RDG CNJ Wreck at Allentown 1964
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- čas přidán 23. 11. 2022
- A look at the way derailments were cleaned up in the days before Hulcher. The circumstances are detailed at the beginning of the video. Scanned from original 8mm film by Charles Houser. Thanks to "Big Mike" Bednar for the story on this incident.
- Auta a dopravní prostředky
I hired out in the car department at Southern railway in ‘79 and we were still doing it this way into the early 90’s! Our hook was a massive Industrial Brownhoist 250 ton capacity beast with twin Detroit Diesels and a third one running a big electrical generator. The first time we’d encountered wreck contractors was, I believe, the very early 90’s on a big wreck on the Winston-Salem Southbound Ry. in Ansonville, NC. Seaboard System/CSX had their equally massive derrick out of Hamlet, NC there also, but the real elephant in the room was a group of Caterpillar sidewinders along with Cat track loaders belonging to Donahue Bros. out of WVa. Within a year or so, our fabled Spencer Derrick was taken out of service and that work was gone forever! The Derricks, regardless of steam, diesel, 120, 200 or 250 ton, were a bear to operate! A veritable wall of controls, none of which were labeled, and also sported the intensely frustrating feature of some controls being affected by the position other controls were in, so for instance a particular lever might swing the Derrick to the left by pulling it up this time, but next time if other controls had been changed, pulling that same lever up would make it turn right! This video showed a couple instances where the Derrick was pointed to the side and hooked to a caboose while the locomotive moved the wreck train and drug the crummy along with it! We were never permitted to do that because of the risk of turning the hook over! Those days were full of VERY heavy work, crazy long hours (when the Derrick was called, it could be as much as two weeks before you saw home again!), and massive paychecks! Very dangerous work though! Great video! I’ll shut up now!
My father was a Southern Railway trainman, working out of WS, NC. I remember him getting called out to work on the jobs moving the Derrick to a derailment was and staying until he was relieved.
Great footage. Glad someone saved it all these years.
My uncle who worked for the railroad up north till he retired used to say that the rule book Was Written in Blood. Those old school railroaders were tough bastards.
Fact
That was back when you could still take a CNJ train from Allentown to Jersey City. Reading discontinued their Allentown to Harrisburg passenger service in 1964 but continued the Bethlehem to Philly service. Lehigh Valley ended passenger service through Allentown in Feb 1961. Amtrak wants to start a new train service from Allentown to New York. It would run over Norfolk Southern freight lines into NJ and then onto Amtrak at Newark, NJ. CNJ discontinued its service from Allentown in 1967 and cut it back to Hampton, NJ and then extended back to Phillipsburg in 1974 but then NJT cut back to High Bridge, NJ at the end of 1983. NJT took over the commuter rail operations from Conrail in early 1983. You could see NJT F40 diesels and NJT painted coaches at Phillipsburg station in 1983.
RDG service to Allentown ended in June 1963, not 1964.
I wish they would reopen the line from Allentown to Philadelphia. I 476 is cancer!
Working steam crane being filmed in sound ! Love it
Absolutely.
The original film was silent. Sounds were added from my video collection. I'm flattered you thought it was original sound, I guess I got it right then. Thanks for watching.
@@fmnut that was very good film quality, and you had me fooled also with the sound. You did a really good job of it.
Excellent video and another top job in the sounds department, if I didn't know your stuff I'd have thought it was original sound as the steam crane was spot on. Great to see them drop a couple back onto bogies and just roll them out of the way. Railway mounted cranes are fantastic really but steam ones are superb and quite complex bits of equipment. I'd love to know how many crew it had as someone needs to keep an eye on the water and fire.
On the Reading (and I would assume CNJ as well as they followed RDG practices for the most part), the steam cranes had an operator and fireman. On the steam cranes that were converted from coal to oil firing, the fireman position was eliminated and the operator tended his own fire. There was also a crew of carmen/riggers that traveled with the crane, usually 3 to 5 men depending on the job. The sounds are from similar cranes recorded in Mexico and US museums.
Excellent quality film ! That was a bad one ! 😳
CNJ #5 crane. I believe that's the crane on display at Steamtown.
along with the bright orange gondola…they’ve been together for 60+ years at least
I remember when the spectators could get that close to the action.
That's a insane derailment
Excellent foley editing!
Back in the days before hardhats, and when trucks didn't self-disassemble upon derailing.
Very interesting! Thanks for posting.
Wow! Great footage!
Very interesting. I could listen to the sound without visual and still enjoy it if I had too.
I was a little surprised that the officials didn't notice there was someone filming the wreck cleanup. Possibly, as it appears, the person was filming far enough from the wreck, and the suits were more focused on the cleanup efforts.
If they're on public property, there's not a thing they can do about it. And at the time, it wasn't like it was going to end up all over the internet...
I recall as a kid going to a Penn Central pileup in the local yard in 1967. Crowds of people, us included, were allowed to stand trackside and watch the PC derrick doing it's stuff! Nobody said a thing unless you got in the way.
Outstanding content. Thanks for sharing!!
P.S. The soundtrack is A1....had no idea this film was originally silent. 👍
cracked on with it and got it done, real good work.
That old hook sure makes some strange noises. There's so much information in this old clip its gold.........absolute gold.
Great Video !
A great film document.
That's insane!
Them guys knew their stuff or half a caboose's better'n none or "I hated the interior décor anyway"...
Thanx for another great vid... 'Hey porcupine!'
Fantastic footage...in color too! I know its sad to see all the carnage, but cool to see the clean-up.
Gets me to wondering....
over the years, what was the attrition rate for cabeese?
Maybe that speaks alot for the lack of them now?
I would guess that the attrition rate for cabooses might have been a bit higher than that of the average freight car, given their vulnerable position at the rear of the train and the large amount of dark territory extant during the years they were in use. As to their demise, it had more to do with the economics of reduced crew size and improved technology. The savings from getting rid of the cabooses themselves (as opposed to the trainmen riding in them) was almost a windfall by comparison.
@@fmnut Thank You for your insight. Mark!
Was this possibly shot as an instructional video? Seems such a random thing to film back then, especially in colour. Glad someone did though.
Nope, not a tutorial, not random, just a local railfan documenting an event of interest. This was the 60s, 8mm color home movies had been around for a while already. This particular fan had color film dating back to 1955.
Do you have any more train crash footage for us to share
Not really. After working for 36 years cleaning up these messes I didn't video them myself. So far I haven't found any more in the footage I've acquired.
That was so beautiful I love it can we see more
Sorry, that's all there is.
Somehow this looks more like a railroad clean-up then the outside contractors doing the same job today.
They didn't have outside contractors back then, everything was in house except for the occasional front end loader for grading.
God that wrecked Reading hack looked like an American flyer.
That's because AF used the Reading prototype since it was common in the eastern US, more familiar to their largest market. Their Atlantic 4-4-2 steam engine was also modeled after the Reading's. Both models were offered in a set together lettered for the Reading.
Watch out for that alco
Amazing that nobody’s wearing a safety helmet or safety vest. Kids and spectators on-site running amuck! Fast forward this operation to the present and for sure the FRA and OSHA would be having a cow! 😳😳😳
Would you consider doing a voice over narration of the beginning of the video for the benefit of your visually impaired subscribers? It would be greatly appreciated.
Says a lot about survivability of steel caboose. What happened to the man who threw the wrong switch? Fired?
Back when people worked and your job kept you in shape.
I have no info on the discipline to the culprit(s). Sorry.
Someone should have been watching the "Birdies" shove. If they would have. It would have come to a stop before they got to the "wrong" misaligned switch.
whadda mess!
So long story short , a yard movement went on the wrong siding and hit 3 cabooses ?
No. The BRD crew had 4 cabooses on the shoving end being brought back to the yard. They hit the hump engine which was going the opposite direction on the same track. Neither crew was protecting their move, however the hump engine was supposed to be on that track while the BRD was supposed to be on a different track. Not sure if the BRD crew put themselves on the wrong track or if STEEL tower did it.
Men were men in those days.
Looks like it could've been quite dangerous.
Back when men were men... Not a hard hat or safety vest to be seen. No radios either. Wonder who the "suit" was? Passerby or railroad management?
Probably the Trainmaster or Wreckmaster. Back when OSHA was part of a future nightmare.
One of the few things that have not changed. You put cars on the ground. You instantly have officials show up out of nowhere. Great video and thanks for sharing.
Even better kids within feet of the wreck.
Gresious gollouas GOODNESS GRASIOUS!!!!!! 3 CABOOSES WRECKED TO HELL, 😱😭😵😭 WOWWW!!!! 😬😳🤯😵😱 Never heard of this before, THANK GOD NO ONE WASNT INSIDE THEM, THEY COULDA BEEN SLEEPN. 👍.
a lot of bitching about hardhats and OSHA yet PEOPLE DIED causing the regulations to be enacted
how dare people think about safety…oh, right: they’d rather whine about it while causing the same deaths due to negligence and laziness 🙄
nobody lives forever ... get over it
People are still dying today, if not by train,, then by car,or knife,or cancer,or heart attack, Whats your point???
just saw this vid. my great uncle caused this wreck lol! i was 3 at the time. used to live there, and i called my mom to ask her about it when i saw this vid! i remembered my uncle worked for the railroad, and she told me all about the wreck. guess uncle al was quite the drinker, and set a switch wrong, and all this ruckus happened. he got fired a lot from jobs thru the years because of it. heres to you uncle al koshkowicz!!