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It's 50 years since rail crash but it seems like only yesterday Article Published in the Home News Tribune
1/28/01
By RICK MALWITZ WOODBRIDGE: The next day would be her birthday, so rather than take an earlier train home with her father, Pearl Goldsmith lingered at her job in New York City, waiting for her fiance, Jerry Sullinger, to call about birthday plans. "It was his fault I took that train," said Pearl, who can now smile when she tells the story. That train, a steam-powered Pennsylvania Railroad commuter train known as "The Broker," crashed Feb. 6, 1951, on a temporary trestle in Woodbridge, killing 85 and injuring about 500, including Goldsmith, now Sullinger, who visited the Fulton Street crash site last week with her husband Jerry for the first time since the accident. To mark the 50th anniversary there will
be a memorial service Sunday, Feb. 4, at the United Methodist Church on
Main Street, which was used as a first-aid station the night of the
crash. The service, said the Rev. David Houston, "is to remember
those who lost their lives and recall the fine people who helped others.
That night human nature became its best. "Hundreds and hundreds of people were affected by this," said Ralph Scaccia of Little Silver, who was 16 when he heard his father's name as a list of the dead was read on television that night. "They mispronounced his name, that was our only hope. But we knew it was him." Later that night a policeman came to the door to confirm the news, and three of his cousins returned from Woodbridge, having identified the body at a makeshift morgue. Memories linger "I still remember it like it was yesterday," said Pearl Sullinger. "The train was extra crowded,"
she recalled. "Everything was going along fine. I was sitting with
friends from my block (in Spotswood) when all of a sudden the train was
rocking. My feet flew in the air, my shoes flew off. She also recalled how a man regained consciousness while surrounded by warm steam. "He thought he'd died and went to heaven." Elene Dwyer of Long Branch also worked with her father, who owned a printing business in New York City. "He was sick that day. I was in the car that went down the embankment. There was so much dirt and dust, I thought the train was on fire. Two of my husband's friends came to help me, and we had to climb over bodies to get out." Dwyer remembers ambulances coming to the scene, and "gawkers" from the town. She recalls being brought to a bar by her husband's friends. "I was only old enough to drink beer. They said 'You need a shot.' I'd never had a shot of whiskey before that." She hitchhiked home, where her family was
waiting with a parish priest. Calling home was virtually impossible, at
a time when calls from Woodbridge still went through an operator. That
night a family doctor gave her a shot to settle her nerves. "The only counseling you had was your family," said Scaccia. George Dowden of Livingston was commuting from his job in Newark to his home in Ocean Grove. His wife Ruth heard about the accident when her mother called from Detroit. "All she said was, 'Turn on the television,' " said Ruth, who recalled CBS newsman Douglas Edwards talking about an accident in Woodbridge. She recalled having to tell her daughters, then 5 and 3, their father was in a bad accident. Barbara, their 5-year-old, was concerned about "daddy's new Bible, which he'd brought to work that day." At about 11 p.m., George called from a hospital to say he was OK. He suffered leg injuries, but no bones were broken. A crowded train The train was known as The Broker because it carried so many Central New Jersey residents to and from the Wall Street area. It had an unusual number of people on it because union members of the Jersey Central, a train that ran on tracks nearly parallel to the Pennsylvania Railroad line, had conducted a "sickness strike." It was also the first day the trestle was
used; it had been built to provide a temporary detour while the line was
being upgraded during construction of the New Jersey Turnpike. Before the train left Jersey City, conductor John Bishop said to engineer Joseph Fitzsimmons, "Eleven cars and everything regular . . . and don't forget your speed at Woodbridge." George Dowden recalled when the train passed the Woodbridge train station, "It was going its normal speed." An investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) concluded Fitzsimmons did not slow down. About one mile from Woodbridge, Bishop was alarmed at the train's speed. He tried to reach an emergency cord, but standing passengers were in his way. At 5:43 p.m. the train crashed. The engine made it over the temporary trestle. Behind the engine was the tender car, with about 10,000 gallons of water, which provided water to the engine's boilers. It is believed the centrifugal force of the water shifting in the tender car caused the car to tip, dislodge from the engine and fall from the tracks. The first and second cars fell on their side, while the third and fourth cars crashed into each other. Most of the deaths occurred in cars three and four. At that moment, Helen Nagy Keleman, then 11, was watching "Flash Gordon" on television in her Fulton Street living room. When she heard the noise she went to the front window, screaming when she saw cars on their side. Her father thought she was reacting to something on television. That night Woodbridge Mayor Albert Greiner used her family's telephone to provide live commentary for radio station WCTC. Sudden heroes Among the first to arrive at the scene was Frank LaPenta, now the head of the Historical Association of Woodbridge. When he arrived he saw the cars spilled along Fulton Street, but had no idea the gravity of the situation. "There was an eerie silence. The only noise was the engine hissing. Then I noticed a dead body," LaPenta said. Joe Nagy was nursing a beer at Little Joe's Tavern on Second Street when several dazed and muddied passengers came into the bar. He remained at the scene until 2 p.m. the following day. He recalled how he grabbed the torso of a dead woman, only to discover her body had been torn in half. "I said, 'I gotta go home.' " John Fenick, at the time a Rutgers student, was driving from his home in Sewaren to Perth Amboy, where he tended bar. He heard the township's emergency whistle, and followed a fire truck to the scene. Fenick, who later became a doctor and mayor of Carteret, recalled his most vivid memory was of a man trapped, crying for help. Fenick looked for a few men to help pry the victim loose. "I got back 10 minutes later and he was dead." One person inside the train described the confusion to the Perth Amboy Evening News: "People were clawing and punching each other to get clear of the wreckage. I saw one woman go down on the floor. I think she was trampled to death." The United Methodist Church was used by the Red Cross and Salvation Army, and Bell Telephone installed six telephones at the church. A call was made to Camp Kilmer in Edison for army blankets and first-aid kits. Appeals on radio and television brought volunteer doctors from as far as Philadelphia. That afternoon Cathleen McCormack had completed her shift at Perth Amboy General Hospital when she heard the plea for volunteers. Nine months earlier the hospital had treated 194 people injured in a munitions explosion in South Amboy. Not satisfied with its performance that night, it adopted a disaster plan. "We were very well organized that night," McCormack said. Survival Club Another factor aiding rescue was that many at the crash site were recent World War II veterans, many having been witness to the horrors of war and having the skills to administer basic first aid. One of the nephews who identified Frank Scaccia had been a prisoner of war, and another nephew had been assigned to a mortuary unit that identified war dead. Bob LaPenta, Frank's brother, had an army surplus ambulance modified for personal use. That night he made several hospital runs. According to an account in the Perth
Amboy Evening News: "The entire area became a makeshift morgue.
Postured in attitudes of frozen horror, the bodies were provided
temporary resting places on the sidewalk, in the street, on the porches
of the neat, one-family homes on Fulton Street. "The response of the people on Fulton Street was beautiful. They loaned us sheets for bandages, gave us hot water, Vaseline, whatever we needed," said Sister Mary Louise, who heard the sound of the crash at what is now the St. Joseph's Seniors Residence on Strawberry Hill. Don Karantz of Woodbridge, who lived several blocks from the scene, recalled seeing a pickup truck on Main Street, thinking its cargo were mannequins from Christensen's department store. "Then I saw blood dripping and realized, 'My God, they're dead bodies.' " He recalled how the rear cars were on the tracks, as if nothing was wrong. "Walk up the street and it was Armageddon," said Karantz. Fred Houck of Point Pleasant, a passenger in the 11th and final car, walked away from the crash. During a routine physical four weeks later he learned he had suffered a fractured skull, according to his daughter, Helen Burke. Houck organized The Survival Club, which sought to promote rail safety and memorialize the dead. On the first anniversary of the crash he requested the Pennsylvania Railroad halt The Broker to memorialize the event. The railroad refused. Houck nonetheless threw a floral wreath of 85 flowers off the moving train on Feb. 6, 1952. The following April the ICC concluded the accident was caused by "excessive speed on a curve of a temporary track."
Manslaughter charges were brought against the railroad by Middlesex County Prosecutor Alexander Eber. They were withdrawn when he estimated it would cost taxpayers $2.1 million to bring the case to trial. In an interview one year after the accident, Fitzsimmons told the New York World-Telegram and Sun, "Many nights I go to sleep crying. If I wasn't sure I wasn't to blame, I'd have been in Marlboro (the former state mental hospital) long ago. All those people dying! You can't ever get it out of your head. You can't get it out no matter how you try." from the Home News Tribune Published: January 28, 2001
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