DISASTER: The Trestle at Woodbridge

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The Pennsylvania insisted that there was nothing wrong with the trestle, that the engineer had disregarded an order to reduce speed before the temporary spur. But the railroad admitted that there had been no signal lights. It was not Pennsylvania practice.

Flourishing a set of the Pennsylvania's own rules requiring warning lights, Assistant County Prosecutor Alex Eber promptly accused the railroad of "criminal negligence," and announced that he would try to indict the Pennsylvania for manslaughter. Snapped Eber: "I don't propose to stand by and permit the Pennsylvania to use the engineer as its scapegoat."

The superintendent of the Pennsylvania's New York division retorted with the callous disavowal of responsibility that commuters had learned to expect from their railroads: "We never intended to put a signal light there at all. We still don't intend to install signal lights at either end of the detour because it's still a temporary project. The railroad makes many . . . changes without notifying the ICC . . . After all, it's our own property."