Why This Train Crashed into Newark Bay

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On September 15, 1958, tragedy struck when Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) commuter train #3314 suffered a catastrophic derailment on the Newark Bay lift bridge in Newark Bay, New Jersey. Ignoring restrictive and stop signals, the train careened off the bridge, plunging both diesel locomotives and the first two coaches into the bay, claiming the lives of 48 passengers and injuring 48 more. The wreckage was exacerbated by a third coach, which dangled precariously from the bridge before succumbing to gravity two hours later. With the locomotive crew among the casualties, the exact cause of the disaster remained elusive, although the absence of a "dead man's control" likely played a role in the derailment. This tragic event underscored the vital need for enhanced safety measures in railroad operations and led to significant reforms in railway signaling and control systems.
IT’S HISTORY - Weekly Tales of American Urban Decay as presented by your host Ryan Socash.
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Scriptwriter - Ryan Socash,
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Some images may be used for illustrative purposes only - always reflecting the accurate time frame and content. Events of factual error / mispronounced word/spelling mistakes - retractions will be published in this section.

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15 май 2024

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Комментарии : 111

@SPDRED551 29 дней назад

We will never forget the lives that were lost that day.

@ITSHISTORY 29 дней назад

I couldn’t even imagine the pain of the world that day.

@conservativethought1460 29 дней назад

A piece of local history. The last coach that was out of the water. People played that number. It came out and there was only one bookie in the area who was able to cover all the bets. His name was Newsboy Moriarity. You should do a video on him.

@positively_broad_st3780 26 дней назад

@@ITSHISTORY What's with the focus of the victims that were famous and wealthy?

@nomercyinc6783 23 дня назад

people cant mourn people they werent alive to know died. people who died in 1958 arent important 70 years later

@matthewhernandez8342 18 дней назад

@@positively_broad_st3780 In history those are the people that matter, everyday commoners like you and me don't matter as much.

@conservativethought1460 29 дней назад

My grandmother told me that her uncle was on the train, but he was on one of the cars that didn’t go over thank God

@JPaul60 29 дней назад

A major cause for the outrageous operating costs for the Jersey Central at the time was the excessive high taxes that were imposed on the railroad by the New Jersey legislature and Governor at the time. There was no relief from this burdensome cost. It's pretty obvious though having been a railroader for most of my adult life that the engineer was at fault and purposely sent the train into the Newark Bay. I was a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and I considered it one of the most corrupt organizations on the railroad.

@johnblair8146 29 дней назад

Why didn’t that knowledgeable passenger pull the emergency brake .

@fantailspringdale 29 дней назад

So true, government taxes destroyed the railroads in NJ and look at what we have today, NJTransit. A sad commentary on what real railroading was at one time when time schedules were so much better.

@frederickschulkind8431 28 дней назад

@@johnblair8146 There wouldn't have been time. He would have had to get out of his seat, avoiding other passengers, and run to the end of the car to reach the lever.

@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont 28 дней назад

@@johnblair8146 Even if he "dumped the air" it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. It takes a long way for a speeding train to stop.

@matthewhernandez8342 18 дней назад

@@fantailspringdale The sad thing is most states wish they had NJ Transit, only LIRR and Metro North are ranked better. Other than Septa most other transit agencies in the continent are worse.

@jamesgunshefskijr7079 29 дней назад

I live in bayonne the footings on the Bayonne side are still sticking out of the water ....it's chilling to find out the official story ...r.i.p. for all the ones who passed on

@at_3831 28 дней назад

I lived in Bayonne from 00-15 and had heard about this but not detailed on how it happened.

@MrExec3549 29 дней назад

I remember the day that cars from the Central Railroad of New Jersey fell off of the bridge. I was very young at the time and remember seeing the derailment on the television. A rail buff at an early age, I was glued to the TV screen. I thought it unbelievable that a train could fall into a river.

@Geoffrey-we4yo 29 дней назад

Some corrections: It was train 3314, not 3341. The ballplayer was George Snuffy Sternweiss., not George Snuffy The train originated in Bay Head, so the Elizabeth Station in question would have had to have been at Spring Street. The station you showed is Broad Street Elizabeth, which is on a different line

@fantailspringdale 29 дней назад

Glad you corrected the narrative to reflect a Bay Head origin.

@nancyphillips9416 29 дней назад

Actually spring st and broad st were on the same line.I belive you meant elizabethport station which was a transfer point between the main line, the Newark branch and north jesrsey coastline

@jazzbo13 29 дней назад

The spelling is Stirnweiss

@Geoffrey-we4yo 25 дней назад

@@nancyphillips9416 Actually, the station I was thinking of was Elizabeth Avenue. It was just south of the Port on the Perth Amboy line.

@jangles1839 29 дней назад

Wow! I live in South Carolina and I've never heard of this tragedy before. I can only imagine the horrifying feelings everyone involved and their friends & family must have felt on that day and beyond. May God rest their souls. Thank you Ryan for bringing this story to us who had no idea. You serve your craft well my friend! ~ Scott 💙🙏🏻

@Prolificposter 29 дней назад

9:24 “So-called Brotherhood??” Umm, it was, and still is, a union (now the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen). Additionally, the railroads did not necessarily “think it was a good idea” to have a second man in the cab. They just couldn’t get it done because unions wouldn’t agree to one-man operation. Engineer only is now the norm for commuter operations.

@strobelightbrian 29 дней назад

Thanks for sharing, I didn’t even know this happened!

@lewisdoherty7621 29 дней назад

This sounds similar to what may have happened in the Hinton Train Collision. The conductor riding in a caboose lost radio contact with the two crew members in the front who ran past signals with the train then running head on into a passenger train. While being described as incapacitated, it is likely the two crew members fell asleep. Carbon-monoxide poisoning is less likely with diesels, but can happen. Two tired crewmen and maybe crewmen normally operating at night and sleeping during the day, fall asleep during the day.

@russwabuda1556 29 дней назад

ryan, so well done, so informative, so objective. i have never seen a better video, maybe no one has. i do question, the astute passengers on this train. why did they not pull the brake cord found in every coach?

@JimTheFly 27 дней назад

My mother has talked about this accident for decades. I'll be sharing this with her in a few days as we watch over dinner together. Thanks for another story about a major event of my parents' life.

@markiewodi3371 29 дней назад

Lemme tell you I absolutely love this channel…. Wow! Keep it up!!!

@ITSHISTORY 28 дней назад

Thanks, will do!

@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont 28 дней назад

3:34 - the violent brake application was undoubtedly the automatic emergency application caused by the air hose separating as the engine left the bridge.

@garycrane1830 29 дней назад

I remember seeing the surreal scene from Staten Island.

@Electriceye1984bySam 29 дней назад

Crazy event! This is new knowledge to me, thanks for another informative entertaining vid about an event unknown to me.👌🏻🥇

@user-xh3lz9xt4l 27 дней назад

In the UK every locomotive has a dead man's handle, without it the engine will not move

@BOOR2DA 29 дней назад

Interesting that they found everything in working order since the concrete counterweights did not fully come down as far as they should have. What was the bridge operator's indications? How about the smash-boards which, in those days, were electrical and mechanical? How could they decide that the coaches brakes were working as they should after being damaged in the crash and sunk? This tragedy is not famous because of it's severity, but because most people felt it was covered up.

@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont 28 дней назад

Pretty sure investigators could tell by the brake piston how much of a "set" or lack thereof had been made.

@Geoffrey-we4yo 25 дней назад

@@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont In a case like this, both the throttle and brakes can tell a lot. The throttle on a locomotive has nine notches, the lowest being idle. It's not a smooth transition like the gas pedal in a car. If that throttle was in anything but idle, that would be suspicious. Secondly, the air brake handle has notches, and under normal conditions, stopping the train is done by performing a service application. The next notch after service is called emergency. Again, if the brake handle is not in emergency, this is also suspicious.

@Geoffrey-we4yo 25 дней назад

I looked at several pictures of the signals, and I couldn't see any smashboards. They were common on the NY&LB where the train originated, but those were smaller bridges, with only two tracks. The bridge operators tended to only raise the bridge part of the way, because getting all the way up and down was time consuming with the amount of train and marine traffic. As a railroad signals employee, I do know that when you have an Interlocking like that, you have what's called indication locking. It means that if the signals are anything other than red, it locks out the switches and the drawbridge, if there is one. So the operator would not have been able to raise the bridge if the signals weren't all set to red.

@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont 25 дней назад

@@Geoffrey-we4yo Thanks, I never considered the obvious part about looking in the cab at the throttle and brake handle. Good thing I don't work as an investigator!

@erie910 17 дней назад

Throttles on EMD locomotives have eight, not nine, notches, unless one counts "idle" as a notch. Curiously, early GE road switcher throttles had 16 notches, plus "idle."

@thomaschew2191 27 дней назад

My Dad usually rode that train but not on that day so he missed the wreck. Dad loved trains and always rode in the first car. He got on the train in Belmar (NY & LBRR) to NYC

@williamschlenger1518 29 дней назад

My uncle lived in Deal NJ & my aunt was late getting him to the station.He missed the train.

@robertgerber2533 24 дня назад

The name of the baseball player who died was George “Snuffy” Stirnweiss. Snuffy was his nickname.

@1USA1st 23 дня назад

They named a restaurant after him in Jersey City's Journal Square. Snuffy's

@mattwilliams3456 29 дней назад

The firemen being kept on the payroll had far more to do with the railroad workers union demanding it than the railroad finding it useful.

@georgeplagianos6487 29 дней назад

It's really weird that this video came up I'm bringing up the second cabin crew the fireman. I remember in school they said when locomotives turned to diesel the fireman had no furnace to shovel. We were told it was unions that got the firemen to stay in the engineers cab and it wasn't considered a safety reason, which would have been a great idea. But the Union pretty much gave these firemen and do nothing job with pay. That's how it was explained to us. I didn't catch it did you mention what happened to the fireman? The engineer drowned but what happened to the firemen? I don't remember if he survived or not. Thank you for another great video

@phwayne 28 дней назад

You must be from the NYC NJ area, as I am? Thanks for the stories.

@frederickhart2242 14 дней назад

so far videos are awesome

@JanicefromKansas 29 дней назад

Hello from Kansas 🇺🇲

@ITSHISTORY 28 дней назад

Hello there!

@CameraBryan 24 дня назад

Days before this Kurt Vonnegut's sister died of cancer. Her husband died on this train. Kurt Vonnegut raised their children.

@johnblair8146 29 дней назад

Why didn’t that experienced railroader pull the emergency brake as soon as he realized something was amiss?

@michaelgreene4748 29 дней назад

The Fireman failed to take action since he dropped dead of a heart attack right after the engineer had his heart attack. He was out of it until just before the engine went over...the emergency brake was pulled when the engine was 6 feet from the gap.

@georgeplagianos6487 29 дней назад

@@michaelgreene4748they both had heart attacks? I remember hearing that just the engineer had drowned from water asphyxiation

@KRich408 19 дней назад

Thanks for doing this video, i remember people talking about this for years after. Rode trains out of that station until i closed ,now i think they turned it into a restaurant after decades being empty, we used to go inside climb the clock tower for fun as kids did in the 70s im surprised ttey were able to save it . Someone had set fore to it once the clock faces wore like chimneya smike pouring out.

@ChillyChase 25 дней назад

Damn that is terrifying

@stuartlee6622 29 дней назад

I very much remember this accident!

@juniorferrante7999 29 дней назад

A picture in the paper had the train sticking out of the water with the number clearly visible. Almost everyone in Bayonne played that number with the local bookies, and it hit! All the bookies except one went out of business

@johnkawczynski2488 18 дней назад

My Mother (who grew up in Bayonne) used to tell the same story. I wonder if it's actually true!

@DeanStephen 29 дней назад

It is curious the possibilities not mentioned or (apparently) investigated, including a suicide pact by the engineers, insurance fraud, an assassination conspiracy, or terrorism. It is astounding this incident was left an open case, and highly suspicious as such.

@timmeinschein1061 11 дней назад

@4:13 As a NavVet, I'm willing to bet that those 3 tugboats didn't get any official orders! When the train crashed, they simply got underway for Rescue and Assistance Operations!!!

@KayCeeInEnZed 27 дней назад

Was there a reason the concrete counterweight wasn't blocking the track?

@davidmackey344 22 дня назад

Because the bridge wasn't completely raised at the moment of the wreck.

@KayCeeInEnZed 22 дня назад

@@davidmackey344 thank you

@US_Joe 25 дней назад

I clearly remember this event. As an odd piece of trivia related to this, many people morbidly took the last 3 digits of the engine number, and bet on it with the bookies. The number actually came out, and all the bookies in the metro area were cleaned out!

@ACamelEmoji 28 дней назад

4:45 You forgot to blur the guy in the right window

@brandonrico6223 29 дней назад

Hello everyone

@ITSHISTORY 29 дней назад

Welcome to the show

@frederickschulkind8431 28 дней назад

Being a railfan who has read about train accidents, I certainly knew about this one. There is a strong possibility that the engineer went berserk and intentionally caused the wreck.

@wavesnbikes 29 дней назад

I always thought it was the Blue Comet that fell

@CerveloR5 29 дней назад

As of 2021 from street view and 2024 the aerial view shows the concrete pylons are still there on the Bayonne side.

@Karl_Martin83 28 дней назад

Yep, I checked it

@ra0929 24 дня назад

You can still see plenty vestiges of CNJ

@dragynphyre1 22 дня назад

Family oral history suggests I had at least one cousin on this train that died.

@stuartlee6622 29 дней назад

Engineer had a heart attack.

@jed-henrywitkowski6470 29 дней назад

Trivia: The ICC was also involved in the regulation of Over The Road trucking.

@eliasthienpont6330 19 дней назад

🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁 THE LION WAS HERE 🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁 No. 1600

@johnandrus3901 29 дней назад

Excellent video. Dead Man's pedals were almost always bypassed by the engineer. Many would put their grip or something heavy on it and it became useless. Modern locomotive have an alerter, which requires acknowledgement, usually by a wand or button, or it will put the train in penalty and stop it. You can acknowledge it and keep going, though. I don't think that CNJ had automatic train stop, of any sort. This whole incident seems malicious, to me.

@joemazzola7387 28 дней назад

The engineer probably had a heart attack and the fireman was probably sleeping

@Geoffrey-we4yo 25 дней назад

It's very unlikely the fireman was sleeping. There were multiple signals between E'port and the bridge, and there was and still is a ritual that locomotive crews follow, known as "calling the signals." The engineer looks at the Signal first, calls out what it says, and the fireman has to repeat it back, then the engineer has to say it a second time to be sure they read it correctly.

@jordanwhite352 23 дня назад

Yep is not New Jersey unless every couple of decades there is a major train derailment that makes the world headlines.

@swingrfd 29 дней назад

George Snuffy?

@anthonypopola5773 28 дней назад

Companies were forced by the union to have the boiler fireman even though locomotives were either diesel or electric……

@1575murray 23 дня назад

In those days the cars were heated by steam generated by boilers in the locomotives during the winter months. The fireman had to make sure the boiler had an adequate supply of water and keep it going. By the end of the 1970s trains were electrically heated with the power being supplied by HEP generator units.

@freetolook3727 29 дней назад

No NTSB in those days.

@bigalsgarage9323 28 дней назад

It was the Interstate Commerce Commission at the time.

@pullahuru9168 28 дней назад

Diesel engine runaway with way too low braking force to stop the train?

@azamatbagatov6699 29 дней назад

Carbon monoxide

@jons4678 29 дней назад

Lol we share a train of thought, I cannot get a "how" answer yet, the steam generator...or they took a paraffin heater into the cab with them.

@keithmoore5306 29 дней назад

those old dead man peddles were useless i've had more than one engineer tell me they sat tool boxes on them to hold them down!! but the real question here is if these morons on the train saw the bridge open and knew the train wasn't slowing down, why didn't they pull the emergency brake????

@anthonypopola5773 28 дней назад

Newark Bay, not New York…..

@jons4678 29 дней назад

Carbon monoxide poisoning in the cab? This would have effected both crew. I've looked up and it was a EMD GP7, no idea how their exhaust runs but if maintenance was lacking on the railroad, this perhaps could have happened.

@dock_yard1149 29 дней назад

No Just ... no Diesels exhaust thru ports in the roof, and well back of the cab.

@azamatbagatov6699 29 дней назад

Exactly my thought

@davidmackey344 22 дня назад

@@dock_yard1149 GP7's were bi-directional and sometimes ran with the engine (and exhaust) ahead of the cab.

@vincebagadonis8016 28 дней назад

We all know what happened to Kurt Cobain and it wasn't "Self Cancellation"

@user-xh3lz9xt4l 27 дней назад

Basically the US transportation system is lacking in upgrades and maintenance, its caused so many deaths even now in 2024

@Kda2456 28 дней назад

So I guess it wasn't someone put a penny on the rail ?

@davidmackey344 22 дня назад

Oh, you're a riot, Alice...

@zonbiebob21 29 дней назад

Second

@ITSHISTORY 29 дней назад

Better than third!

@erickkurz3696 29 дней назад

recycled photos.....amtrack was not in existance then

@davidmackey344 22 дня назад

It's History is full of unrelated imagery.

@SPDRED551 29 дней назад

Just to let you know 2 days from now will be the anniversary of the eruption of Mt St Helen’s.

@BLACKAAROW 29 дней назад

Good to know 👍

@SPDRED551 29 дней назад

@@BLACKAAROW will you do a video of that eruption please?

@BassandoForte 29 дней назад

First impressions is its a murder suicide...

@SlapthePissouttayew 29 дней назад

My first impression is fatigue. Canadian Nation had an incident in '86 where the head end crew of a freight train fell asleep, blew through signals and slammed into an oncoming passenger train. 23 people died. Hours of service on the railroad were way more insane back in those days,