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July 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment

2013 in New York City21st century in the BronxAccidents and incidents involving CSX TransportationAccidents and incidents involving Metro-North RailroadDerailments in the United States
July 2013 events in the United StatesRailway accidents and incidents in New York CityRailway accidents in 2013Spuyten Duyvil, Bronx
Freight derailment on Metro North Railroad Hudson Line (9319579202)
Freight derailment on Metro North Railroad Hudson Line (9319579202)

On the evening of July 18, 2013, a CSX freight train carrying municipal solid waste on tracks of the Hudson Line along the Harlem River Ship Canal in the New York City borough of The Bronx partially derailed between the Marble Hill and Spuyten Duyvil stations. While no one was injured, the derailment caused over US$800,000 in damage and took several days to clean up. Commuter rail service by Metro-North Railroad, which owns the line, was suspended for two weekends in order to fully restore normal operations. After investigating the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found it had been caused by the track stretching to an excessive gauge at the point of derailment. It did not fault the crew, instead criticizing Metro-North for failing to maintain the track and surrounding ballast to the point that the track went out of gauge. Later in the year, in a comprehensive safety review after another derailment of a passenger train nearby resulted in the first passenger fatalities in Metro-North's history, the NTSB cited the maintenance shortfall as part of an inadequate "safety culture" at the railroad.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article July 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

July 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment
Johnson Avenue, New York The Bronx

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N 40.8759 ° E -73.91681 °
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Johnson Avenue 2500
10463 New York, The Bronx
New York, United States
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Freight derailment on Metro North Railroad Hudson Line (9319579202)
Freight derailment on Metro North Railroad Hudson Line (9319579202)
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1882 Spuyten Duyvil train wreck
1882 Spuyten Duyvil train wreck

On the evening of January 13, 1882, a southbound New York Central passenger train crashed into the rear of another one stopped on the tracks along Spuyten Duyvil Creek in the similarly-named neighborhood of the New York City borough of The Bronx. Eight people were killed, and 19 seriously injured, by the crash and fires afterwards, fires that neighborhood residents and crew extinguished by rolling large snowballs into them until local firefighters arrived. Among the dead was State Senator Webster Wagner, inventor of the sleeping cars used on the train, two of which he was crushed to death between, and a newlywed couple who died together after the bride refused to allow a rescuer to cut her clothing so she could escape. It was the deadliest rail accident in New York City at that time, remaining so for another 20 years.The stopped train was an express from Chicago carrying at least 500, including other state legislators who had boarded at Albany that afternoon to return to their districts in the city for the weekend. While accounts of the accident initially reported that the express was stopped due to a failed brake, it was later revealed that a drunken legislator (never identified) decided to pull the emergency brake. A coroner's jury later blamed the crash primarily on the express train's conductor and rear brakeman. Both were indicted and charged with manslaughter; the brakeman, who testified that he was illiterate and could not read the company rulebook, was later acquitted. The wreck led the railroad to discontinue the use of mineral oil to light cars at night. While the railroad had long before switched from stoves as heat for car interiors to the hot water-based Baker process, that had not yet been perfected and was believed to have contributed to the fires after the crash. Innovations in train heating system design accelerated afterwards.