History and mysteries · Atlantic City
The electric train in the Thoroughfare (1906)
Documented history · Sources compared
A drawbridge derailment sent electric railway cars into the water and produced rapidly changing accounts of deaths and causes.
The first reports
On October 28, 1906, a three-car electric train derailed at the Thoroughfare drawbridge near Atlantic City. The next morning’s New-York Tribune described two cars submerged and a third hanging long enough for some passengers to escape through windows.
The front-page report estimated 70 deaths. That was an early disaster estimate, not a settled count: reporting the following week described more than 50 people killed. This entry does not convert the first headline into a final casualty total.
An inquiry still in progress
A November 5 Morning Oregonian dispatch reported that Coroner Gaskill considered a loose rail the likely cause after consulting an expert. It also said the inquest would continue. The proposed explanation therefore belongs to the investigation’s chronology; that dispatch alone cannot establish the inquiry’s final finding.
Sources and research limits
New-York Tribune, October 29, 1906, front page. Morning Oregonian, November 5, 1906, dispatch on the continuing inquest.