Fulton Street Train Wreck

Fulton Street Train Wreck. . , On the rainy Tuesday evening of February 6, 1951, a crowded rush-hour express train departed from Exchange Place in Jersey City headed toward Bayhead in New Jersey. “The Broker”, named for the many Wall Street employees it transported, was carrying 1,100 passengers. The railroad tracks between Woodbridge and Perth Amboy were undergoing construction, and a set of tracks stood alongside the permanent tracks to allow trains to keep running. By General Order of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the construction area was a restricted speed zone with a 25-mile-per-hour limit., As The Broker made its way through Woodbridge in excess of 50 mph, it approached a sharp turn at the temporary trestle just north of the train bridge at Legion Place. Alarmed at the train’s speed, the conductor had a mile earlier tried to pull the emergency cord, but the crush of passengers in the aisle made it impossible. The locomotive’s weight shifted the tracks, and eight of the eleven cars derailed; the first two cars fell on their side, but the third and fourth cars jack-knifed into each other as they hurtled down a 26-foot embankment. Subsequent investigation revealed that the Pennsylvania Railroad had not installed yellow signals to warn the engineer he was approaching a restricted speed zone., Scores of Woodbridge residents, as well as others from neighboring towns, came to the victims’ aid, setting up treatment centers and morgues in stores, homes and churches along Main Street. With 85 passengers killed and more than 500 injured, the wreck of The Broker stands as the third-worst train wreck in America. In 2002, a monument was erected under the train pass, dedicated to those injured or killed in the wreck.