The Ghost Train
Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 8:42 pm
It's just about three weeks now until Halloween. Soon the ghosts and goblins will come out to play for one night and school age kids will knock on doors demanding "Trick or Treat!" So it's time for me to write another Halloween story. Only this time, the backstory won't be fiction!
I was born and grew up in the borough of Brooklyn, in the City of New York. When I was in Junior High School, I was given a subway pass to get to school instead of being provided with a school bus. So every day I joined the crowd of rush hour commuters riding the train. Sometimes I rode to school with my father. Of course I only had to take it two stops, while my dad continued on into Manhattan.
When ever my family went into 'the city' to go to a play on Broadway, or a show at the Radio City Music Hall, we never drove into Manhattan, we took the subway. I remember switching trains to get to the World's Fair, and Shea Stadium. I quickly became a real subway buff. I joined a 'subway club' in college, our group went on several rail fan tours riding the TA's museum trains though abandoned stations. I also bought many books on the history of the New York subway.
The day after Halloween back in 1918 was a dark day in the history of New York, and in particular the BRT branch of the subway system. Back then the BRT (Brooklyn - Rapid Transit) was an independent company, as was the IRT (Interboro Rapid Transit). The city did not yet own the subway, rather it regulated the operation of the two private companies that ran it. The union for the train operators of the BRT called a strike on the day after Halloween in 1918 after contract negotiations broke down. The BRT tried to break the strike by putting non union workers and supervisors to work operating the trains. Some of the workers charged with motormen duties had little training in operating a train. This was the direct cause of what happened.
A Brighton Local-Express train coming from Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge onto the Elevated tracks took a sharp double S curve through the tunnel leading into the Malborn Street station too fast and derailed. Ninety Seven people died in the crash. So horrible was the wreck, that both the street, and the station were renamed. This year is the 100th anniversary of that accident. Late at night, some people riding the Franklin Avenue shuttle, the same line where the fatal train originated its journey, claim they see the ghost of that train on those tracks, as Black Jack and Pinoko will soon discover....... (As will you, dear readers.....)
I was born and grew up in the borough of Brooklyn, in the City of New York. When I was in Junior High School, I was given a subway pass to get to school instead of being provided with a school bus. So every day I joined the crowd of rush hour commuters riding the train. Sometimes I rode to school with my father. Of course I only had to take it two stops, while my dad continued on into Manhattan.
When ever my family went into 'the city' to go to a play on Broadway, or a show at the Radio City Music Hall, we never drove into Manhattan, we took the subway. I remember switching trains to get to the World's Fair, and Shea Stadium. I quickly became a real subway buff. I joined a 'subway club' in college, our group went on several rail fan tours riding the TA's museum trains though abandoned stations. I also bought many books on the history of the New York subway.
The day after Halloween back in 1918 was a dark day in the history of New York, and in particular the BRT branch of the subway system. Back then the BRT (Brooklyn - Rapid Transit) was an independent company, as was the IRT (Interboro Rapid Transit). The city did not yet own the subway, rather it regulated the operation of the two private companies that ran it. The union for the train operators of the BRT called a strike on the day after Halloween in 1918 after contract negotiations broke down. The BRT tried to break the strike by putting non union workers and supervisors to work operating the trains. Some of the workers charged with motormen duties had little training in operating a train. This was the direct cause of what happened.
A Brighton Local-Express train coming from Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge onto the Elevated tracks took a sharp double S curve through the tunnel leading into the Malborn Street station too fast and derailed. Ninety Seven people died in the crash. So horrible was the wreck, that both the street, and the station were renamed. This year is the 100th anniversary of that accident. Late at night, some people riding the Franklin Avenue shuttle, the same line where the fatal train originated its journey, claim they see the ghost of that train on those tracks, as Black Jack and Pinoko will soon discover....... (As will you, dear readers.....)