Tom’s Raritan River
Railroad Page
www.RaritanRiver-RR.com
Forgotten History
of the
World War I sabotage on the Raritan
River Railroad!!!
Axis Powers at work in
Fig.1 – Wreck from Rails up the
“Something obviously
did not go right here. Location appears
to be Bergen Hill. Official
Company Photo.”
While searching through the New York Times Archive
for Raritan River Railroad articles, this amazing account of sabotage and
disaster turned up:
On
Most of the passengers on this train were bound for
the Gun Powder Plants and Gun Cotton Plants in Parlin. It was a busy time on the Raritan River Railroad. With World War I going on in
There were over 100 people on the
The morning run started out as normal, with a full
set of cars heading to
The ride was normal, just as the train pulled past
the old Shops, coming up to
But 35 miles per hour was still not enough. They couldn’t move enough passengers with the
existing speeds and cars, so they would still need to go faster. By the summer of 1915, the first class
passenger trains had the authority to go 45 miles per hour! That’s a 125% increase in speed from just 3
years earlier. And 45 mile per hour it
was headed, as Train Number 21 rounded past the shops.
Train No. 21 passed
There was nothing the engineer Jeremiah or Edward
could do, but stick to their posts and ride it out if they could. They both knew that they had a job to do,
right up to the end, what ever that end it would be! As the train careened off the track, it was
unfortunate, that the bridge abutment was right there. The train had no where to go, but right into
it. And Jeremiah and Edward held on
tight!
With almost perfect timing and alignment, at exactly
Chaos ensued as the train came to a very quick and
sudden stop. The bridge took quite a
pounding, with a 72 ton locomotive hitting it at full speed! The sound was deafening. The crash was earth shattering! The cars were light, made of wood, and thank
God, stayed in one piece. The passengers
would not fair as well. Most were thrown
about, as there were no seat belts those days.
Most landed on the floor.
When the dust settled, the first passenger car along
with the locomotive was leaning on the
When the towns people heard
the collision, everyone came running. First
and foremost, the passengers needed attention.
Many were hurt and quite startled.
The workers from the shops came running over. Someone ran back to the South Amboy Office above
the station to tell them the news. The
phone operator (phones were installed in 1910) then called to the Bergen Hill
Station. Four of the passengers were
very badly hurt and required immediate medical care. Jeremiah, the engineer who stuck by his post,
was also very badly hurt.
When C.M. Himmelberger,
Superintendent of the Raritan River Railroad came over to the scene, he was not
happy. It was obvious to him that
something was wrong, very wrong with what he saw. As he looked closely at the tracks where the
train left the rails, he noticed something strange. He noticed that spikes had been placed on the
rails. Not just left by accident, not
dropped by misfortune. He noted that the
spikes were placed with the intention to derail the train!
This
was no accident, he cried. This was sabotage!
He went on to check the train, the engine, the
passenger cars, the wheels, the tracks.
All the components of the train were in working order. The engineer and the fireman were seasoned employees
with good records and integrity, they did nothing wrong.
At the time it was noted that there were over 3000
people working at the DuPont Powder Mills, as well as the Union Gun Cotton
Mill. They worked 3 shifts per day, as
production continued 24 hrs per day with no break. One hundred armed guards keep watch over the
plants 24 hours per day.
C.M. Himmelberger had said
that this was done to slow down the production of war materials at the
munitions plants in the area served by the Raritan River Railroad. A good wreck could have stopped the
passengers from getting to work, stop the freight from getting to and from the factories,
even wrecking the bridge to stop cars and trucks from accessing the road. This was a calculated and premeditated plan
to try to stop the production of war materials for the Allies in
The Raritan River Railroad is already running at maximum
capacity trying to keep up with the demands of the war, and this did not help
things.
New York Times Archive Adobe PDF article:
Fig.2 – Timetable No.76
Notes from the author, Tom E. Reynolds
When I first read the account from the NY Times Archive I
was stunned. I never heard such a tale,
and none was recorded in Rails up the
“The locomotive and one car left the track and crashed into
a stone wall. The point where the accident
occurred was at a bend in the road, near a bridge…”
I tried to picture where a stone wall was near a bridge, and
suddenly the picture from page 62 of Fred Deibert’s Rails
up the
“Something obviously did not go right here. Location appears to be Bergen Hill. Official Company Photo.”
His mention of Bergen Hill is probably due to a partial description
that may have been on the photograph, as the train was indeed headed to Bergen
Hill. Location appears to be between South Amboy Station and Bergen
Hill Station Probably under the
I truly believe that Fred’s picture from RUTR matches the
description in the New York Times Archive Article from
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