The Frankford Junction train wreck occurred on September 6, 1943, when Pennsylvania Railroad's premier train, the Congressional Limited, crashed at Frankford Junction in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States, killing 79 people and injuring 117 others.
The Congressional Limited traveled between Washington, D.C., and New York City, normally making one stop in Newark, New Jersey, covering the 236 miles (380 km) in 3½ hours at speeds up to 80 mph (130 km/h), remarkable at the time.
[3] Everything appeared in order as the train passed through North Philadelphia station ahead of schedule and slowed its speed, but shortly afterward, as it passed a rail yard, workers noticed flames coming from a journal box (a hot box) on one of the cars and rang the next signal tower at Frankford Junction, but the call came too late.
Workers from the nearby Cramp's shipyard arrived with acetylene torches to cut open cars to rescue the injured, a process that took until the following morning.
The first-ever train wreck involving passenger fatalities, the Hightstown rail accident of 1833, had an identical cause.