Lackawanna Cut-Off - Part 43: Rockport Wreck 100th Anniversary - June 16, 1925 (4K)

Mike Helbing from Metrotrails joins Chuck Walsh as co-host for a look-back at the deadliest tragedy in Warren County, NJ history: the Rockport Train Wreck in Mansfield Township south of Hackettstown. Mike and Chuck will describe and analyze the circumstances of the wreck, which took place in the early-morning hours of June 16, 1925 on the Lackawanna Railroad's Old Road. (The train should have traveled over the Cut-Off, but did not. We'll tell you why.) The accident, which claimed the lives of 45 passengers and 5 crew members, occurred because of debris that washed onto the Mansfield Township-Rockport Highway (today's Hazen Road) grade crossing during a torrential thunderstorm, and which caused the locomotive to derail and turn over. The train was on the final leg of its nearly 1,000-mile trip from Chicago to Hoboken when the passenger coaches of the special train carrying 182 German-Americans, headed for a summer vacation in Germany, derailed and piled upon the already-derailed steam locomotive, ripping off steam fittings that would shoot super-heated steam up into one coach in particular, the Sirocco, which the New York Times would dub "the death car." Dozens of passengers were scalded to death and many others were injured, some from steam and others from the blunt-force of the train that was traveling at a speed estimated at between 50-70 mph (81-113 kph). Our co-hosts will speak to what is known about the wreck, but will also try to figure out what isn't known about it, simply because the only member of the railroad crew to survive was the rear brakeman; the engineer, fireman, conductor and brakeman all died in the accident. The fifth member of the crew to perish, a Pullman porter, would become a hero because of his actions in trying to save others at the cost of the sacrifice of his own life. It's a fascinating, but tragic story. [Special thanks to our videographer and Part 107 drone pilot, Michael Herrmann.]