1988 Conrail wreck on the Trenton Line.

[bronxtale]

In May 1988 a Conrail train derailed on the interstate steel switch located around M.P. 16.0. The line was being single tracked here at the time and there were no signals in service. I believe the switch was improperly lined at this location. Does anyone have any info on this wreck. Just curious.

[conrail6055]

While I'm not entirely familliar with the Trenton line, I believe this is the incident you're looking for-

May 11, 1988 at 2:40am train SEPY led by CR 6561 plus 2 was hauling 16x19 (3,410 tons) travelling 40mph on #2 track at MP15.7. Vandalism by way of either a switch thrown, or an object placed on the track caused the derailment. $138,300 equipment and $47,500 track damage.

[bronxtale]

Thanks Conrail6055

[JimBoylan]

I think it was Southbound into an open switch under the Byberry Rd. bridge. I heard a story that a trainman's keys were stolen while laying on the ties at the next siding South, then the Interstate Steel switch lock vanished. It was replaced with a M of W Dept. lock, which was found broken after the wreck.

[GOLDEN-ARM]

The line was already single tracked. I was at Newtown Jct., waiting for SEPY to come south, with engineer SDF running.(I was on the PYSE) Earlier in the week, a Philly cndr forgot his keys, in a switch, and they were "recovered" by some vandals. The section of track, from Cheltenham north back to the connection on the double track, is dark. (don't remember name of CP, at this point.) Track speed of 49 MPH was being run, when SDF saw switch open. He dumped it, ran into switch, crashed into loaded gons of structural steel, and locos rolled. SDF walked away, and ironically, this happened to him previously, on the ATSF, which resulted in him quitting that job, to find a safer place to railroad. Go figure. Two dark territory, rollover crashes, from open switches, same engineer. My train was backed down to CP River, and parked, awaiting clean-up of wreck. They never did find those keys, and I never ran track speed on that stretch of dark track, again. Regards