February 6, 1951, 70 years ago: A Pennsylvania Railroad train derails on a temporary wooden trestle in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey, killing 85 passengers. It is the deadliest rail disaster in New Jersey history.
It is the deadliest rail disaster anywhere in America since the Malbone Street Wreck, outside Prospect Park in Brooklyn, on November 1, 1918. There were no games on that day: The baseball season was done, the NHL was a few weeks away from starting, the NFL and the NBA hadn't been founded yet, and it was a Friday, so the college football games were played the next day.
Around 5:00 PM, Pennsylvania Railroad train Number 733 left Exchange Place station in Jersey City. It was to head down the PRR's Main Line to Rahway, where it would branch onto the North Jersey Coast Line.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey was on strike, so No. 733 had more passengers than usual: Over 1,000 people on 11 cars.
At the time, there was a temporary wooden trestle near the Woodbridge station. The express was meant to bypass that station. The normal speed limit for a train doing so was 60 miles per hour. On the temporary trestle, it was 25.
But as the train approached the station at 5:43, the engineer, Joseph Fitzsimmons, only dropped the speed to 50. The tracks shifted under the weight of the locomotive, and 8 of the 11 cars derailed. The 3rd and 4th fell down a 26-foot-high embankment. Most of the 85 people killed were in one of these cars. The 5th and 6th were left hanging in mid-air over a street, and some people jumped out, some of those dying.
No one was charged with any crime as a result of the wreck. Fitzsimmons was kept on by the Railroad, but he never operated a train again. Today, there is a memorial outside the Woodbridge station. New Jersey Transit operates commuter lines, but even their express trains on the Coast Line usually stop at Woodbridge.
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