Among the dead was State Senator Webster Wagner, inventor of the sleeping cars used on the train, between two of which he was crushed to death,[1] and a newlywed couple who died together after the bride refused to allow a rescuer to cut her clothing so she could escape.

[a] The stopped train was an express from Chicago carrying at least 500, including other state legislators who had boarded at Albany that afternoon to return to their districts in the city for the weekend.

While the railroad had long before switched from stoves as heat for car interiors to the hot water-based Baker process, that had not yet been perfected and was believed to have contributed to the fires after the crash.

[5] The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad's Atlantic Express, originating in Chicago, arrived at Albany's Union Station already 23 minutes late due to snowy weather on the afternoon of January 13, 1882.

[4] Just across the Hudson River, at Greenbush (today Rensselaer), a sixth sleeper was coupled to the rear of the train, the Idlewild, the personal car of Republican state Senator Webster Wagner.

[1] Among the approximately 500 passengers were other state legislators,[b] from both houses and both parties (with most Democrats part of New York City's Tammany Hall political machine), returning to their homes downstate for the weekend with the legislature having adjourned.

Asked repeatedly about the rumored deal, Wagner demurred, preferring to recount for the journalists gathered around him his story of how he had built the company over the preceding three decades from his home in Palatine Bridge, west of Albany in the Mohawk Valley, after seeing how the railroad needlessly lost business to river ferries with sleeping quarters.

As it passed through Tarrytown, a waiting local, also bound for Grand Central Depot in Midtown Manhattan, had to delay its own scheduled departure five minutes to allow the express to clear the station.

[4] The local made its stops along the Hudson south of Tarrytown, reaching Spuyten Duyvil, 14 miles (23 km) away, where the line turns southeast to follow the creek of that name.

George Hanford, its conductor, said one of the inebriated legislators pulled the emergency brake, stopping the train as it rounded another bend that took it along the banks of the creek towards Tibbetts Brook,[c] apparently because he thought it would be funny.

Some patrons outside in the mild weather for that time of year (around 35 °F (2 °C)[11]) had witnessed the crash, and they brought others from the bar and the neighborhood to offer aid and rescue victims, with the help of crew and unhurt or minimally injured survivors.

[4] The local's locomotive's headlight remained lit, which along with the continued illumination in the front of the Empire allowed the removal of all present there before the car was completely engulfed in flames.

[1] Inside the car, as the fire grew worse, Hanford attempted to rescue a young newlywed, Louise Gaylord.

He was identified by a gold watch with the initials "W.W.", his diary and several slips of paper with the election returns from his state senate district.

[12] Firefighters soon arrived with a pumper to put out the fire, and the injured were taken to Bellevue Hospital after being laid out on billiards tables at Kilcullen's along with the dead; two rival undertakers from Yonkers fought over who should take the bodies.

[15] Accompanied by his brother, a conductor on the Central who was based in that city, he surrendered to authorities and was returned to New York to testify before the coroner's jury.

He revised his estimate of the local's speed downward, as the older Melius had told him it could not have reached 40 mph (64 km/h) so soon after leaving Spuyten Duyvil.

[10] Alonzo Valentine, whose newlywed son and daughter-in-law had perished at each other's side when she refused to remove her clothes to escape, said that he had gone onto the open rear of the Idlewild after the stop, where he saw a brakeman with a red and white lantern leaning against the back of the car.

[10] Toucey said that the rules of the railroad required that in the event of an unscheduled stop, brakemen were to immediately go out and walk down the track as flagmen to warn oncoming trains.

Both men were indicted by the coroner's jury on a single count of fourth-degree manslaughter—Melius for failing to go down the track and Hanford for not having ordered him to do so—with Wagner being the representative victim.

In addition, it assigned responsibility to Toucey for scheduling trains so closely together as to make it impossible for them to pass through Rolling Mill Cut at speeds low enough to ensure safe stopping distance.

Like most railroads of the era, the Central had reacted to public and governmental pressure in the wake of previous crashes where deaths were attributed to preventable fires and taken steps to reduce the risk.

Similarly, the Evening Telegram called the jury "conscientious and courageous", adding that it had been "a long time since the officers and managers of a company have been so pointedly censured".

[19] Railway Age defended the executives, noting that the Central had a particularly strong reputation in the industry for following safety procedures and had not had an accident this serious in a long time.

"No matter what the cause of an accident, it is always the custom to charge it upon the general officers of the road, notwithstanding that they are far more interested in the safe movement of their trains than the newspaper writer can be."

It took particular umbrage at the Herald's suggestion that the operating workers like Hanford and Melius be paid more than management since their jobs were so important to the lives of travelers and coworkers, calling that idea "sentimental but ridiculous".

Melius, his guilt already a foregone conclusion and his trial a mere formality in the public eye, was represented by Robert A. Livingston, a former assemblyman who had been a passenger on the express that night himself, and H.T.

[22] Toucey and Bissell both testified that it was a brakeman's duty to go back down the tracks in the event of an unscheduled stop in order to warn approaching trains.

[24] When charging the jury, Judge Noah Davis noted that this was possibly the first case in which a railroad employee had been criminally indicted over the deaths of passengers in an accident.

The construction of the Harlem River Ship Canal in 1895 made a level route possible, and 20 years later the meander of Spuyten Duyvil Creek that had necessitated the curve up to Kingsbridge station was filled in.