1882 Spuyten Duyvil train wreck

1882 Spuyten Duyvil train wreck
1935 Railroad Stories cover illustration of attempts to put out fire with snowballs
Details
Date	13 January 1882 (1882-01-13) 7:12 p.m.
Location	Spuyten Duyvil, Bronx, New York City
Coordinates	40°52′35″N 73°55′02″W / 40.8765°N 73.9172°W / 40.8765; -73.9172
Country	United States
Line	Hudson River Railroad
Owner	New York Central
Service	Western Express
Incident type	Rear-end collision
Cause	Failure to properly signal oncoming train
Statistics
Trains	2
Passengers	500
Deaths	8
Injured	19
Missing	3

On the evening of January 13, 1882, a southbound New York Central passenger train crashed into the rear of another one stopped on the tracks along Tibbetts Brook in the Spuyten Duyvil neighborhood of the New York City borough of The Bronx. Eight people were killed, and 19 seriously injured, by the crash and fires afterwards, fires that neighborhood residents and crew extinguished by rolling large snowballs into them until local firefighters arrived. Among the dead was State Senator Webster Wagner, inventor of the sleeping cars used on the train, two of which he was crushed to death between.^[1]

The stopped train was an express train from Chicago carrying at least 500, including 76 other state legislators who had boarded at Albany that afternoon to return to their districts in the city for the weekend. While accounts of the accident initially reported that the express was stopped due to a failed brake, others reported that a drunken legislator (never identified) decided to pull the emergency brake as a prank. A coroner's jury later blamed the crash primarily on the express train's conductor and rear brakeman. Both were indicted and charged with manslaughter; the brakeman was later acquitted when it was found that he was illiterate and could not read the company rulebook.

The wreck led the railroad to discontinue the use of mineral oil to light cars at night. While the railroad had long before switched from stoves as heat for car interiors to the steam-based Baker process, that had not yet been perfected and was believed to have contributed to the fires after the crash.^[2] Innovations in train heating system design accelerated afterwards.^[3]

Trains and runs[edit]

The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad's Western Express, originating in Chicago, arrived at Albany's Union Station already 23 minutes late on the afternoon of January 13, 1882. It would be delayed further as so many tickets had been sold as to require 15 additional cars added to the train, and a second steam locomotive, so the train could make up the lost time. When it left at 3:06 p.m. it was running 26 minutes behind schedule. Its consist was, after the locomotives, two mail cars, a baggage car, four coaches and five luxury sleeper cars.^[2] Just across the Hudson River, at Greenbush (today Rensselaer), a sixth sleeper was coupled to the rear of the train, the Idlewild, the personal car of Republican state Senator Webster Wagner.^[1]

Among the approximately 500 passengers were 76 other state legislators, from both houses and both parties (with most Democrats part of New York City's Tammany Hall political machine), returning to their homes downstate for the weekend with the legislature having adjourned. They were traveling on free passes issued them by the railroad, which sought their continued goodwill—also aboard were John M. Toucey, superintendent for the line between New York and Buffalo, and Charles Bissell, superintendent for the division between Albany and New York. The legislators were mostly grouped together in the first four cars, where with freely available liquor the 142-mile (229 km) trip down the Hudson Valley took on a festive atmosphere.^[2]

Wagner was the subject of particular interest to the reporters accompanying the politicians. He had founded the Wagner Palace Drawing-Car Company, which had built the sleepers on the rear of the train, all of which had cost the railroad $17,000 ($516,000 in 2022^[4]). There was speculation that Wagner and the Pullman Company, its bitter rival, were about to conclude a merger that would create a $12.5 million ($379 million in 2022^[4]) company that would effectively monopolize the sleeping-car market and make Wagner and other shareholders wealthier than they already were. Asked repeatedly about the rumored deal, Wagner demurred, preferring to recount for the journalists gathered around him his story of how he had built the company over the preceding three decades from his home in Palatine Bridge, west of Albany in the Mohawk Valley, after seeing how the railroad needlessly lost business to river ferries with sleeping quarters.^[2]

By 6:15 p.m. the express, stopping only at Hudson and Poughkeepsie,^[1] had made up much of the time it had lost before and at Albany. As it passed through Tarrytown, a waiting local, also bound for Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, had to delay its own scheduled departure five minutes to allow the express to clear the station. The local's engineer, Frank Burr, and fireman Patrick Quinn, recalled that the express was traveling fast. They left the station at 6:40.^[2]

The local made its stops along the Hudson south of Tarrytown, reaching Spuyten Duyvil, 14 miles (23 km) away, where the line turns southeast to follow the creek of that name. It stopped there at 7:04 p.m. Burr believed at this time that there was 13 minutes of headroom between his train and the Western Express.^[2]

But in actuality the express had stopped on the tracks less than a mile to the east. George Hanford, its conductor, said one of the inebriated legislators thought it would be funny to pull the emergency brake, stopping the train as it rounded another bend that took it along the banks of Tibbetts Brook. Between the train's location and the Spuyten Duyvil station the tracks ran through a deep cut that obstructed the view of the track beyond in either direction, a stretch Hanford considered particularly dangerous since the curve at the north end of the cut was further obstructed by Kilcullen's, a local hotel and tavern.^[5] The railroad had long had flagmen at both ends of the cut for safety reasons, but had recently laid off the one who watched the south end, closer to where the train was stopped, in order to economize. The flagman at the other end did not know there was a stopped train beyond the far end of the cut.^[2][6]

Collision[edit]

At the time the express stopped, Wagner was in the Empire, the sleeper car in front of the last car, talking with some other legislators. After the stop, he excused himself to take a look around the train, saying "These confounded railroads have a passion for smashing up my best cars" before he went into the last car. It was the last thing anyone remembered him saying.^[2]

Up front, engineer Edward Stanford attempted to restart the train. He was briefly successful, but only mustered enough power to break the drawbar connecting the two locomotives. His second engineer tried to recharge the brake. The 75 pounds per square inch (520 kPa) of pressure the air cylinder had had going into the turn out of the cut had dropped to 40 (280 kPa) after the brake had been pulled; he had tried to pump them off. Recharging the cylinder would take at least 15 minutes.^[2][5]

At the rear, Melius, the brakeman, left the train with a red and white lantern to warn any oncoming trains to stop. He began walking down the track toward the cut and the Spuyten Duyvil station. How long after the stop he left the train, and how far he went were later matters of dispute. By Melius's account he was six or seven car lengths from the train when he saw the headlight and heard the whistle of the oncoming local train's locomotive. He began frantically waving his red lantern across the track.^[2]

Burr saw the lantern and immediately applied his brake. He saw the rear of the express, and knew there was not enough time or space to stop the local. At 7:12 p.m. its locomotive collided with the rear car on the express, embedding itself and making the car telescope into the one ahead,^[2] making a sound audible within a half-mile (800 m) radius^[6]. When it finally stopped, Burr, uninjured, got out and began assisting with rescue efforts.^[2]

Rescue efforts[edit]

Since it was a Friday night, Kilcullen's tavern was busy; many of those present were workers at a nearby foundry. Some patrons outside had witnessed the crash, and they brought others from the bar and the neighborhood to offer aid and rescue victims, with the help of crew and unhurt or minimally injured survivors. James Kilcullen himself offered the train crew the use of the shutters from his building as stretchers.^[2]

Burr saw that the locomotive's boiler was damaged and might explode. He took the shovel from his fireman and began shoveling snow into the furnace to douse the fire. Rescuers who had carried water to the wreck from the nearby creek in order to put out the blaze consuming the wrecked sleepers likewise, realizing the more imminent danger, followed Burr's lead and began throwing it on the outside of the boiler (a decision that may have cost some trapped passengers their lives). Soon the fire in the firebox was extinguished, and the rescuers' attention turned to the fire in the sleepers, from which screams of those trapped within could be heard.^[2][6]

Although he had been severely burned on his face and arms in the collision, Hanford took charge. Noticing that there was little water left and that what water was being thrown on the flames was having no effect, he shouted for the rescuers to throw snow on the fire instead. He began to roll a huge ball of snow from the ground toward the wreck, and others followed his lead. As they began throwing their large snowballs on the burning sleepers, other rescuers began extricating the dead and injured. They, too, had snow and water thrown on them to offset the heat so they could get the victims out. Within a short time all the snow had been scraped from the ground around the crashed cars.^[2]

The local's locomotive's headlight remained lit, which along with the continued illumination in the front of the Empire allowed the removal of all present there before the car was completely engulfed in flames. Some died shortly afterwards.^[2] Assemblyman J.W. Monk was psychologically overcome after being extricated from the ceiling timbers he had been trapped in.^[1] Inside the car, as the fire grew worse, Hanford attempted to rescue a young newlywed, Louise Gaylord. Her husband, whom she had married the night before in Massachusetts, was still alive as well but so trapped in the wreckage as to make rescue impossible in what time was left. By contrast, only some of Gaylord's clothing was caught, but she refused Hanford's entreaties to remove enough to escape, and he did not have the time to force her to since it was so hot.^[2]

Wagner's body was found crushed between the two cars. Like many of the dead, it was burnt beyond recognition. He was identified by a gold watch with the initials "W.W.", his diary and several slips of paper with the election returns from his state senate district. Firefighters soon arrived with a pumper to put out the fire, and the injured were taken to Bellevue Hospital after being laid out on billiards tables at Kilcullen's along with the dead. Bissell and Doucey stayed on scene to oversee the cleanup, and by 4 a.m. the track was reopened.^[2]

Estimates of the fatalities that night were initially as high as nine;^[1] later accounts put it at seven^[5] or eight.^[2] Three passengers were unaccounted for. Two survivors were injured seriously enough to make doctors doubt they could be saved, while 17 suffered minor injuries, including Brooklyn state senator John C. Jacobs.^[1]

Investigation[edit]

Sidney Nichols, one of the city's police commissioners, who had been on the train, limped into his office, applauded by employees, the next morning. He said he had sprained a wrist and ankle. At the crash site, investigators quickly established that the local's brakes were in good working order. Crewmembers blamed Melius, the brakeman, for the accident, as they believed he had not gone far enough down the track to properly signal the oncoming local. Melius had left the scene and could not be found. Residents of the area faulted the railroad for having laid off one of the flagmen in the cut, who could otherwise have alerted the local earlier.^[6]

Melius resurfaced in Poughkeepsie, the following day.^[7] Accompanied by his brother, a conductor on the Central who was based in that city, he surrendered to authorities and was returned to New York to testify before the coroner's jury. His account was subject to heavy scrutiny as it was contradicted by other witnesses.^[6]

On his brother's advice, Melius changed one aspect of his story. He revised his estimate of the local's speed downward, as the older Melius had told him it could not have reached 40 mph (64 km/h) so soon after leaving Spuyten Duyvil.^[2] But that was not enough to restore his credibility. He held to his claim that he was far enough behind the express at the time that he could see the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge. But Hanford said that if Melius had been able to see the bridge, he would also have been able to alert the remaining flagman.^[6]

See also[edit]

• 1882 in rail transport
• List of American railroad accidents
• List of rail accidents (1880–1889)
• List of disasters in New York City by death toll
• Kew Gardens train crash, 1950 rear-end collision in New York City caused by signaling error

References[edit]