1982 RDC wreck details?

philajack wrote:The engineer who died in that 1982 wreck on the newtown line was a good friend and coworker, his name is Donald Williams my he rest in peace. I just love to read all the know it all people who know nothing about this operation that was the newtown-foxchase line. I ran those RDC cars with Donald and a group of good men who after finding out that the Conrail engineers considered us scabs just wanted out. Septa had other plans and took our subway jobs off the board, we had no job to go back to. On the matter of running one RDC car and the shunting factor, as a dispatcher in contact with Wayne dispatchers from Conrail I was well informed about the Conrail book of rules in regards to running two cars at all times due to safety factors with shunting signals at grade crossings. I reported said conversations to the ones in charge but to no avail. Also on that ridiculous statement that the engineer Donald Williams locked the cab door let me say this "are you nuts" Donald as well as the rest of us up there never locked the cab doors besides this was the suburbs not the subway ok...Thank you for your time....Subway511

Philajack/Subway 511, did you post pictures of the wreck online? I found some about 5 years ago, but they didn't have a photographer's credit that I could see. but I think I saw 511 in the folder name.

I reread the NTSB report this week to prepare for a presentation I'm doing at George School this Sunday to honor George M. Hart, GS '37 and interpret the station site for current and future students and visitors. I have a few Southampton pix and two at Newtown which I'd like to properly credit. Larry Eastwood will also present a brief history of the line and the other major accident in 1921.

The truck was SB, coming from the Engineer's left. The truck driver reported seeing a green light at the crossing, which was interlocked with the RR signals. He had changed lanes to avoid a car coming out from a side street, so he may have missed the initial red signals. Before that, he had made a right onto SSP from EB Street Rd.

The RDC was slowing for the station stop, and the truck driver's sight line was blocked and it appears he never heard the horn. By the time he saw the train, it was too late to stop.

The engineer's side hit the tank about 5 ft from the front end. The Oldsmobile was heading NB and waiting at the crossing, because he could see the train approaching. That driver stated that the RR lights had started and the Knowles Rd signal changed to red while the RDC was approaching, but then stopped and the light went green.

When the RDC hit the ARCO tank truck, it spun the tank around and flipped it *OVER* the Olds, landing on it's trunk. That driver was *REALLY* lucky to only get a few burns.
I don't think the engineer had much time to do anything before impact. Most of the 7900 gallons leaked and burned--some flowed into the sewer system and reappeared 350 ft south of the crash.

Unfortunately, the photo reproduction in the report was horrible- the aerial views looked like a photocopy of a photocopy of a muddy drawing. I was on winter break from GS, but saved the Intelligencer story. It may still be hidden somewhere in my files.

Philajack, thanks for posting his name- the report never mentioned it, that I could see. The crash didn't kill him, the burns took two weeks to do that.....

I rode the RDC's that winter from GS to Bryn Athyn- caught the 4:27- a much faster way to get home to Willow Grove than waiting for the school bus.

I don't believe any of today's MU's or cab cars would have fared much better than the RDC. Look at the horrible accidents with cab cars out west striking SUV's. (2008 Glendale & 2015 Oxnard where the engineer also died) I believe the Metrolink Rotem Bi-Level cab cars are no longer being operated as cab cars, as leased diesels are pulling them.

Cab cars and MU's are designed for train to train collisions and just don't have the tonnage of a locomotive to handle collisions with other objects well. Simple physics. And the restricted area of cab cars/mu cabs do not allow an engineer the escapability or safe haven of the large cab area of a locomotive cab.

If Amtrak 89 was a SEPTA MU or Amtrak Metroliner cab car, I believe they would not have fared as well as the ACS-64 did.

I believe a federal cab car/mu crash standard review or upgrade for engineer and passenger safety is overdue.

The latest issue of Conrail Quarterly (the Conrail Historical Society magazine) has a great article about the acquisition, rebuilding, operation, and disposition of RDC's 9167-9171 that were bought by PennDOT. The author was a mechanical employee at Reading Shops for the Reading, then Conrail, and later went on to SEPTA. His story also mentions the Fox Chase-Newtown operations... and adds more justification to the so-called "transitization" of the line. He makes the point that it was not only due to the imposition of Broad Street Subway operators and operating rules to a railroad line, but also in terms of the mechanical forces also brought over from the subway and the lack of training they were given (he mentions some ill-advised maintenance instructions they were given that all but destroyed the engines of several of the RDC's). In the end, the poor maintenance led to only two RDC's being in operational condition in the last few months of operation.

He does get into the Southampton crash as well, and it all boiled down to information already mentioned here regarding use of the excitation devices, not using single-car trains on non-equipped units, etc.

He mentions January 24th, 1983 as being the last day of service... and they did not even make it to noon that day. Per his account, the first round trip of the morning using those last two rail-worthy Budds arrived back in Newtown only to find a piece of brake equipment missing from underneath the train (reportedly later found laying in between the rails back near Bethayres). Shuttle buses were called out to finish the day.... and as it then came to pass, the buses ran from then on out until the shuttle route was eliminated in 1999.

Another comment I have to make about SEPTA having a "transit" mentality vs. railroad operations. From 1986 until his death in 2014, I got to know and become good friends with a SEPTA planner at then-841 Chestnut and through the move to 1234 Market. In some of our early correspondence and chats in person in the late 1980's, he told me that SEPTA had an ultimate vision of making all of the railroad more of a rapid transit subway/metro type system.... service every 10 to 15 minutes all day, all high level platforms, one-man operations, etc. Now we all know how the situation actually was, and why the vision is so far-fetched... but still, with it being mentioned within that they really wanted the railroad to be more of a transit operation... there is something to be said for those "transitization" comments made concerning how they attempted to operate HS-1 at the time.

I too have heard comments about the "maintenance" the RDC's received including the fact that the engines leaked so bad that they needed to have the oil topped off after almost every run and the final demise of several of being that transmission fluid was put in them as opposed to motor oil. That's not going to last very long.

I've got a recalection of the RDC wreck. I'm wondering why it occurred in 1982 since Septa suburban rail only began on Jan 1, 1983. Here's a paragraph from Wiki to confirm that. "In 1976, Conrail took over the railroad-related assets and operations of the bankrupt PRR and RDG railroads, including the commuter rail operations. Conrail provided commuter rail services under contract to SEPTA until January 1, 1983, when SEPTA assumed operations.[10"
I was working a tower in Hagerstown, Maryland, at the end of 1982, and I bid back to New Jersey befoe Jan. 1983 so I could bid a job on NJT, which I did.

While everything was technically owned and operated by Conrail from 1976 onwards it was operated under the SEPTA banner with subsidies from Pennsylvania.

Thanks for the information. In 1982 I also worked the Reading extra board, mainly Oley and Valley Junction towers, and temporary block stations, and traveling representative, (freight agent) jobs, for a few months; and before that, Weston tower in Manville, running Yorkers which were two unit Budds, and freights on the double track line between Trent tower in West Trenton and Manville.
When I was in Reading I heard that one of the guys had gone to Philadelphia and found that going to Septa ticket office work would be a bad idea, because some outfit called Blue Ribbon was going to run it and pay substandard wages.
But I don't recall knowing that Septa was already in business.
The Pennsy got some engine crews off the front of the engine by making GG1s and some P5as steeple cabs.

philipmartin wrote:I've got a recalection of the RDC wreck. I'm wondering why it occurred in 1982 since Septa suburban rail only began on Jan 1, 1983. Here's a paragraph from Wiki to confirm that. "In 1976, Conrail took over the railroad-related assets and operations of the bankrupt PRR and RDG railroads, including the commuter rail operations. Conrail provided commuter rail services under contract to SEPTA until January 1, 1983, when SEPTA assumed operations.[10"
I was working a tower in Hagerstown, Maryland, at the end of 1982, and I bid back to New Jersey befoe Jan. 1983 so I could bid a job on NJT, which I did.

The Fox Chase - Newtown "Rapid Transit Line" was operated directly by SEPTA utilizing engineers who were originally Broad Street Subway motormen. It was not operated by Conrail and the result was UTU/BLE pickets being set up at Fox Chase blocking the RDC's from entering the station, missed connections due to Fox Chase to Reading Terminal trains leaving early, etc. The tragic Southampton crash and destruction of the RDC's were the final nails in the coffin for the line.

Thanks to insufficient training, improper use of equipment on the line, poor maintenance and plain old incompetence.
They wanted the line dead!

Stumbled upon this the other night while looking up the history of the old NADC

http://www.navairdevcen.org/Reflectors/ ... 0,-121,574" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This photo is from TADs Newtown line
http://trainspot.rrpicturearchives.net/ ... x?id=27175" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The info with the picture: Title: SPAX 9164
Description: Newtown wrecked RDC.
Photo Date: 9/1/1982 Upload Date: 7/19/2009 12:30:18 PM
Location: Wilmington, DE
Author: Tim Darnell
Categories: RollingStock
Locomotives: SPAX 9164(RDC1)
:

The car was stripped of all usable parts ( engines, radiators, traps and even the trucks ) before it met it's final fate.

9164 in better days: [img][/img]