hypertensive heart disease, but that he had died of asphyxia due to drowning. However, no reason could be found to explain why fireman Peter Andrew, 42, could not or did not stop the train. Investigators raised the wreckage and found no defect in the braking system on the locomotives and coaches; it was also determined that the signal system and derail device on the bridge had functioned properly. However, the engineer's presumed death in the cab and the subsequent lack of action by the fireman, as well as the absence of a "dead man's switch" in the locomotive cab, were theorized to be the main causes of the catastrophe.

Aftermath

Forty-eight people died in the wreck, including former New York Yankees second baseman George "Snuffy" Stirnweiss and James Carmalt Adams, the brother-in-law of author Kurt Vonnegut. The railroad had a number of legal actions brought against it, which were all settled out of court. The two locomotives, #1531 and #1532, were raised, repaired and returned to service as freight locomotives. The Newark Bay lift bridge was last used in 1978 and was determined to be a hazard to navigation; it was demolished in the 1980s.