Frankford Junction train wreck

The railway accident at Frankford Junction was from a heated axle bearings of a passenger car of the Congressional Limited, the " flagship " of the Pennsylvania Railroad, on September 6, 1943 Frankford Junction in Kensington (Philadelphia ) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania caused. 79 people died and over 117 were injured, some seriously.

Starting position

The Congressional Limited sailed the route between Washington DC and New York several times a day with the very high for its time average speed of 110 km / h Since it was extended to the Labour Day weekend, the train was operated with a garnish of 16 cars because of Andrangs travelers. He left the Washington Union Station with 541 passengers by 16 clock. Was bred to the train of an electric locomotive class GG1. The regular stopover in Newark, New Jersey, should fail in this particular train and the train to New York Pennsylvania Station go through.

Circumstances of the accident

With the passage of the train in the North Philadelphia train station the train was slightly ahead of schedule and the inspectors observed nothing unusual. Workers in a railway depot where the train drove past shortly afterwards, noticed flames that erupted from a journal, a hot runner. They called the next block post, Frankford Junction. It was seconds too late. Before the staff there could do anything, the train already drove past his signal box at a speed of 90 km / hr. It was 18 clock 06 Immediately following was the glowing axle bearings in the front bogie of the seventh car after the axis jumped out, broke and got wedged under the truck. The car catapulted himself thereby into the air and struck a signal bridge, which slashed the car at the height of window lengthwise. The eighth car U-shaped bent to the signal bridge. All 79 deaths were travelers in these two cars. The next six cars derailed and were badly damaged and scattered to lie on the track field. The last two cars remained undamaged, as well as the first six.

Follow

The salvage operation lasted 26 hours. Among the survivors was the Chinese author Lin Yutang.

The accident investigation revealed that the axle bearing had been waiting until the morning of the same day. At all points the block passing trains were observed visually from the employees working there on hot runners, as the engine crew, the locomotive of the train looked at in the following curves for problems. It was never clear why these hot box only noticed when it was already too late.