(The Hartford Courant posted the following article by Michelle Royce on its website on May 1.)
CLINTON — April 23, 1983, started out as a typical day for Nancy and Andrew Berliner, who were working at their office on Route 1 where Andrew was a podiatrist.
Somewhere near 2:30 p.m., the day went from typical to anything but.
“All of a sudden, the whole office shook,” Nancy remembers.
That’s when she ran outside.
“There was all this dust floating in the air, then I just started seeing people wander,” she recalls.
What Nancy was seeing was the aftermath of an Amtrak train derailment.
The train, originating from New York and Boston-bound, derailed on the bridge where the tracks pass over Route 81.
Twenty years later, many Clinton residents can still vividly recall that day.
Major William Chapman of the Clinton Police Department was working desk duty that day. According to Chapman, an officer named Hardie Burgin had been helping some children cross the street at the time of the derailment and ran to the scene.
According to a citation Burgin received for his efforts that day, what Burgin found when he reached the scene was an “80-ton rail coach and several tons of wheels hanging over the roadway.”
In addition, a mother and child were trapped under the bridge in their car.
Burgin stepped in and helped them to safety.
While Burgin was helping to get the mother and child to safety, back near the center of town, Nancy Berliner was inviting hoards of train passengers into her office.
“I had all these people, and I was just giving them water and people were taking turns using the phone,” Nancy says. “So much was happening in such a short amount of time.”
Nancy and her husband cancelled their afternoon patients and opened up their waiting room to any and all train passengers who needed a place to sit, a drink of water, or a phone to use.
One of those passengers was Reverend Nicholas Darby.
Darby, who lived in London where he was a reverend at the Canterbury Cathedral, had been visiting with friends in New York City. Darby was on his way to Boston to catch a flight back to London. He needed to get home to officiate at his brother’s wedding the next day.
With some creative planning and a number of phone calls, Nancy was able to get Rev. Darby on a taxi to New Haven and then a small plane to Boston in time for him to catch his flight to London.
Nancy believes that the other train passengers were eventually taken to Boston on a bus.
A couple years later, in 1985, Nancy and Andrew were able to talk with Rev. Darby when they took a vacation to London. Nancy says that the Reverend remembered them and thanked them again for getting him back to London in time for his brother’s wedding.
Nancy still can’t believe that it has been 20 years since the derailment. She still has pictures of the day in her head.
So does Chapman, remembering that the name of the train was the Yankee Clipper. He now jokingly refers to it as the “Yankee Flipper.”
Fortunately, there were no fatalities or severe injuries from the accident.
Nancy remembers the event as an example of the spirit of community that the residents of Clinton possess.
“This town is incredible,” she says. “It came through, as always. Clinton always comes through.”