A rear-end collision between two New York Central passenger trains occurred at Dunkirk, on July 1, 1919 resulting in the death of 8 passengers and the injury of 170 others. The following are the official Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) report on the accident and a series of articles and editorials in Railway Age magazine about the accident.
Interstate Commerce Commission Report
July, August, and September, 1919.
The summary of reports made to the Interstate Commerce Commission by the Chief of the Bureau of Safety covering accidents investigated by that bureau, heretofore published as an appendix to the accident bulletin, will hereafter be issued as a separate publication.
The last summary published, in Accident Bulletin No. 72, contained accident reports completed during the months of April, May, and June, 1919. The following is a summary of reports made to the Interstate Commerce Commission by the Chief of the Bureau of Safety covering accident investigations which were completed during the quarter ended September 30, 1919.
The statements in these reports of the number of persons killed and injured in the accidents investigated are the figures obtained at the time of the investigation of the accidents.
New York Central Railroad.
Rear-end collision between two passenger trains at Dunkirk, N. Y., on July 1, 1919 resulting in the death of 8 passengers, 3 employees, and 1 trespasser, and the injury of 170 passengers, 2 employees, 5 persons carried under contract, and 1 other person.
This accident was caused by the closing of the angle cock in the train line at the rear end of the tender, thus preventing the train brakes from being applied when the engineman attempted to bring the train to a stop.
The division on which this accident occurred is a four-track road with the exception of 8,100 feet of three-track road through the city of Dunkirk, within which territory the collision occurred. Track 1 is used by all westbound movements of the New York Central Railroad, these movements being directed at this point from X tower, about 900 feet east of the point of collision, or 1,100 feet east of Dunkirk passenger station. Train movements in general are governed by automatic block signals, the indications at night being red, yellow, and green, for stop, caution, and proceed, respectively. There is a mechanical interlocking plant controlled from X tower; all of the signals controlled from this tower are semiautomatic. The collision occurred on tangent track, where the grade is 0.3 per cent descending for westbound trains. At the time of the accident the weather was clear.
Westbound passenger train second No. 41, consisting of 1 mail car, 2 baggage cars, 3 day coaches, and 5 sleeping cars, hauled by engine 4811, left Buffalo, 40 miles cast of Dunkirk, at 12.40 a. m., 38 minutes late and arrived at Dunkirk at 1.33 a. m. After doing station work the train started at 1.43 a. m., and after proceeding about two train lengths was brought to a stop by the flagman, who opened the emergency valve on account of a hot box on the rear car. The train backed to the station, reaching there at about 1.50 a. m., and car inspectors had nearly finished changing a brass in the journal box when, at 2.18 a. m., train No. 7 approached and collided with the rear end of train second No. 41.
Westbound passenger train No. 7, consisting of 1 express car, 1 coach, 4 Pullman sleeping cars, 1 combination car, 1 coach and 4 Pullman sleeping cars, hauled by engine 4808, left Clinton Street Station, Buffalo, at 1.24 a. m., 4 minutes late, and while traveling at a speed estimated to have been about 40 miles an hour collided with the rear end of train second No. 41.
Train second No. 41 was driven forward a distance of about 175 feet. The boiler of engine 4808 apparently overrode the steel center sills of the rear sleeping car, which had a steel underframe, and was sheared from the engine frame, telescoping the wooden superstructure of the sleeping car for about two-thirds of its length. This car was turned over into the street paralleling the roadway and was practically demolished. The steel sleeping car immediately ahead of it was also overturned, but the damage was confined to the vestibules and the breaking of windows. The first car in train No. 7, a wooden express car, was caught between the tender ahead of it and the steel day coach behind it and demolished. The forward end of this day coach was telescoped a distance of about 15 feet by the tender and the wreckage of the express car.
Investigation developed that the flagman of train second No. 41 went back a sufficient distance to provide adequate protection for his train under normal conditions and that he began giving stop signals as soon as train No. 7 came in sight. That the automatic signals gave the proper indications was not questioned. The evidence also indicates that the brakes on train No. 7 were working satisfactorily when tested at Clinton Street Station and that they worked when making two stops in Buffalo yard, and also when reducing speed over Silver Creek water pan, about 4 miles east of Dunkirk. On the other hand, the evidence also indicates that when the engineman attempted to bring his train under control approaching Dunkirk he was unable to do so on account of the fact that the angle cock at the rear of the tender had been closed, thus rendering the train brakes inoperative. It is apparent that he shut off steam and applied the brakes in sufficient time to have enabled him to bring his train to a stop had the train brakes been in operation, and when he realized that something was wrong with the air he began to sound the whistle signal calling for brakes. The angle cock was of the self-locking type, having notches into which the handle fitted when it was placed in the open or closed position. How this angle cock became closed is more or less a matter of conjecture, but it is supposed to have been done by a trespasser, whose body was found crushed between the tender and wreckage of the express car and the head end of the day coach. It is supposed that, wishing to stop at Dunkirk, of which place he was a resident, and knowing that the train he was riding did not stop there, he turned the angle cock, thinking he could in this way apply the brakes and bring the train to a stop, thus enabling him to get off in safety. (A detailed report covering the investigation of this accident was published by the Commission under the date of September 2, 1919.)
Railway Age Articles
Rear Collision at Dunkirk, N. Y.
Vol. 67, No. 1, p. 40In a rear collision of passenger trains on the New York Central at Dunkirk, N. Y., on the morning of July 1 at 2:20, eight passengers, the baggageman, the engineman and the fireman of train No. 7, and one trespasser were killed, and 17 passengers were injured. A number of others sustained minor injuries. Westbound passenger train No. 41, standing at the station, was run into at the rear by westbound passenger No. 7, wrecking the rear sleeping car. No. 7 struck at 40 or 50 miles an hour. The baggage car of No. 7, a wooden car, was crushed, and the coach next behind it, a steel car, was turned crosswise of the track and its side torn open; and in this car and the rear sleeper of No. 41 the passenger fatalities occurred. The trespasser was riding between the tender and the leading baggage car.
Train 41 had been standing at the station about 47 minutes because of a hot journal. It was properly protected by a home block signal 2,000 ft. back and a distant signal 4,125 ft. farther back; and the flagman was back 1,700 ft. with a red light. There is, however, no question about protection, as the engineman of No. 7, F. L. Clifford, had sounded the whistle for hand brakes, indicating that the air brakes did not properly act. Clifford was alive when taken from his engine and said that the brakes did not hold. This seems to be confirmed by the examination of the wreck, which disclosed that the air-brake angle cock at the rear of the tender was shut; and it is believed that the riding there had closed it, intentionally or otherwise. This trespasser was identified as Charles Schiller. He was a resident of Dunkirk, which tends to confirm the supposition that, finding that the train was likely to pass through the town without stopping, he decided to himself apply the brakes and assumed that he could do this by turning the angle cock.
The Closed Angle Cock
Editorial, pg. 137The need that something be done to remove the menace of the closed angle cock requires no more striking evidence than that afforded by the circumstance of the rear collision which occurred on the New York Central it Dunkirk, N. Y., on the morning of July 1. With the standing train, No. 41, protected by a home block signal 2,000 ft. back and a distant signal 6,000 ft. back of the point at which the collision occurred, the evidence indicates that the engineman of the following train, No. 7, first attempted to control the speed of his train on approaching the distant signal, only to discover that he had no control of the train brakes. The evidence further indicates that he lost his control of the train brakes probably only a few seconds before the need for their use arose, due to the closing of the angle cock at the rear of the tender by a trespasser riding the “blind baggage,” who wished to leave the train at Dunkirk. The loss of train control through the closing of an angle cock, generally that at the rear of the tender, has for years been of too frequent occurrence. This has been caused by carelessness or forgetfulness on the part of employees, by trespassers and by other accidental means not always easily identified. As long as the safety of the train may thus be jeopardized without warning the absolute removal of this menace is probably impossible. As long as human fallibility must be depended upon without check, failure to provide an unrestricted brake pipe through carelessness or forgetfulness will occasionally occur. There is no inherent reason, however, why some protection against the tampering of trespassers riding on the trains cannot be provided and some means should be evolved to prevent the possibility of moving the angle cock except by a person on the ground. Further protection at the most vulnerable point in the train might be provided by placing the control of opening and closing the brake pipe passage on the locomotive and tender in the hands of the engineman. These suggestions apply to passenger service. The means which might be justified by the terrible consequences in loss of life and personal injuries from a failure of the brakes on passenger trains, might not prove equally practicable when applied to freight equipment. The menace in the latter case however, although perhaps not as serious is in the case of passenger trains, is great enough to demand consideration and persistent effort in the development of means for its removal.
Letters to the Editor
Vol. 67, No. 3, pg. 92
The Dunkirk Wreck and the Deadly Angle CockTo the editor:
Nearly forty-seven years have passed since the automatic air brake came into use as a means for controlling the motion of railway trains, and for over thirty years it has been in general use on both passenger and freight trains, yet it still retains that fundamental element of danger-the closed angle cock.With the automatic brakes now in general use, the train may be charged, the brakes tested and everything put in working order before leaving the terminal, and yet before or after the train departs, an angle cock may be closed between the engine and tender, or elsewhere in the train, without the knowledge of the engineman or of any member of the train crew and thus deprive them, at the critical moment, of the only means on which they rely for safely controlling the train. This may be caused accidentally through something falling upon the angle cock, by a tramp accidentally or maliciously, or by an employee forgetting to open a closed angle cock. There have been many cases of the last.
No more convincing evidence of this truth is required than that furnished by the investigation of the recent rear collision at Dunkirk, resulting in the loss of many lives, the serious injury to a score or more of passengers and a heavy loss in property damage, due to an angle cock being closed between the engine and the first car.
It is reported as a result of the investigation that the engineman of the second train shut off steam probably half a mile cast of the distant signal, and that be began to sound the whistle signal for brakes at about the time the locomotive passed the distant signal, which was some 6,000 ft. east of the point at which the collision occurred. The evidence indicated quite positively, therefore, that the angle cock on the rear of the tender must have been closed before passing the distant signal, or at any rate but very little later. The engineman probably realized be was powerless to stop his train fully a minute and a half before the collision occurred.
It has remained for the Automatic Straight Air Brake Company to provide against this menace to the safety of the movement of passenger and freight trains by the development of a brake designed on superior principles, in which, when an angle cock is closed, the brakes apply within a few seconds. On the other hand, a sluggish feed valve does not cause the brakes to apply,
The application of the A. S. A. brake depends merely upon a brake pipe reduction being made, and is positive and precise regardless of the rate of reduction, which is such a vital element in the operation of other types of brake equipment. With brake pipe leakage of, say, two pounds per minute, which is a reasonable assumption for a train of that character, it may be positively asserted that had A. S. A. brake equipment been in use on Train No. 7, the train brakes would have been applied before the collision occurred, with the result of, if not entirely preventing the accident, at least greatly mitigating the severity of the collision and reducing the extent of the disaster. Had the angle cock been as far back as the water station pans the A. S. A. brake would have stopped the train without any collision whatever. It is obvious that the improved brake is an urgent necessity for the protection of lives and property in the daily operation of the railroads.