No headstone marks the spot. There is no memorial only a deep crack where a concrete bridge was repaired identifies the place where death visited Central Jersey a half century ago.

On the cold, drizzly night of Feb. 6, 1951, a Pennsylvania Railroad express train called "The Broker" derailed and crashed on a temporary trestle near downtown Woodbridge. Eighty-five of the 1,100 people on board died and hundreds were injured.

Five decades later, the legacy of the crash - the deadliest American railroad accident since World War II - remains as sharp, tangled and twisted as the mass of steel strewn that night on the 26-foot-high embankment along Fulton Street.
The crash of "The Broker" scattered wreckage over a wide area. The federal Interstate Commerce Commission, in a one line ruling, concluded that "excessive speed on a curve of temporary track" caused the disaster. The death toll would climb to 85.

The accident destroyed young families, claimed a few notable New Jerseyans and ruined the life of the engineer who survived the accident never to touch a train throttle again. 

It prompted the railroad to make millions of dollars in safety improvements, cost millions more in lawsuits, led to 84 charges of manslaughter against the nation's largest railroad company and jump-started the career of one of the best-known New Jersey prosecutors of that era.

And it left an indelible mark on those who witnessed it. 

"I never saw anything like it," said 69-year-old Frank LaPenta, a lifelong Woodbridge resident who tended to the inured that night. "It was like a war scene."
Frank LaPenta of Woodbridge on the Fulton Street overpass where the wreck occurred. LaPenta recalls, "The coal car was lying in the middle of the road. There was no movement. Not a sound. Lying in front of me was a body of a young man. Everything seemed so unreal. Photo - Vic Yepello/Star-Ledger

The cause of the wreck was simple enough: "Excessive speed on a curve of a temporary track," is what the Interstate Commerce Commission concluded in a one line ruling issued April 19, 1951. 

The temporary trestle was put up so laborers building the New Jersey Turnpike could work on the main track. The accident happened just seven hours after the railroad put the structure into service. 

Known officially as Pennsylvania Railroad train No. 733, The Broker began its trip at Exchange Place in Jersey City precisely at 5:10 p.m. The train earned its nickname for its popularity with the Wall Street crowd that liked the express service No. 733 offered from North Jersey to Bay Head on the Shore.
The force of the wreck bent steel rail like they were cardboard and left train cars tilting precariously.

Because of a wildcat strike on the Jersey Central railroad that day, The Broker was even more crowded than usual with passengers standing in the aisles. Were it not for the jam-packed crowd, the conductor told investigators, he would likely have made it to the emergency brake cord as The Broker hurtled at top speed toward disaster.

Seven days before the accident, the railroad issued General Order No. 1806 instructing crews that effective 1:01 p.m., Feb. 6,1951, trains traveling between Woodbridge station and Perth Amboy "must not exceed a speed of 25 mph." The order meant a huge reduction in speed for coal-powered steam engines like The Broker. 

Both engineer Joseph Fitzsirnmons and conductor "Honest John" Bishop testified aware of their orders.

"I had implicit faith in Joe Fltzsirnmons," Bishop told a board of inquiry five days after the crash. And just before The Broker left Exchange Place, Bishop said he reminded Fitzsimmons about the Woodbridge slow-down order. 

"Don't forget your speed at Woodbridge, Joe," Bishop had said. 

STORY CHANGES 

Just after the wreck, Fitzsimmons, 57, told investigators he had abided by the 25-mph order. Then, he changed his story, saying he was going to slow down as soon as he saw a warning. "I was looking for a yellow light, a yellow light, a yellow light."
Rescue workers remove a victim from the twisted metal of "The Broker" on Feb 6, 1951. Of the 1,100 aboard the Shore-bound commuter train, 85 died and hundreds were injured.

But there would be no yellow light. Fitzsirnmons acknowledged he knew the Pennsylvania Railroad did not use caution signals when slow-down orders had been posted. 

More than $12 million worth of warning lights were installed immediately after The Broker crashed. 

Fitzsimmons, who lived in Point Pleasant at the time, remained a Monmouth County resident for the rest of his life. He worked for the railroad until 1953, when he retired, though he never drove a train again after that night in February. 

Fitzsimmons died shortly after the 25th anniversary of the wreck. His wife, Jean Schwankert of Brick did not want to talk about the crash. "So much has been written about this already," Schwankert said last week.

Investigators determined Fitzsimmons had The Broker steaming at 50 to 60 mph when the train reached the trestle. 

The 5:43 p.m. crash, which could be heard for miles in every direction shook homes and shat tered windows in downtown Woodbridge. 

Then, there was silence. "Everything was quiet," said LaPenta, one of the first rescuers on the scene and now the vice president of the Woodbridge Historical Society.

"The coal car was lying in the middle of the road. There was no movement. Not a sound. Lying in front of me was a body of a young man. Everything seemed so un- real." 

Among the dead were George W. C. McCarter, 63, a partner in the prestigious Newark law firm of McCarter & English; his nephew, Robert H. McCarter Young, 30; Princeton University great Jack James, 40; Newark News reporter Lawrence French, and the train's fireman, Al Dunn.

On top of the overpass, two cars hung precariously three stories above the roadway, which was shiny from rain. Stunned and fearing they were on a bridge that might collapse over water, many who survived jumped to their deaths believing they would have a soft landing in a river.

Throughout the mess of the train, rescue workers used lipstick to mark the heads of the dead so reinforcements would know who to pull out and who could be left until daybreak. At a makeshift morgue at the Woodbridge firehouse, the medical examiner used butcher paper to cover the corpses when he ran out of body bags.

FAMILY MEMBERS ARRIVE

From around New Jersey, horrified family members began streaming into Middlesex County.

"I turned the radio on and it came over the radio, and my minister from Red Bank was going around to a number of the houses where he knew families of commuters lived," said 75-year old Mildred Stout of Tinton Falls, whose husband, Robert, was on the train.

Stout and her parents quickly drove to Woodbridge. Near the crash site, they were directed to Perth Amboy.

"It was snowing," Stout recalled. "You could hear- when you got there in Perth Amboy- them trying to cut the train apart in Woodbridge. They ordered us to go to a church and there we waited for them to call off the names. A lot of the survivors had come there looking for their spouses.

"One man came up holding a purse, a handbag. He said, 'My wife was sitting right next to me and I can't find her.' I always remember him saying that. I wonder if he ever found her," Stout said.

The name Robert Stout was announced as being among the survivors, so Mildred Stout made her way to Perth Amboy Hospital, now known as Raritan Bay Medical Center.

"He was in a room next to where the engineer was," Mildred Stout said. "He (Fitzsimmons) was being guarded by state troopers. I found my husband and he was in a coma. He was tied up in strait-jacket."

Even in a coma, Mildred Stout said, her husband's body was convulsing wildly. "He was in a crazed condition."

Little more than a week later, a Philadelphia neurosurgeon removed a blood clot from Robert Stout's brain and, as the congregation at his Methodist church in Red Bank prayed for the man, he awoke from his coma.

CHARGES DISMISSED

Almost immediately after the wreck, Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Alex Eber announced he would proceed with criminal charges against those responsible for the crash.

Eighty-four manslaughter indictments were handed up against the Pennsylvania Railroad. Two years later, however, they were all dismissed when Eber told the judge that the trials would cost the county $2.1 million.

The wreck, of course, brought a raft of lawsuits against the railroad totaling, according to some estimates, $75 million. Not a single case made it to court. Instead, the company settled with every plaintiff. The total amount paid out was never made public.

For a short time after the wreck, many survivors gathered periodically and formed the "Survival Club."

The group did not stay together long, but on the first anniversary of the wreck, many gathered as a wreath of yellow daffodils was tossed off the 5:10 from Exchange Place as it crossed Legion Place in Woodbridge on Feb. 6, 1952.

As he threw the wreath, Survival Club president Fred Houck of Point Pleasant, who suffered a skull fracture in the crash said: 'We honor our friends. Let us pray that this terrible thing will never happen again."

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