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4148 And 4219

This one is serious.  What do these two numbers signify to me?  Well it relates directly to February 9.  You see, that date this year isn’t only the launch of my novel and fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles arriving in the US, but it’s also a very solemn day.  18 years ago on the rail lines I operate over, two engineers and a passenger died in a horrific head-on collision.  I’m not going to go into the details, but the accident still lives on in the hearts and minds of every locomotive engineer I work with at my company

Look at these pictures:

 

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These were taken several years apart.  The first one is of me operating Locomotive 4148 through Great Notch Station in August of 1995, just a few short months after I started with NJ Transit.  The later one is of me operating Locomotive 4219, taken by a friend of mine at the Waldwick, N.J. station while I was waiting at a red (Stop) signal.  Aside form the fact that I’m a little older and heavier, but still just as ugly in the later photo, what do these two locomotives have in common?  And what does it have to do with the wreck I told you about?  Well everything.  Because Locomotive 4148 and Locomotive 4219 are the SAME locomotive.

About six months after the earlier photo was taken, on February 9, 1996, Locomotive 4148 was involved in that terrible head-on collision.  Two trains came together at the junction between our Main and Bergen County rail lines.  They struck each other not quite dead center head on, but right side to right side, the side where the engineers sit.  When all was said and done, 4148 looked like this:

Fire-13-95[1]

The other train was operating cab car first, meaning it was being pushed by its locomotive and controlled by the engineer in a compartment in the end of the car.  That car was peeled open like a sardine can.  Miraculously, only 1 passenger died in the accident, but both engineers perished as well, one instantly, the other shortly after first responders (They weren’t even called that then) got to him.  Many people were hurt, and rescue hampered by the relative inaccessibility of the area.  There simply were no roads out there for ambulances and paramedics to get to the crash site.  It was right in the middle of the Jersey Meadows.

Like I said, I am not going any further into the details of what exactly went wrong and how blame was assessed.  That is not the point of this blog entry.  What I want to say here is how fleeting life is, how quickly it can all be taken away, and how we are all in the end interconnected to each other.  I never knew one of the engineers who was killed.  I barely knew the other one, but every time I saw him, he had a smile and spoke nothing but kind words to me.  He knew I was a nubie, and being not far removed from being a nubie himself, wanted to do anything he could to help me.  I only wish I did get to know him like so many of my other co-workers did.

Today that accident can never happen again.  The junction where it happened has been completely changed, the tracks re-arranged by the construction of a new transfer station at Secaucus.  The accident site, once so inaccessible, now sits under the looping overpass of Exit 15 X off the NJ Turnpike, and a major multilane roadway runs on the roadbed of what used to be the approach tracks to the junction from the Bergen County Line.  Even Great Notch Station is now history.

Locomotive 4148 was deemed repairable.  And it was.  But Transit management decided to renumber the unit 4219, maybe out of respect for the engineer who lost his life in it.  I have run this locomotive dozens of times since it returned to service, but always to me it will be Locomotive 4148, and I say a little prayer every time I enter its cab for the man who died in the seat I am about to occupy to take charge of the train it is leading.  So February 9 is not only a day for me to celebrate, it is also a day to remember two engineers and 1 passenger who left for work one day and didn’t make it back home that night.  And as for Al and John, rest in peace.

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