July 18, 1947 at Fonda, NY - wreck

Don Relyea sez: I hope these may be of interest. The wreck occurred on July 18, 1947 at Fonda, NY. My grandfather was the engineer operating engine number 2775, an L2a Mohawk I believe. He was the only one injured. It tied up all four tracks of the mainline for quite some time. He said the tower man switched his train into the backend of a work train sitting on a siding. He also said they never saw the tower man again after the wreck.

"He (engineer) said the tower man switched his train into the backend of a work train sitting on a siding."

The coal train was eastbound on track 4 and the 4 to siding switch was an interlocked switch. If the towerman had lined the coal train into the siding the best signal the train could get would have been a bottom arm, restricting. If that was the case the engineer would have been at fault for not having his train under control.

A newspaper article of the time suggest that the train hit a track motor car apparently hauling a compressor on a trailer. That equipment was likely located on track 4 at or near the switch to the siding. That could have caused the locomotive to detail and enter the crossover from track 4 to the siding where the work train was located. It appears that the fault was the towerman because he forgot about the TMC and compressor although that is difficult to understand as the siding switch was almost directly across from the tower. However, there may have been trains going by on tracks 1 and 2 which were closest to the tower distracting him enough that he cleared up for the eastbound coal train without thinking about the TMC and compressor. It would be nice to have all the details on what really happened.

I think the West Shore was still double track, ABS through that area at that time so at least the Central had a decent detour.
Noel Weaver

Look at the top picture that shows the WB Signal Bridge. The bottom arms visible of the two semaphore signals are the signals for WB moves on tracks #1 & #3. Immediately to the right of these semaphore signals appears to be a two unit dwarf signal. The plant had to have a slow speed signal to admit movements against the current of traffic on #4 track. Could this be it? Question is why wasn't a standard (single arm dwarf) placed at this location between #4 track & 4 siding to govern WB moves into the plant at FE? There is no similar signal to govern movements WB on #2 visible on the signal bridge which leads one to believe there was a standard dwarf between #2 & #1 on he ground for this purpose. ( Guess this is why we could never advertise as The Standard RR of the World.)

I agree that it is an unusual location but it does appear that it is the dwarf signal for westbound movements on track 4. I am sure there was a good reason why they did that and possibly because they did not want it located on the station platform where it might get damaged by a baggage truck or whatever. They had the signal bridge there so why not use it. I have found that the NYCRR located dwarf signals where they were most effective and it was not always in what we might consider the standard location. The dwarf signal for track 2 was located on the south side of track 2 away from the station platform.

You referred to "FE." "FE" or Fonda East came about in late 1952 or early 1953 and was located between mileage 184.32 and 184.69. Tower 16's office call was VN and was located at mileage 186.3.

Recognize VN is at 186.3 (ETT of 1956 186.29) . FE became CP-14 at 184.5 with the TCS and we called CP-15 at 187.9 FW . 46 year memory gets confused; had to go to railroad paper to get facts straight