Railway Preservation News • View topic - The wreck of the Broker (2024)

PMC wrote:

A hard yellow signal indication generally means restricted speed, which is slower than 25MPH.

Going back to The Consolidated Code of Operating Rules ---

A solid yellow signal aspect indicates: "Proceed prepared to stop at next signal. Trains exceeding 35 MPH must immediately reduce to that speed." This is called an Approach Signal.

"Restricted Speed --- Proceed prepared to stop short of train, engine, obstruction, or switch not properly lined, looking out for broken rail or anything that may require the speed of a train or engine to be reduced, but not exceeding 20 MPH." Depending on which rulebook you consult, this definition often includes the requirement that you "be able to stop within half the range of vision" in addition to those listed here.

There are over a dozen different Restrictive Aspects, usually a lunar signal or variation thereof, which indicate "proceed at restricted speed". Again, different railroads have different rules which may or may not require stopping before passing a restrictive signal.

Approach to that shoofly for the Turnpike construction would have been Restricted Speed -- "prepared to stop in half the distance to an obstruction". In this case, a poorly-laid 'curve'.

Keep in mind that this is a PRR train, I believe out of Exchange Place which explains the K4 so close to New York, and why you would have a 'hard yellow' on a railroad with position-light signals needs some further explication.

And now some railroad stuff. Woodbridge was on PRR's Perth Amboy and Woodbridge Branch, now NJT. The line was electrified 11 kV to South Amboy and most trains from Penn Station NY had electric locomotives, although at that time some changed to steam at Rahway, the junction with the Main Line NY to Phila.

East of Perth Amboy, PRR trains went onto CNJ's Perth Amboy Branch, then NY&LB at South Amboy. Until the Aldene Plan in 1967, CNJ trains did not operate over PRR between Perth Amboy and Newark or NY. CNJ ran direct to Jersey City or Newark via Elizabethport.

PRR had its own rulebook "Rules for Conducting Transportation" and CNJ and NY&LB used CNJ's Book of Rules.

PRR and NY&LB had 4-aspect pulse code cab signals (CSS) but in 1951 did not have the speed control option. Even so, CSS was concerned with block and interlocking signals and rarely reflected temporary speed restrictions or for curves, bridges etc. PRR was forced to adopt speed control to its CSS but it still did not reflect speed restrictions.

And indeed PRR rules did not call for advance warning of temporary speed restrictions while CNJ's did.

Phil Mulligan

This video is exceptional, for the manner in which it has consolidated the testimony of survivors and other witnesses, integrating significant research of the 1990s within a state-of-the-art video presentation. The graphics clearly and correctly illustrate the forces of this derailment, as the emergency brake application abruptly shifts the dynamics of the Broker from a state of full draft (stretched) to extreme buff (bunched).

This scenario is a true horror for anyone skilled in the management of train dynamics.

Further, the video - unsurprisingly - raises additional facts, previously suppressed, regarding the condition of the locomotive tender and accounts for its dynamics in the derailment that accounts for the rollover and the 85 fatalities that resulted.

I agree overall a very well done video - but - I don't understand at all what they mean by a yellow light or a hard yellow. This section of railroad used the standard PRR signals with the 3 lights over the tracks, and all of them clear. When a track gang was working a worker would stand there with a round white sign when the tracks were clear, but I have never heard of any sort of yellow light or signal used on the PRR for track work or a speed restriction, especially on the NEC or the lines branching off it. And this section was PRR only (except for a handful of occasions due to a strike or derailment) so I don't know what CNJ operating rules would have to do with this. I think the cause was simple - similar to a wreck on Chicago's Metra in the Rock Island commuter zone a while back - the engineer forgot about a speed restriction and was going way too fast.

If anyone has more details on what they mean by the yellow light I would be interested in hearing about it.

A 'comparison' wreck in my opinion was the one on NYC near Little Falls (at Gulf Curve), where simply closing the throttle hard at excessive speed produced disastrous results.

THANK YOU for the kindly correction to the location as I originally mentioned it -- which was NOT correct!

The reference to the non-existent yellow light comes from the Engineer's contemporary (1951) testimony.

There may be some confusion in this thread as to FIXED signals, as opposed to TEMPORARY signals, both of which may have been in the form of a light, or a sign. The familiar PRR position lights (once referred to as an "electric semaphore") were FIXED signals. It is my understanding the PRR >>may have<< used temporary yellow lights at other work locations as of 1951.

My inference from the record is that PRR had the option - but not the REQUIREMENT - to display a yellow light in advance of this site, in 1951.

It is apparent from the record that neither did PRR choose to display a yellow Advance Speed Restriction Sign (located no closer than the normal braking distance from the work area)

In industry practice, Signals and Signs denote the same requirements with respect to train movements.

In contemporary practice, the absence of either (Signal or Sign) in these circ*mstance would be deemed a TRAP, for which management bears responsibility. Here are the important lessons, IMO, this thread raises:

First, the possibility that Management would suppress exidence must be considered, and...

Second, oversight in the investigation by responsible agencies must be sufficient, to sustain a high level of confidence in the rule-out of all potential causes and factors, however remote.

Suppression and/or inadvertence with respect to evidence bears consequences.

Awesome video.

Imagine being in the shoes of the young civil engineer who designed the shoo-fly curves??

I did work with this gentleman when I joined Conrail. I will keep his name confidential. He was a very dedicated individual and explained to me that his work was not the cause as he was good at that and the investigation exonerated him. He let me "borrow" his MW-4 from the PRR and I gave it back to him when he retired as he might like it as a memento of his days in service. Sad, but true, he passed away on the golf course a week after he pulled the pin.

To clarify on the yellow signals. These were advance signals warning the engineer of an upcoming speed restriction (slow order). PRR did not use them, so there was no such signal at Woodbridge on PRR's PA&W Branch.

CNJ did use them, and NY&LB used CNJ rules so NY&LB used them. In 1951 they were probably kerosene lamps with yellow globes hanging from a post. They were not part of the block signal system.

PRR steam power spent most of its time on NY&LB so PRR steam engineers spent most of their time operating under CNJ rules.

Phil Mulligan

PRR Position Light signals were yellow because PRR had studied which color penetrated fog best, and yellow was the one that did. Pot (dwarf) signals were white.

In the simplest of terms - what we have here is a failure to communicate.

The Engineers run covered territory governed by two different rule books. One rule book had temporary slow orders being indicated by advance signs and the other rule book did not mandate advance signs - just the slow order being listed on the Bulletin Order.

Engineer confused which rule book he was operating under - he expected the advance signs and there were none.