On this day in history, in 1939, the passenger train the Blue Comet derailed in the Pinelands just outside of Chatsworth, New Jersey. Of the forty nine passengers and crew, thirty eight were injured and one was killed.
The Blue comet was a passenger train that operated on the Central Jersey Railroad from 1929 to 1941. Its cars conveyed people between New York City and Atlantic City with speed and luxury. First introduced in 1929, the locomotive operated successfully and without any major problems, until a rainy night in the late summer of 1939.
On August 19th, 1939, the train was traveling east-bound, toward New York City. During its trip, a severe thunderstorm overwhelmed the region, dumping an estimated fourteen inches of rain along the route. Due to poor visibility and fear of a washout on the tracks, the Blue Comet’s Conductor and Engine man reduced the train’s speed from the usual Seventy miles per hour to a much safer forty. As it turned out, it was a move that probably saved many lives.
Near milepost 86, about a mile west of Chatsworth, the train hit a washout. Rain water from the storm overwhelmed two culverts that were meant to carry water away from the track. As the water pooled, it undermined the roadbed. When the Blue Comet ran across this section of track, all five cars uncoupled from the tender and derailed.
Initial reports at the scene claimed that nearly one-hundred had died in the wreck, but in actuality there was only one fatality. If not for the foresight of the Conductor and Engineer, who slowed the train down considerably during the storm, the accident might have been far worse.
Work Cited
Larson, Eric. The Night the Streaking Blue Comet Crashed. Asbury Park Press. August 15, 2014. http://www.app.com/…/…/14/erik-larsen-jersey-roots/14075895/
Pearce, John E. Heart of the Pines. Batsto Citizens Committee. 2000. p.47
Jerseyman. The Travail of the Blue Comet. NJ Pine Barrens.com. 2007. NJpinebarrens.com/the-travail-of-the-blue-comet/
Carbone, Mariel. The 1939 Wreck of the Blue Comet is wrecked in Woodland. Burlington County Times. August 12, 2014. http://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/…/article_26b86e05-8fb…
Larson, Eric. The Night the Streaking Blue Comet Crashed. Asbury Park Press. August 15, 2014. http://www.app.com/…/…/14/erik-larsen-jersey-roots/14075895/
Pearce, John E. Heart of the Pines. Batsto Citizens Committee. 2000. p.47
Jerseyman. The Travail of the Blue Comet. NJ Pine Barrens.com. 2007. NJpinebarrens.com/the-travail-of-the-blue-comet/
Carbone, Mariel. The 1939 Wreck of the Blue Comet is wrecked in Woodland. Burlington County Times. August 12, 2014. http://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/…/article_26b86e05-8fb…
1 comment:
The Comet actually ran from Jersey City to Atlantic City. Only the Pennsylvania Railroad had Atlantic City trains that ran directly into NYC. That, the Great Depression and the consolidation of the PRR's and Reading Railroad's (which owned the CRRNJ) two competing shore lines to become the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Line and using the PRR tracks, all helped to kill the Blue Comet in 1939. Its main Atlantic City-New York competitor, the PRR's Nellie Bly, continued until 1961.
NJ Transit now uses the old PRR right-of-way from AC to Philly. The Reading RR's former right-of-way is now Reading Road in Mullica.
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