INSIDE THIS WEEK: Construction Manager Resigns Amid Debacle - Pg. 2
PINE BARRENS TRIBUNE www.pinebarrenstribune.com
Vol. 2 – No. 27
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March 3, 2018 – March 9, 2018
Academic Scholar and Pinelands Hero Dies at Age 91 PHOTO SUBMITTED
Academic scholar and Pinelands hero Dr. Walter A. Brower.
Dr. Walter A. Brower Remembered for Act of Valor at the Wreck of the Blue Comet and Inspiring Rider Students By Joyce Blay
For the Pine Barrens Tribune
WOODLAND—You can take the man out of the Pine Barrens, but you can't take the Pine Barrens out of the man. That is the legacy of the late, great Dr. Walter A. Brower Jr., proud piney and distinguished educator, who passed away last month, at the age of 91. Brower was a retired dean emeritus of Rider University. He pursued a scholarly career while he tirelessly worked to preserve his Pinelands heritage. Born in the Chatsworth section of Woodland Township on Jan. 9, 1927, Brower resided there and in Mount Holly, Ewing and Hamilton. Brower, no matter where he lived, embraced his roots. “He was a Piney through and through for every one of his 91 years,” son Douglas W. Brower wrote of his father on his Facebook page. Long before Walter Brower became an inspirational instructor to generations of students, he became a hero of the Pinelands. According to historians, on Aug. 19, 1939, Brower was a 12-year-old child who was waiting on a train platform, in a heavy downpour, for the arrival of newspapers he was paid to deliver. The train, however, never arrived at his location and Walter Brower left the platform to look for the train. He soon found a disaster.
Operating on the New Jersey Central Line from 1929-1941, the Blue Comet, known as “The Seashore's Finest Train,” traveled seven days a week through the Pine Barrens, transporting passengers from Jersey City to Atlantic City, with stops in Red Bank and Farmingdale in Monmouth County, and in Lakewood, Lakehurst and Manchester in Ocean County. Each of the train’s cars were named after a famous comet. The train included a smoking car and an observation car. The train was the railroad line's first all-reserved deluxe coach train, designed to provide passengers with first-class service at a low coach fare. On the rainy summer day of the disaster, the Blue Comet was approaching the Carranza area of Tabernacle Township, from the west at 60 mph, when it encountered a strong storm responsible for the downpour. The engineer closed the throttle and allowed the train to drift, according to eyewitnesses. The assistant supervisor was said to be unable to see the engine stack in front of him due to torrential rainfall, but was not alarmed because the engine was running normally. The train reduced speed to approximately 35-45 mph as it passed milepost 87 at Pine Crest, near Apple Pie Hill, with Chatsworth just over two miles away. At 152 feet past milepost 86, the assistant supervisor felt the train drop, followed by a jolt. He looked back and saw that the engine had become uncoupled from the rest of the cars.
Propelled forward by the train’s speed and unable to apply damaged brakes to stop it, the engine continued down the track for over 3,000 feet, crashing into a landslide of wet sand, several feet thick, that covered the tracks just south of Chatsworth. Five cars became derailed from the engine and toppled over from the impact, landing across and on either side of the tracks, with the rear end of the last car deposited 120 feet past the initial point of the derailment, 272 feet east of milepost 86. The derailment damaged 500 feet of track, strewing railroad ties like pick-up sticks around the sandy, barren landscape. Victims of the wreck not only struggled to survive the aftermath of a train derailment, but also faced death by drowning from flash flooding. At nearby Kennedy Cranberry Bogs, the caretaker's job was to monitor rainfall and drain the bogs accordingly. That day, 13.5 inches of rain fell within a four-hour time span. Two 24-inch pipes located under the tracks were designed to drain the bog's overflow during rainy weather. On that day, however, the overflow from the bogs overwhelmed drainage capacity at milepost 86. A bridge engineer estimated the drainage area in the pines at 15 square miles, with most of the drainage usually crossing the tracks under a bridge, east of the accident site near Chatsworth. But following the storm, the massive amount of water crossing
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