On June 16, 1925, a severe thunderstorm washed sand and gravel on the tracks of the Lackawanna Railroad. At 3:25 in the morning, a seven-car excursion train carrying German-American passengers hit the obstruction, and four of the cars derailed. The locomotive's boiler exploded, flooding the derailed cars with scalding steam. The passengers were bound from Chicago to Hoboken, where they were to sail for Bremen. Fifty people died.

(this is one of the New Jersey disasters)