Woodcliff Lake Erie Damaged by Crashed Car

The depot at Woodcliff Lake, constructed by the Erie Railroad, which is one of my favorite designs because it's a rarity of Erie Railroad design has met a nasty, yet uncommon fate. I've seen depots demolished by fire, bulldozers, and even derailing trains. I don't think I have seen a car crash into a depot. Seems very rare.

Story on NJ.com here. Quote below:

WOODCLIFF LAKE -- A Hillsdale teen crashed into the Woodcliff Lake train station Saturday, authorities said.

The 17-year-old was unhurt and pulled himself out of the car, Woodcliff Lake Deputy Fire Chief Dan Schuster said.

He was cited for careless driving, Nancy Snyder, a spokesman for NJ Transit, said. The crash left the building, which houses a waiting room, heavily damaged.

As for opinion, I am heavily disappointed that this happened because the Erie depot was so nice, and given the structural damage, it appears that this now heading for the scrapheap. There is no way the building can stand like that since the inner portion was like Ashland OH's depot, which met a train wreck in 1943.

It's still there, now some two and a half months later. It's been boarded up for now, but the way the car went through the building, it actually avoided any load bearing members, so the building is actually still structurally sound, from what I was told. Really lucky in that regard; the car went through the south facing wall, diagonally out the west facing one. But it also missed the corner support beams in the walls.

I didn't catch this when it was originally posted but the crazy thing is that this is the second time that this had happened there in past couple years. Any coherent driver can obviously handle the curve fine, but if you were to "forget" to curve right at the end of the causeway, you'd head straight into the depot.

oknazevad wrote:It's still there, now some two and a half months later. It's been boarded up for now, but the way the car went through the building, it actually avoided any load bearing members, so the building is actually still structurally sound, from what I was told. Really lucky in that regard; the car went through the south facing wall, diagonally out the west facing one. But it also missed the corner support beams in the walls.

Fair enough, I just remember Ashland taking similar damage and being unsustainable.