The Williamsburg Bridge Signal Crash

At 6:18 on the morning of June 5, 1995, a Manhattan-bound J train came off the Brooklyn approach of the Williamsburg Bridge and plowed into the back of a stalled M train. Motorman Layton Gibson, 46 years old and fourteen years on the job, was killed on impact, and 54 riders were hurt. Investigators found Gibson had grown fatigued near the end of an overnight shift and ran a red signal, and that a set of train-stopping rods on the bridge, some parts of the signal system unchanged since 1918, failed to trip his emergency brake. The MTA's answer was blunt: cut top speeds on straight track from 55 miles per hour to 40, and bolt new grade-time signals across the system to enforce it.