Kew Gardens railway accident

The railway accident at Kew Gardens was a rear-end collision on 22 November 1950 to the main line of the Long Iceland Railroad (LIRR) in New York City between the stations Kew Gardens and Jamaica in Queens . 78 people died and 363 were injured.

Starting position

The accident site is now in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens. At the time of the accident , it still belonged to the Richmond Hill district .

The front train , a railcar was to 18:09 from Penn Station in Manhattan to Hempstead left. First stop should be Jamaica Station . The train had 12 cars and - due to the rush hour - around 1000 passengers on board. It was already dark when the train left.

This train was followed at 6.13 p.m. by another railcar from Penn Station to Babylon , with 1200 passengers, which used the same route between Kew Gardens and Jamaica as the train in front.

the accident

When the first train passed through Kew Gardens station , the next distant signal showed "Waiting for stop". The engine driver braked to reach the prescribed speed of 15 mph (20 km / h ). The brakes could no longer be released, so that the train came to a standstill. While the engine driver was trying to identify the problem, the brakeman who was in the last passenger car got out according to regulations in order to warn each following train with a red lantern that the train had broken down. There was no signal-controlled protection for the train.

The engine driver of the second train also saw the distant signal that showed "Waiting for stop". He also slowed his train to the required speed of 15 mph (20 km / h). The next thing he saw was the main signal , which showed "clear travel" but was still in front of the broken train, and related it to his own train, without recognizing the train to Hempstead ahead of him in the dark. He therefore accelerated his train back to 35 mph (55 km / h). When he recognized that the first train had broken down in front of him, he initiated an emergency brake , which only slowed the train to 30 mph (50 km / h) before the collision occurred.

The brakeman of the first train assumed that the problem with the brake had been fixed, got back on the train and signaled to his driver that he was back on the train. When he got no answer, he wanted to get off the train again and protect the train with the red lantern. Before he could do that, however, the impact occurred at 6:29 p.m. Neither train derailed . The train in front was pushed forward 25 meters and the last car of the car was slashed horizontally lengthways by the first of the impacting train. This in turn was compressed.

consequences

Most of the dead lay huddled in the rubble of the two cars . Help came very quickly; after five hours, the last survivor was rescued from the rubble. The engine driver of the rear train was among the dead.

The investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission came to the conclusion that the train driver of the rear train was to blame for the accident because he had disregarded the "expect stop" and incorrectly followed the signal that was 800 meters away, the "clear drive." “Showed. The brakeman was also criticized for having stopped securing the broken-down train too early.

In addition, very old passenger cars from around 1910 were in use. The railway company was prevented between 1918 and 1947 by the New York State Public Service Commission - despite rising costs - from any increase in fares . This had led to severe underfunding and prevented investments in the railway . At the time of the accident, LIRR was already in insolvency proceedings .

The owner of the LIRR, the Pennsylvania Railroad , took the LIRR out of bankruptcy proceedings after this accident, installed a signal-dependent speed check for its trains ( Pulse Code Cab Signaling ) and invested USD 58 million in the railroad. In return, she was waived large amounts of tax debts and allowed realistic fares.