Tom’s
Raritan River Railroad Page
www.RaritanRiver-RR.com
Wrecks
on the RRRR
Contents
1895
– RRRR Engine Goes Through the Open Draw Bridge in South River
1899
– Passenger Train wrecks at Melfort
1901
– Two Engines Collide in South Amboy
1906
– Small Wreck in South Amboy
1906
– Wreck near the Turntable in South Amboy.
1906
– RRRR Crashes into a House in New Brunswick
1927
or 1928 Wreck at Suchs (Again)
1947
- No. 15 at the PRR connection
1895 – RRRR Engine Goes Through the Open Draw Bridge in South River
The Daily Times (New Brunswick, NJ) -
Thursday, November 7, 1895
Shortly after trolley service opened to SR
, A serious wreck occurred on November 7, 1895 when a RRRR Passenger train
didn’t see an open draw bridge in South River due to the fog. The train tried to stop, the crew jumped off
the train as the Engine slid through an open draw and landed face down in the
river. Amazingly, the tender stayed on
the bridge, as well as the passenger cars. The engineer, Fred Bissett, tried to stop the train, but once it became
apparent that it wasn’t going to stop, the crew jumped. The Brakeman jumped and landed on the
embankment and rolled down into the mud flats, escaping without injury. The Engineer was not as lucky and broke his
leg when he jumped from the bridge, but landed on a scow that was moored
alongside the bridge. James Welsh, another brakeman, jumped into the water and
managed to swim ashore. Frank Hoffman,
the superintendent of the RRRR was also on the train, but did not jump
off. Richard Sullivan, the Conductor,
also jumped into the water, but he was weighted down by his clothes, and the
tide current was Very strong and proceeded to pull him farther out into the
channel, where he was rescued by a row boat.
All Navigation on the river was blocked
now. The RRRR needed to call to New York
to get a steam wrecking scow large enough to pull out the engine, as none could
be found locally.
The draw can be mostly closed, just
enough to allow a person to walk from one side to the other, but not enough to
allow a train to cross.
Keep Richard Sullivan’s name in your
mind, we will hear from him again…
Unfortunately for the RRRR, since there
were no active trains on the western side of the bridge, the only way to get
from New Brunswick to South River was by the recently deployed TROLLEY CARs!
Literally, the trolleys only started running from New Brunswick to South
River just 5 days earlier, on November 2!
1899 – Passenger Train wrecks at Melfort
The Daily Times (New Brunswick, NJ) —
Wednesday, July 5, 1899
A serious wreck occurred in 1899 when a passenger
Train jumped tracks at switch for the PRR connection near Melfort
(Suchs Siding).
The engine left the track and plunged down the embankment followed by
two cars. Engineer C. W. Mulford and Fireman John Sullivan both jumped from the
train before it went over.
The engine was badly damaged. One of the
passenger cars caught on the tender and was prevented from overturning. Conductor Richard Sullivan was the first man
out of the train and, though badly hurt, he went to work assisting in rescuing
the passengers.
The most seriously injured passenger had
a broken ankle. Another was thrown over
three seats in the first car and received a sprained shoulder. Nearly everyone was cut or bruised.
As I wrote this summary, I had though
that I had seen an image before of a passenger car resting on a tender…
somewhere… then I realized it…
Rails Up the Raritan – Fred Diebert – 1983 – Pg. 63 “One of the more
spectacular wrecks. Site and date unknown”
0705 The Daily Times (New Brunswick, NJ)
— Wednesday, July 5, 1899 Wreck at Melfort
Fred Diebert,
when he wrote Rails up the Raritan, had such a picture in his book from the
official company files of the RRRR (which are all lost today…) I went and double check the newspaper
article, and compared it to the unknown wreck, and believe we have a
match! I think we can safely say that
this picture is from the 1899 wreck at Melfort.
1901 – Two Engines Collide in South Amboy
The Daily Times (New Brunswick, NJ) -
Friday, May 31, 1901
The two engines collided and wrecked
both of them and threw them across the ROW and tarring up the tracks. The NY&LB road was tied up until 9 a.m.,
while the RRRR was not moving until noon.
No employees were injured.
1906 – Small Wreck in South Amboy
The Daily Times (New Brunswick, NJ) -
Thursday, May 10, 1906
1906 – Wreck near the Turntable in South Amboy
The Daily Times (New Brunswick, NJ) -
Saturday, May 26, 1906
And as things get busier, things get
riskier, and accidents begin happen… Here
we see two small wrecks, both in SA, which was very crowded at this point being
pressed up against the NY&LB lines, and not ideal for the shifting and
soring of freight cars… They didn’t have a very big yard in SA…
So if trains crashing into trains wasn’t
enough, how about a train crashing into a house!
1906 – RRRR Crashes into a House in New Brunswick
The Daily Times (New Brunswick, NJ) -
Tuesday, June 12, 1906
Yes, in 1906 the RRRR crashed into a
house in NB… Exactly how does that happen?
End of the Line in New Brunswick with
the coach next to and hiding the passenger station.
The house at the end of the train is the
one that was damaged in 1906.
Well a Passenger Train with 2 passengers
on board enters NB. On one of them was the
wife of the ticket agent in NB. Typical operation in 1906 was to swing the
three passenger cars onto the siding with a “flying switch” maneuver. Simply said, the engine pulls the cars,
breaks off the train, pulls ahead, the switch get
thrown, allowing only the passenger cars to roll by themselves to the
depot. Conductor Richard Sullivan worked
the brakes manually on the passenger cars as they entered the dead end siding,
but the brakes did not work. The
passenger cars broke through the end of the track, crossed over the street,
dashed up a slight incline, tore down a fence and crashed into the porch doing
significant damage to the house.
1927 or 1928 Wreck at Suchs (Again)
Click on the link or the
pic for more details
One summer morning during August 1927, a
cut of eight cars lost their brakes and went down the steep grade east towards
South Amboy. At just the same time, poor
locomotive number 11 was heading up the grade at the same time. With no way to stop the train, the crew just
jumped, and watched the runaways crash into poor
number 11. There were no injuries
reported, and good old number 11, although being badly damaged (as the pictures
show) was actually put back together by the competent shop crew, and survived
for another 20 years of service!
1947 - No. 15 at the PRR connection
Number 15 jumped the tracks near the PRR
interchange in 1947.
Unfortunately, she was not rebuilt, but
cut up on the spot.
1972 – Phoenix Branch
Phoenix Branch Map – from Rails up
the Raritan
Ilmenite Ore was
used by National Lead to make Titanium Dioxide, which was used as a pigment in
paints. This plant, at the end of the
Phoenix Branch (otherwise known as the Kearny Spur) was built in the late 1930s
and was in continuous operation until the 1980s when it was shut down and
converted into a superfund site. Ilmenite Ore is slightly radioactive, and well, 50 years of
using the stuff has caused just a slight cleanup problem.
A
few hopper cars filled with Ilmenite Ore being
shipped on the Phoenix Branch in 1972 to the National Lead plant got hung up on
a loose rail and tipped over.
Raritan River Crane No. 3 was called out, as
well as CNJ hopper No. 9261. We will see
on a few occasions when the Raritan River would call in extra cars from the CNJ
to help out every once in a while.
Questions?
Comments?