I think the key to understanding the Malbone Station crash is to remember that when they built New York City Hall in 1812, the budget conscious city fathers used expensive white granite on the front facade but cheaper brownstone on the north side, because they could not conceive anybody would ever see the back of the place - because nobody would want to live that far north. They were wrong.
Forty years later the population of New York City was still half a million. But thirty years later, thanks innitally to the Irish potato famine, the city had over a million residents, by 1890 a million and a half, and by 1910 three and a-half million poor, tired, huddled masses were yearning for their own few square feet of New York space. By then there were lots of people living North of City Hall, and even across the East River in Brooklyn. And they were still using the same city hall. In fact it remains the oldest city hall in the nation. So even from it's foundations, New York City has always been a work in progress; i.e. -
The most immediate cause of the tragedy at Malbone station was the construction of The Manhattan Bridge. This third suspension span across the East River, which opened on the last day of 1909, was meant to make travel between Brooklyn and Manhattan safer and easier. The bridge even had its own mass transit, The Bridge Three Cent Line. But the inconvenience of having to transfer from the Bridge Line to the trains of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (later the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit, or BMT) drove the bridge lines out of business, and by 1915 you could take an elevated BMT train all the way from Coney Island to City Hall.
But making the connection to the bridge required the BMT to complete considerable reconstruction. And while this re-construction was going the directors of the BMT built a temporary 90 degree right hand blind curve (recommended to be taken at a reduced speed of just six miles an hour) which funneled the trains leaving the elevated right-of-way on Flatbush and Ocean Avenues and Malbone Street, in Prospect Park, toward the Manhattan Bridge. Worse, this temporary junction required a rail switch-over as well, making this one of the most complicated rail connections in the entire city of New York. Still the junction worked smoothly during the lengthy reconstruction as long as the operating personal were well trained and familiar with the system. And that is what made the wild cat BMT strike of 1918 such an invitation to disaster.
The strike was the result of an attempt by politicians to keep transit fares low. All the transit companies in New York City were still private entities, but their fares were regulated and for five long years were locked in at a nickel per trip. The voters approved. But eventually wartime inflation put the squeeze on the company, which responded by holding the line on salaries. And in the fall of 1918 the desperate members of The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers went out on a wildcat strike. The BMT management stepped in, following the typical American management anti-union animosity. They shifted personnel and hired strike breakers (scabs) to keep the trains running on normal scheduals. And that was how a 23 year old dispatcher named Edward Luciano found himself at 6:40 PM, on Friday November the First, starting his second ten hour shift of the day, working at a job he had not been trained for; operating a crowded, standing room only, five car train approaching the Malbone station junction, which he had never seen before, in the dark. And he was running late.
He was bound to make a mistake. It was almost guaranteed. He was tired. He was confused. He was harried. He had never driven this route before. And he did make a mistake. As he came down the long grade (above) and approached the curve, he clicked over the points on the switchover and found himself headed into the Malbone station, rather than around the curve, leading to the bridge and City Hall.
The most immediate cause of the tragedy at Malbone station was the construction of The Manhattan Bridge. This third suspension span across the East River, which opened on the last day of 1909, was meant to make travel between Brooklyn and Manhattan safer and easier. The bridge even had its own mass transit, The Bridge Three Cent Line. But the inconvenience of having to transfer from the Bridge Line to the trains of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (later the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit, or BMT) drove the bridge lines out of business, and by 1915 you could take an elevated BMT train all the way from Coney Island to City Hall.But making the connection to the bridge required the BMT to complete considerable reconstruction. And while this re-construction was going the directors of the BMT built a temporary 90 degree right hand blind curve (recommended to be taken at a reduced speed of just six miles an hour) which funneled the trains leaving the elevated right-of-way on Flatbush and Ocean Avenues and Malbone Street, in Prospect Park, toward the Manhattan Bridge. Worse, this temporary junction required a rail switch-over as well, making this one of the most complicated rail connections in the entire city of New York. Still the junction worked smoothly during the lengthy reconstruction as long as the operating personal were well trained and familiar with the system. And that is what made the wild cat BMT strike of 1918 such an invitation to disaster.The strike was the result of an attempt by politicians to keep transit fares low. All the transit companies in New York City were still private entities, but their fares were regulated and for five long years were locked in at a nickel per trip. The voters approved. But eventually wartime inflation put the squeeze on the company, which responded by holding the line on salaries. And in the fall of 1918 the desperate members of The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers went out on a wildcat strike. The BMT management stepped in, following the typical American management anti-union animosity. They shifted personnel and hired strike breakers (scabs) to keep the trains running on normal scheduals. And that was how a 23 year old dispatcher named Edward Luciano found himself at 6:40 PM, on Friday November the First, starting his second ten hour shift of the day, working at a job he had not been trained for; operating a crowded, standing room only, five car train approaching the Malbone station junction, which he had never seen before, in the dark. And he was running late.He was bound to make a mistake. It was almost guaranteed. He was tired. He was confused. He was harried. He had never driven this route before. And he did make a mistake. As he came down the long grade (above) and approached the curve, he clicked over the points on the switchover and found himself headed into the Malbone station, rather than around the curve, leading to the bridge and City Hall.Luciano slammed on the brakes, backed the train up over the switch, and closed the points. Then, frustrated and exhausted, he slammed the accelerator forward. The electric motors in the "drive cars", in each truck or pair of wheels, immediately jerked the five cars forward. Quickly they reached thirty or thirty-five miles an hour (above), heading straight down the long ramp toward the tunnel, toward the hairpin right hand turn and into the dark.
The front truck under the first drive car somehow made it around the curve, even tho the right side, leaning on the curve, smashed into the tunnel wall. But the rear truck derailed. This dragged the two following cars off the rails and threw them into the tunnel walls.
The front truck under the first drive car somehow made it around the curve, even tho the right side, leaning on the curve, smashed into the tunnel wall. But the rear truck derailed. This dragged the two following cars off the rails and threw them into the tunnel walls.Those two cars were called “trailer cars”, in that their trucks had no electric motors in them. This made “trailers” top-heavy. Standard procedure was not to run two “trailers” together because they were unstable as a pair. But because of the strike standard procedure had not been followed.
An historian described how “The second car (above) slammed violently into a concrete abutment, losing its roof and one of its sides…The third car disintegrated into a tangled mass of wood and glass. Dozens of passengers died immediately, many of them decapitated or impaled by shards of wood and glass.” The New York Times provided all the grizzly details. “Scores of men, women and children were flung by the impact…against the pillars and concrete wall, where they were killed instantly or ground under the wheels after falling upon the tracks. Some…were killed when they fell upon the broken seats, splintered timbers and iron beams which projected through the shattered bottoms of the car…” The fourth and fifth cars, both being a motor cars, suffered almost no damage at all. But as the horrible echoes of the crash faded in the tunnel, things got worse.
When the cars derailed they pulled up the third rail, supplying power to the motor cars. This automatically shut off the power for the entire system. But supervisors at the power station had been briefed and assumed the sudden shutdown was the result of union sabotage. They immediately threw the power back on. Dozens of injured and uninjured passengers in the damaged and undamaged cars were immediately electrocuted to death.
One who survived was motorman Edward Luciano. He stumbled from the tunnel, dazed and slightly injured, and with a growing terror based on the horror he had witnessed. He panicked and went home. Behind him the New York Times recorded the scene; “Nearly every man, woman and child in the first car (sic -second car) was killed, and most of those in the second (sic - third car) were killed or badly injured…At 11 o’clock eighty-five bodies had been taken from the wreckage, and the police announced that no more bodies were in the tunnel…police estimate that at least 100 had been injured.” The final count, including those who died later of their injuries, came to 103 dead and more than 100 injured.
An historian described how “The second car (above) slammed violently into a concrete abutment, losing its roof and one of its sides…The third car disintegrated into a tangled mass of wood and glass. Dozens of passengers died immediately, many of them decapitated or impaled by shards of wood and glass.” The New York Times provided all the grizzly details. “Scores of men, women and children were flung by the impact…against the pillars and concrete wall, where they were killed instantly or ground under the wheels after falling upon the tracks. Some…were killed when they fell upon the broken seats, splintered timbers and iron beams which projected through the shattered bottoms of the car…” The fourth and fifth cars, both being a motor cars, suffered almost no damage at all. But as the horrible echoes of the crash faded in the tunnel, things got worse.When the cars derailed they pulled up the third rail, supplying power to the motor cars. This automatically shut off the power for the entire system. But supervisors at the power station had been briefed and assumed the sudden shutdown was the result of union sabotage. They immediately threw the power back on. Dozens of injured and uninjured passengers in the damaged and undamaged cars were immediately electrocuted to death.One who survived was motorman Edward Luciano. He stumbled from the tunnel, dazed and slightly injured, and with a growing terror based on the horror he had witnessed. He panicked and went home. Behind him the New York Times recorded the scene; “Nearly every man, woman and child in the first car (sic -second car) was killed, and most of those in the second (sic - third car) were killed or badly injured…At 11 o’clock eighty-five bodies had been taken from the wreckage, and the police announced that no more bodies were in the tunnel…police estimate that at least 100 had been injured.” The final count, including those who died later of their injuries, came to 103 dead and more than 100 injured.At one in the morning Edward Luciano was arrested at his home. Once he had told his story the district attorney had him charged with manslaughter, as in the "reckless disregard of human life" in the operation of his train. Also charge with "reckless disregard" were the
the president and vice president of the BMT. The D.A. also ordered that the chief of police was to “…station policemen at every terminal and car barn…No man will be permitted to run a train unless he has had at least three months experience.” At 2:00 a.m. the motormen, seeking to avoid any public anger over the disaster, and honestly stunned by the accident, voted to end their wildcat strike at once. 
Edward Luciano and both of the BMT authorities were acquitted of manslaughter charges, and no one was ever held morally or financially responsible for the 103 deaths. Within a few months the construction work was finished on the new connection line, and the blind curve was regulated to an occasional service of a shuttle line, which it still operates today, usually safely (below). The BMT line now enters Manhattan directly, avoiding the Manhattan Bridge. And out of respect for the dead and the living, Malbone Street was renamed Empire Avenue. 
Edward Luciano and both of the BMT authorities were acquitted of manslaughter charges, and no one was ever held morally or financially responsible for the 103 deaths. Within a few months the construction work was finished on the new connection line, and the blind curve was regulated to an occasional service of a shuttle line, which it still operates today, usually safely (below). The BMT line now enters Manhattan directly, avoiding the Manhattan Bridge. And out of respect for the dead and the living, Malbone Street was renamed Empire Avenue. And all of these changes were incorporated into the “new” New York City, built, as always, out of the bits and pieces, good and bad, of her past; so much so that at times it seems as if the D.A. should be laying charges of recklessness disregard against the ghosts of that 1812 city council.
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DNA technology was still a half century in the future, but still the evidence seems convincing. The diving suit matched the 2 piece type Lionel had been wearing. The stature of the corpse matched his. The body hair matched. The clothing Lionel had been wearing under the suit, matched. Even the “hammer toes” of the corpse matched photographs of Lionel Crabb’s feet. The coroner ruled that it was Lionel Crabb and that he was dead. And if the suspected body was claimed to have belonged to anyone else but Commander Lionel Crabb, the mystery would have ended right there, in the tidal flats of Chichester Harbor, 17 miles to the east of Plymouth Harbor. But what if I suggest that the body was claimed to be that of Commander James Bond? Would you still be so certain?
Lionel Crabb didn’t look like the movie version of James Bond, but he was a dead ringer for the Bond from the books. He hated to exercise. He was a chain smoker, and an aficionado of “boilermakers” (whisky with a beer chaser). He distrusted academics and experts (he would have shot Q long ago). And Lionel couldn’t swim three lengths of a swimming pool without collapsing from exhaustion. Still, a friend described him as having, “…a singular ability to endure discomfort…His lack of fear was unquestioned….(a) curmudgeonly but kindly bantam cock,…a most pleasant and lively individual. (However) His penchant for alcohol remained undiminished.”
Lionel Crabb started out as a Merchant seaman. And when World War Two began he was already thirty years old, well past his physical prime. He joined the Royal Navy in 1940 and eventually ended up as a bomb safety officer on Gibraltar, a job requiring calm dedication and not for a dare devil. But that is where the legend of Commander “Buster” Crabb really begins.
Working often in the black of night Lionel would inspect hulls for any sign of explosives, then carefully remove them, bringing them to the surface and disarming them, which was the only part of the job he had actually been trained for. For his work Lionel was awarded the St. George Medal in 1944. By that time he was commanding the entire unit. Lionel was a pioneer in the field, learning to disarm the new German magnetic mines. In August of 1945 he was assigned to disarm mines placed by Zionists terrorists on shipping in the port of Haifa. He received another medal for his role in disarming mines and explosives in Europe left over from World War II. 
And in 1949 Lionel managed to produce underwater photographs of a British cruiser’s spinning propellers while the big ship plowed through the sea within feet of him. He explored a British submarine lost in the Thames esturary (above), and helped build the outflow system for a top secret nuclear weapons factory. Lionel had become the “go-to guy” on anything involving underwater espionage, not because he was a genius at it but because he was the only person doing it.
Lionel was released from active service in 1953 but remained in the Reserves. And in October of 1955, when the new Soviet cruiser Sverdlov paid a “good will” visited to Portsmouth, Lionel and a friend, Sydney Knowles, made nighttime dives, examining and measuring the hull, in an attempt to explain the ship’s powerful maneuvering abilities. And so both men seemed obvious picks to repeat that dive in April of 1956 when the Soviet Cruiser Ordzhonikidze (above) paid call to Portsmouth carrying Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Leader, Nikita Khrushchev on a state visit.
The matter might never have become public knowledge except that after the visit the Soviets filed an offical protest that a British diver was seen close to the Soviet cruiser on April 19th. Lionel’s war record had made him the most famous diver in Britain, and the press quickly tracked him to the Sally Port hotel in Old Portsmouth (above) where he registered the night before the incident. (The day after the press discovered the ledger, the page was ripped out of the book.) The British navy eventually claimed that Lionel had been testing new diving equipment in the Solent to the West of Portsmouth, when he had disappeared and was presumed to have drowned. But that story seemed so absurd it produced even more speculation. 
It is speculated that the new British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, had hopes of reaching a rapprochement with the Soviet leadership and had forbidden Lionel from making this second dive inside Portsmouth harbor. But the CIA and reactionary factions within the British government had stepped in to encourage Lionel to make the attempt even without official endorsement. Those who believe this version are either pro or con toward Anthony Eden’s alleged policy of appeasement. What we do know about this version is that Eden issued a public statement on May 14, saying that “It would not be in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Commander Crabb is presumed to have met his death. I think it necessary, in the special circumstances of this case, to make it clear that what was done was done without the authority or the knowledge of Her Majesty’s Ministers. Appropriate disciplinary steps are being taken.” Shortly thereafter the head of Britain’s MI6 was relieved.
But from this point the stories only multiply. In 2007 Eduard Koltsov claimed he had been a diver onboard the Cruiser Ordzhonikidze when, while on underwater patrol, he spotted Lionel fixing a mine to the Soviet ship, and had cut his throat. Lionel’s fiancé claimed in 1974 that he had defected and was training Soviet frogmen in the Black Sea. Another version says Lionel suffered a heart attack while inspecting the Ordzhonikidze, had been rescued by Soviet divers but had died on board the Soviet ship, perhaps under torture, perhaps several days later, and that they dumped his body overboard after leaving port.
What we know for certain is that on April 17, 1956 Lionel and another man checked into the Sally Port Hotel, in Portsmouth. On the 18th, Lionel entered the water from The King’s Stairs Jetty (above), about 80 yards from where the Soviet warship was berthed. Lionel returned to the surface just 20 minutes later, having gotten confused in the dark amongst the pier’s pilings. The decision was made to try again in daylight.
America, in her centennial year, was a nation of about 45 million people. And they seem such different people than our 300 million today. The frontier then began where the railroad tracks and the telegraph lines ceased to reach. Robert Marlin tries to explain the lives of the soldiers on the frontier; “…the cavalry became a place to simply disappear. Most cavalry units operated outside the borders of the states and provided a new start in life with few questions asked. Early on, many of those enlisting in the cavalry had arrest warrants outstanding…Some joined the service as an alternative to serving jail time… Immigrants, especially those from Ireland and German, filled the ranks. Others came from England, France and Italy. While most of the American recruits did not read or write, the immigrants who did not speak English compounded this problem….A trooper started off at the pay of $13 per month. By the time he finished his first hitch and re-enlisted this was raised to $15. By now the trooper was a “50-cent-a-day professional”.
“The day usually started at 5:30am,” writes Marlin, “with the dreaded call of Reveille, and ended at 10:00pm with the bugle sounding Taps.” A regiment, like the seventh Cavalry, consisted of 12 troops, labeled A through M (and skipping “J” because in quickly written note, a “J” might be confused with an “I”). Four troops made up each battalion, and each troop consisted of one captain, two Lieutenants, six sergeants, four corporals, two trumpeters, four farriers (to care for the horses) and 78 privates. At any given moment about 20% of the regiment was on detached service, recruiting or on extended leave.
The average cavalry recruit was in his mid-twenties, and stood about five feet eight inches tall. He suffered from bad teeth, a bad back, and 10% had suffered from some form of healed trauma, usually to the head. Twenty-two percent of the privates (311 men) serving in the seventh cavalry on June 25th , 1876, had been in the service for less than a year; 23 in A troop, 43 in B troop, 39 in C troop, 26 in D troop, etc. There was little that would have convinced a man to remain in the service after one hitch, including the food. Each soldier received each day 12 ounces of pork or bacon, 22 ounces of flour or bread (or 16 ounces of hard bread when in the field) and less than an once of ground coffee. Every ten men were to receive per month; 15 lbs of beans or peas, 10 lbs of rice or hominy, 30 lbs of potatoes, 1 quart of molasses, 15 lbs of sugar, 3 lbs 12 ounces of salt, 4 ounces of pepper and 1 gallon of Vinegar. It was not a diet well supplied with vitamins, and it has been observed that, “…while the men did not suffer true malnourishment, they were not well fed.”
As the army needed soldiers, it also needed laundresses. (above, tools of the trade.) They were as much in service of the country as the soldiers they served. And it would seem logical that the reasons a young man might join the cavalry were similar to the reasons a young woman might become a laundress for those soldiers; a roof over your head, food in your belly and a new start in life. Linda Grant De Pauw lays out the vulnerbility for such women in “Battle Cries and Lullibies; “…a laundress wrote to Major L.H. Marshall at Fort Boise, Idaho describing how she had been arrested, charged as a murderess, and confined in a guardhouse for hitting her husband with a tin cup that he claimed was an axe…(she was) sentenced to be drummed off that post at fixed bayonets …she and her three children had to live in a cold house, without the food ration they depended upon."
Mrs. Nash also built a reputation as a dependable mid-wife and “few births occurred without her expert help”. So it was natural that she would be encouraged to follow the regiment when it moved to Fort Abraham Lincoln, in Dakota Territory. She was a valuable member of the garrison. There is no record that she ever served as a prostitute (above), another option for the laundresses even if one not encouraged should she became notorious. 
She kept a bright and tidy home, planting and maintaining flowers in front of their modest quarters. And she restored her nest egg. And for five years they were a contended and happy couple, the center of the social circle of Suds Row east of the Fort Lincoln parade grounds (above), and were a significant part of the larger post’s social life.
The Bismarck Tribune went so far as to headline a story, “Mrs. Nash has (testicles) as big as a bull!” The eastern papers picked the story up, and commented upon it. So that when poor Corporal Noonan returned from patrol all his protestations of innocence and unawareness fell upon deaf ears. Quickly the ridicule and the questions, asked and unasked, became too much to bear and two days after returning from patrol to find his “wife” dead, John Noonan deserted his post and on November 30, 1878, shot himself to death with a rifle. He lies buried now in the National Cemetery adjacent to the Little Big Horn Battlefield, his tombstone no different than any of the others who died in the service of their country .
But there is no headstone for Mrs. Nash; no recognition of her years of service to the unit, of the babies she delivered, of the hardships she endured. And there is no recognition today that without a "liberal" endorsment and without a liberal media encouragment, at least one human being found it preferable to live in constant fear of having their secret revealed, in exchanged for the privilage of living as God made them, internally and externally.
