Inside The Worst Train Crash in US History | Crazy Interesting Posts | New York Post

It was a tragedy so horrific that the name of the street was changed so New Yorkers would not be reminded of it. And, indeed, a quick survey of commuters at the Prospect Park subway station, including the booth agent and a train conductor, finds that none of them had heard of the Malbone Street wreck.

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From 'Inside the worst train wreck in NYC history'

Exactly one century ago this year, though, the Q and S station was the site of the worst mass-transit accident in New York City history. Today, the crash’s legacy impacts straphangers on a daily basis but has no physical marker, save a handful of burial records and a rumored bump in a wall.

On Nov. 1, 1918, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers went on strike. So, with hardly any training, 23-year-old Brooklyn Rapid Transit employee Edward Luciano became a scab motorman. That evening, after toiling on the job for 10 consecutive hours, Luciano was assigned to drive a rush-hour Brighton Beach Line train (today’s B and Q line) home from Manhattan to the edge of Brooklyn. It was dark by then, the strike had caused delays, the line was a challenging one, and Luciano was unfamiliar with it, exhausted and intent on making up for lost time. Disaster awaited.

Luciano lost control of the train almost immediately, not versed in the complex braking maneuvers necessary to ease the wooden five-car train along the stretch’s steep, curving tracks. His driving was so erratic that passengers exited in droves during the preceding stations, emptying the train by half. Still, 400 straphangers were inside when tragedy struck.

Driving the train at such a rapid clip that it was unable to brake for a station on its route, Luciano took a hairpin S-curve in a 6-mph zone at 44 mph. The train jumped the track and crashed into a concrete wall.

The wooden car roofs were sheared off. Glass from broken windows impaled bodies. The screams carried to the street, where a ticket seller called for the police. BRT electricians, not knowing the third rail had been ripped up in the wreck, assumed deliberate damage from union members and restored power — electrocuting dozens of survivors limping to safety. Ebbets Field became a makeshift hospital for the hundreds of injured. In all, the death toll clocked near 100.

Luciano, physically unscathed, ran home in hysterics.

According to a series of graphic New York Times headlines, the crash was heard a mile away. “Thousands seek friends,” blares one line. “Rescue hindered by jam of debris in narrow tunnel — hardly a soul escapes from first car,” and “Scores killed or maimed in Brighton tunnel wreck; first car crashes into tunnel pier and other cars grind it to splinters.”

A historic and sensational case was brought against the BRT following the accident, marking “the first time railroad management was brought to account for a fatal accident,” according to Stan Fischler’s “Uptown Downtown: A Trip Through Time on New York’s Subways,” which includes a deeply researched account of the tragedy, including firsthand stories.

In response to the cry for improved safety measures, “trippers,” a concept still in use today, were implemented to prevent trains from speeding and running red signals. The “dead man’s switch” was also birthed in the aftermath of the wreck: Should a motorman die, or let go of the controls for some other reason, a dead man’s switch will bring the train to a halt.

While the waves of change in the wake of the catastrophe are difficult to measure so many years later, it is easy to count the physical remainders, as there are hardly any. Malbone Street was rechristened Empire Boulevard, the old name too full of death. The BRT went bankrupt the very next month and eventually returned as the BMT, or Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp.

Off Empire Boulevard, though, there’s still a one-block stretch called Malbone Street. No plaques adorn it or the police precinct a block away in memoriam; only for those who know does the little strip feel somewhat ominous.

The records at Green-Wood Cemetery hold the gory details of the crash’s impact on individual bodies. In the flourishing cursive handwriting of a cemetery office clerk, a November 1918 ledger includes 13 entries in which the place of death includes “Malbone Street” or, in one case, “BRT accident.” The listed causes include multiple fractured skulls, alongside the victim’s age, place of birth, last address and grave lot.

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