A little before 10 p.m., Train No. 175 left Babylon and, rattling off through the suburban towns along the south shore of Long Island, headed west for Manhattan. A little after 10 p.m., 38 miles away, Train No. 192 left the Long Island Rail Road's dingy underground terminal in Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station, clattered through the tunnel under the East River and headed east. In the two electric trains, their lives converging noisily at a speed of 50 m.p.h., were some 1,000 passengers.
No. 192's twelve cars were carrying home the Long Island commuters who had stayed on after dinner to work late or to spend an evening in the city. Martin Steeil, 31, an automobile insurance underwriter, a veteran of the North African and German campaigns, had been bowling with the men from his -office. Steeil's wife and two-year-old son were waiting for him in Rockville Centre. Raymond Miller, 49, vice president of an insurance company, had been cleaning up his business before the weekend. He had just missed the 9:03 and had phoned his wife in Merrick, L.I. that he would be an hour late getting home. John Weeks, 30, a contributing editor of TIME and a PT-boat skipper in the Pacific war, had been to a Mexican movie on which he was planning to do a story. Weeks's wife and two small sons were waiting for him in Merrick. Steeil, Miller, Weeks and twoscore others rode in the head car, the smoker, some reading the night's newspapers, most of them sunk in boredom, a few sunk in sleep.
No. 192 rushed and jolted eastward through Kew Gardens, Jamaica, St. Albans, Valley Stream, the boringly familiar, dirty, rickety commuters' run—always unpleasant, usually late and hopelessly snarled in rush hours and bad weather. No. 175 rushed and jolted westward—through Lindenhurst, Amityville, Seaford, Freeport—and pulled into Rockville Centre.
The Gantlet. In Rockville Centre (pop. 20,000), where the tracks run at street level right through the town, Long Island trains for many years have jammed up street traffic at rush hours, have killed nine persons and injured 24 in the past twelve years in grade-crossing accidents. State and railroad, at long last, were building an overpass. While the work was going on, trains were being run, one way at a time, over about 2,000 feet of "gantlet" tracks—with the left rail of the westbound track inside the eastbound rails. (A gantlet eliminates the need for a switch.)
Having picked up its Rockville Centre passengers, No. 175 headed up the gantlet toward New York City again. James Markin, in the motorman's cubicle, started to pick up speed, had time only to yank his whistle before disaster struck.
Apparently disregarding a warning block signal, apparently blind to the glare of No. lys's approaching headlight, Motorman Jacob Kiefer took No. 192 down the section of double track and roared on into the gantlet. Markin's whistle was a shrill and hopeless warning of the rending crash of steel on steel as the two trains collided.