Malbone Street Wreck
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The Malbone Street wreck, also known as the Brighton Beach Line accident, was a
rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT) or heavy rail, commonly referred to as metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport that is generally built in urban areas. A grade separation, grade separated rapid transit line below ground su ...
railroad accident that occurred on November 1, 1918, on the
New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...
's
BMT Brighton Line The BMT Brighton Line, also known as the Brighton Beach Line, is a rapid transit line in the B Division of the New York City Subway in Brooklyn, New York. Local service is provided at all times by the Q train, but is joined by the B express ...
(now part of the
BMT Franklin Avenue Line The BMT Franklin Avenue Line (also known as the Brighton–Franklin Line) is a Medium-capacity rail system, lower capacity rapid transit line of the New York City Subway, New York City Subway’s B Division (NYCS), B Division in Brooklyn, New ...
) in the
Flatbush Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood consists of several subsections in central Brooklyn and is generally bounded by Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park to the nort ...
neighborhood of
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. A speeding train derailed in the sharply curved tunnel beneath Willink Plaza, the intersection of
Flatbush Avenue Flatbush Avenue is a major avenue in the New York City Borough (New York City), Borough of Brooklyn. It runs from the Manhattan Bridge south-southeastward to Jamaica Bay, where it joins the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, which ...
, Ocean Avenue, and Malbone Street (now known as Empire Boulevard). At least 93 people died, making it the second-deadliest train crash in
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...
history, as well as the deadliest crash in the
history of the New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system that serves four of the five boroughs of New York City, New York: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Its operator is the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), which is controlled b ...
. The circumstances leading to the crash included a
labor strike Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became co ...
against the
Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) was a public transit holding company formed in 1896 to acquire and consolidate railway lines in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States. It was a prominent corporation and industry leader using ...
(BRT). The BRT had tried to keep service running with non-striking personnel, and decided to use Antonio Edward Luciano, a crew
dispatcher A dispatcher is a Communication, communications worker who receives and transmits information to coordinate operations of other personnel and vehicles carrying out a service. Emergency organizations including police, police departments, fire de ...
with no experience operating the line. Other factors in the crash included the serpentine layout of the track and the weight of the individual train cars. In the aftermath of the crash, Luciano and BRT officials were placed on trial for
manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...
. Ultimately, all the defendants were
acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal means that the criminal prosecution has failed to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charge presented. It certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an o ...
or their
indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an ind ...
s were dropped. The BRT gradually phased out wooden cars and additional train protection devices were installed. The two most heavily damaged train cars were scrapped. In 1923, the BRT became the
Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) was an urban transit holding company, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, and incorporated in 1923. The system was sold to the city in 1940. Today, together with the IND subway sy ...
, having gone bankrupt due to the accident. The tunnel in which the wreck occurred remained in daily passenger operation for forty years. A memorial to the crash was installed in 2019.


Incident

The Malbone Street wreck occurred on Friday, November 1, 1918, at 6:42p.m., during the end-of-week
rush hour A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English, Indian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice e ...
, and involved about 650 passengers. The
elevated train An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks). The rai ...
, consisting of five cars constructed primarily of wood, entered the tunnel portal beneath Malbone Street, going toward the Prospect Park station, negotiating a
reverse curve In civil engineering, a reverse curve (or "S" curve) is a section of the horizontal alignment of a highway or rail route in which a curve to the left or right is followed immediately by a curve in the opposite direction. On highways in the Unit ...
designated to be taken at at a speed estimated at between . The back wheels of the first car derailed, and the two following cars completely left the tracks, tearing off their left-hand sides and most of their roofs. The first and fourth cars sustained relatively minor damage, while the second and third cars were severely damaged. The fifth suffered no damage at all. The motorman, 25-year-old Antonio Edward Luciano, was not injured and left the scene of the accident. Passengers were trapped in what ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' later described as "a darkened jungle of steel dust and wood splinters, glass shards and iron beams projecting like
bayonet A bayonet (from Old French , now spelt ) is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , now spelt ) is a knife, dagger">knife">-4; we might wonder whethe ...
s." One surviving passenger, lawyer Charles Darling, had become so concerned about the train's speed that he dropped to the floor and braced himself moments before the crash. Darling later confronted Luciano and asked the motorman what had gone wrong. "I don't know," Luciano told Darling. "I lost control of the damn thing. That's all." It took 45 minutes for all rescuers to descend to the site of the accident. The nearest hospital was at capacity with patients from the
Spanish flu The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest docum ...
epidemic, and a makeshift infirmary was set up at
Ebbets Field Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball stadium in the Flatbush, Brooklyn, Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City, New York. It is mainly known for having been the home of the History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooklyn Dodgers baseball tea ...
for crash injuries.


Causes

The Malbone Street wreck was the result of a series of individual circumstances.


Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers strike

The
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) is a trade union, labor union founded in Marshall, Michigan, on 8 May 1863 as the Brotherhood of the Footboard. It was the first permanent trade organization for railroad workers in the ...
, representing some of the motormen operating elevated trains of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT), had just gone on
strike Strike may refer to: People *Strike (surname) * Hobart Huson, author of several drug related books Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm * Airstrike, ...
that morning, November 1, over issues involving union organizing and the discharge from employment of twenty-nine of its members. This created a shortage of motormen to operate the system. The BRT elected to keep service running with non-striking personnel, which included men in other unions, including the
company union A company or "yellow" union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law (see ILO Convention 98, Article ...
. Hours after the crash occurred, and less than 24 hours after the strike began, it was discontinued.


Motorman's lack of experience

Luciano, the derailed train's motorman, was a crew
dispatcher A dispatcher is a Communication, communications worker who receives and transmits information to coordinate operations of other personnel and vehicles carrying out a service. Emergency organizations including police, police departments, fire de ...
who was pressed into service during the strike. He had never operated an elevated train in passenger service before, was not familiar with the Brighton Beach Line, and his only experience moving trains was parking non-revenue trains in a
train yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...
a year earlier. Luciano had received less than three hours of classroom instruction in being a motorman, and was never officially certified as one. The norm was no fewer than 90 hours of instruction and hands-on training. In addition to his inexperience, Luciano was mourning the death of his infant daughter who had been a victim of the Spanish flu epidemic and whose funeral had been three days before, while Luciano himself was recovering from a recent bout of the flu.


Tunnel layout

The single-track tunnel in which the wreck occurred had been opened only weeks before the accident. It consisted of a sharp curve designed to take
Coney Island Coney Island is a neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to ...
-bound trains of the Brighton Beach Line around a new underground mainline, which was under construction. Previously, trains entered Prospect Park southbound through the original tunnel, which provided a straighter, more direct route. Trains going northbound continued to come out of Prospect Park using the original track and straighter tunnel, still in use. Shortly following the crash, engineers were sent to investigate whether the curved tunnel may have been of faulty construction.


Train coupling

The train consisted of three motor cars and two trailer cars. The motor cars were about twice as heavy as the trailer cars, and the trailers were more top-heavy, especially with a passenger load. Standard procedure was to avoid coupling two trailer cars together by having a single trailer between two motor cars. The heavier motor cars provided stability for the lighter trailers. In the train that derailed, two trailers were coupled together, sandwiched between motor cars on either end of the train. The trailer cars – numbered 80 and 100 – sustained the bulk of the damage and fatalities, while the two motor cars at the rear of the train did not derail.


Train speed

The train was operating at at least , or 5 times the speed limit, when it derailed. The accident occurred within the reverse curve, which had a speed limit of . Luciano said during his interview that he had attempted to slow the train, but the subsequent investigation of the wreck indicated that he had not attempted to engage the emergency brake or to reverse the train's motors. Witnesses interviewed by ''The New York Times'' also said that the train had not slowed approaching or in the S-curve until the cars left the tracks. In the minutes leading up to the wreck, Luciano had difficulty timing the train's progress, overshooting multiple stations. Bypassing the Consumers Park station (today
Botanic Garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...
) meant Luciano wouldn't apply the brakes as the train descended a 70-foot incline from Crown Heights to the tunnel near the Willink Plaza entrance to Prospect Park.


Investigation and trial

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John F. Hylan and his administration blamed the BRT and brought Luciano and company officials to trial for manslaughter. The
Brooklyn District Attorney The Kings County District Attorney's Office, also known as the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, is the district attorney's office for Kings County, coterminous with the Borough of Brooklyn, in New York City. The office is responsible for th ...
, Harry E. Lewis, opened a separate investigation into the crash. In a December 1918 meeting, members of the Brighton Elevated Wreck Victims and Passengers' Protective Association were allegedly heard saying, "Kill them! Shoot them!" in response to a proposed
change of venue A change of venue is the legal term for moving a trial (law), trial to a new location. In high-profile matters, a change of venue may occur to move a jury trial away from a location where a fair and impartial jury may not be possible due to wides ...
for the trial, but the association denied the allegation. Meanwhile, several BRT officers were held on
bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Court bail may be offered to secure the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when ...
before the trial. Upon the request of the former BRT president, Timothy S. Williams, the trial's location was changed from Brooklyn to the town of Mineola in Nassau County. This was done to ensure the BRT officials'
right to a fair trial A fair trial is a trial which is "conducted fairly, justly, and with procedural regularity by an impartial judge". Various rights associated with a fair trial are explicitly proclaimed in Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, th ...
, by holding the legal proceedings as far away from Brooklyn as possible. The trial opened in March 1919. The prosecutorial focus required the BRT to present a coherent
defense Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense industr ...
on behalf of both its officials and Luciano. Because of this, neither the proximate cause of the wreck nor the excessive speed of the train was adequately explained. Luciano testified on his own behalf, contending that he was in control of the train but that the train did not respond properly. This opposed the BRT's own physical examination of the equipment, which showed that the brakes were in good operating order, were not placed in "emergency" application, and that other means of slowing or stopping the train, such as reversing the motors, had not been attempted. Since his defense focused on these contentions, other issues that could have caused him to operate the train at excessive speed were not examined, such as his
insomnia Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder where people have difficulty sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep for as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low ene ...
, a desire to make up time because of earlier switching problems, or his unfamiliarity with the route on which he was operating. In May 1919, the BRT settled with the widows of two victims, followed by payouts to more victims that October. The same December, the BRT was ordered to pay out another $1.2 million in
damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognized at ...
. By 1921, all of the defendants had been acquitted or had their indictments dropped. One official, BRT vice president John J. Dempsey, received a
hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. A hung jury may result in the case being tried again. Thi ...
and was not retried. By March 1921, the BRT had a combined $75 million in crash-related
lien A lien ( or ) is a form of security interest granted over an item of property to secure the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation. The owner of the property, who grants the lien, is referred to as the ''lienee'' and the pers ...
s, and was out of funding to pay further claims. The BRT later went into
receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver – a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights" – especia ...
, which ended in early 1923. The
Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) was an urban transit holding company, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, and incorporated in 1923. The system was sold to the city in 1940. Today, together with the IND subway sy ...
(BMT), which succeeded the BRT, ended up being responsible for paying the BRT's outstanding claims, a plan that was approved in September 1923. The BMT disbursed $1.6 million that year. The highest settlement was $40,000, , which went to the widow of Floyd G. Ten Broeck, a 47-year-old engineer who designed and built power plants and paper mills.


Aftermath

The Malbone Street wreck remains the deadliest crash in the New York City Subway's history, as well as one of the worst rapid transit crashes in the history of the United States. The reported death toll ranged from 93 to 102, with about 250 injuries. A report more than three years after the accident concluded that 91 people were killed.


Equipment and infrastructure changes

The accident placed more pressure on the BRT to remove wooden equipment from routes that operated through tunnel sections or in subways, though this use was already limited. Wooden cars returned to use in the tunnel for another nine years, and cars of partial wooden construction remained in elevated service until 1969. Additional safety devices were added to the subway and elevated system over the years, including
speedometer A speedometer or speed meter is a gauge (instrument), gauge that measures and displays the instantaneous speed of a vehicle. Now universally fitted to motor vehicles, they started to be available as options in the early 20th century, and as ...
s, headlights, more effective dead-man's controls to halt runaway trains, and automatic trackside devices called trippers or
train stop Part of a railway signalling system, a train stop, trip stop or tripcock (sometimes called a tripper) is a train protection device that automatically stops a train if it attempts to pass a signal when the signal aspect and operating rules proh ...
s to reduce the likelihood of trains operating too fast for conditions. Further, additional subway signals were installed on New York City elevated lines. The three motor cars involved in the wreck—lead car 726, fourth car 725, and final car 1064—were repaired and returned to service. The severely damaged trailers, 100 and 80, were scrapped; car 80 was cut up on-site during the wreck cleanup.


Fate of Luciano

Luciano adopted the name Anthony Lewis and became a house builder in
Queens Village, Queens Queens Village is a mostly residential middle class neighborhood in the eastern part of the New York City borough of Queens. It is bound by Hollis to the west, Cambria Heights to the south, Bellerose, Queens and Elmont, Nassau County to the ...
. He retired in
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,
Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
, where he died in 1985 at the age of 91.


Site

In the wake of the tragedy, the Board of Aldermen approved the renaming of most of Malbone Street to Empire Boulevard at the beginning of December 1918, scarcely a month after the wreck, a name it still bears. A detached one-block section of the street in Crown Heights still bears the original "Malbone Street" name. The Malbone Street tunnel, in which the wreck occurred, remained in daily passenger operation for 40 years, as part of the original
BMT Brighton Line The BMT Brighton Line, also known as the Brighton Beach Line, is a rapid transit line in the B Division of the New York City Subway in Brooklyn, New York. Local service is provided at all times by the Q train, but is joined by the B express ...
until 1920, then as part of the
BMT Franklin Avenue Line The BMT Franklin Avenue Line (also known as the Brighton–Franklin Line) is a Medium-capacity rail system, lower capacity rapid transit line of the New York City Subway, New York City Subway’s B Division (NYCS), B Division in Brooklyn, New ...
. The tunnel today is still a part of that line, which runs the
Franklin Avenue Shuttle The Franklin Avenue Shuttle is a New York City Subway shuttle service operating in Brooklyn. The shuttle service uses the BMT Franklin Avenue Line exclusively and operates 24 hours a day. The north terminus is Franklin Avenue, with a transfe ...
, but is not used in regular passenger service. A streetcar crash coincidentally occurred about a half block away on Flatbush Avenue in 1920, a collision that killed one person and injured seventy. In 1974, another accident at the same site, involving a split
switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type o ...
rather than an over-speeding condition, occurred when a slow-speed train of R32 subway cars derailed and hit the wall. There were no injuries, but a damaged car was scrapped. On November 1, 2019, officials installed a permanent bronze memorial plaque at the northern exit of the Prospect Park station, and co-named the corner of Empire Boulevard and Flatbush Avenue as "Malbone Centennial Way". The plaque inscription reads:
Remembering the Malbone Street Wreck
In memory of those who lost their lives near this location on November 1, 1918, when a wooden-bodied train carrying an estimated 650 passengers derailed and crashed under Malbone Street. Nearly 100 people were killed, and nearby Ebbets Field was turned into a makeshift hospital to care for the hundreds injured. This horrific accident led to meaningful reforms and advancements in transit safety, training and infrastructure. As a result of this tragedy, Malbone Street was eventually renamed and is today known as Empire Boulevard.

Dedicated by Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams and MTA NYC Transit
November 1, 2019


In popular culture

In 2018, the ''Park Slope Reader'', a local Brooklyn newspaper, serialized the '' Tales of the Night Watchman'' comic strip, "The Ghost Train", about the elevated train involved in the infamous wreck returning to terrorize the city in the present. The story debuted in the paper's Spring 2018 edition, number 64. It was written by Dave Kelly, drawn by Simon Fraser, and colored by Gary Caldwell.


See also

Similar rail accidents involving sharp curves include: * 1906 Salisbury rail crash – England (1906) * Morpeth rail crashes – England (five occasions, 1877–1994) *
Waterfall rail accident The Waterfall rail accident was a train accident that occurred on 31 January 2003 near Waterfall, New South Wales, Australia. The train derailed, killing seven people aboard, including the train driver, and injuring 40. The accident is famous ...
– Australia (2003) * Cairns Tilt Train derailment – Australia (2004) * Amagasaki rail crash – Japan (2005) *
Valencia Metro derailment The Valencia Metro derailment occurred in Valencia, Spain's third largest city, on 3 July 2006 at 1 p.m. CEST (1100 UTC) between Jesús and Plaça d'Espanya stations on the Line 1 of the Metrovalencia mass transit system. At least 43 people we ...
– Spain (2006) *
Santiago de Compostela derailment The Santiago de Compostela derailment occurred on 24 July 2013, when an Alvia high-speed train travelling from Madrid to Ferrol, Galicia, Ferrol, in the north-west of Spain, Derailment, derailed at high speed on a bend about outside of the Sant ...
– Spain (2013) * New York Metro-North derailment – United States (2013) * Philadelphia Amtrak derailment – United States (2015) *
Croydon tram derailment Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensive ...
– United Kingdom (2016) * Washington State Amtrak derailment – United States (2017)


References


Further reading

* A popularized story of the wreck and its aftermath.


External links

* * {{Authority control New York City Subway accidents Railway accidents in 1918 Accidents and incidents involving Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation Railway tunnel disasters 1918 in New York City Derailments in the United States November 1918 in the United States Flatbush, Brooklyn 1910s in Brooklyn Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen