Bergen County Neighborhood Evacuated Over Explosives Purchased At Flea Market

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — Purchasing railroad memorabilia is a nice way to learn about history — unless you inadvertently buy a box of explosives.

That's what a Bergen County resident apparently did on Sunday, forcing police to evacuate 14 homes on Monday, reports said.

Police told News 12 that the houses in a neighborhood in Garfield, N.J. were evacuated that afternoon after a homeowner on Manner Avenue called them. Police said the man had bought a flare box at a flea market in Burlington County, in South Jersey, on Sunday. On Monday, when he realized "railroad torpedoes" were in the box, he called police.

"Railroad torpedoes," otherwise known as "railway detonators" or "track torpedoes," are small, wrapped explosives that were once put on tracks to warn train engineers to stop or slow down if there was an accident, fog, or another hazard ahead. They became largely unnecessary with widespread use of two-way radios.

While they are small, they are meant to make a loud noise and are thus highly explosive. A man wrote on a railroading site nine years ago:

"When I was about 12 (1963) a friend of mine found some railroad torpedoes along the tracks. He put a couple in his pocket and headed home. Along the way they went off and tore off a huge chunk of his leg. I can still remember seeing the size of the wound. I suspect that this was one of many reasons why they are no longer used."

The explosives are rarely used now, but were set off in 2014 to salute a retiring Amtrak worker in Oregon.

In Garfield, police evacuated the homes just before 1 p.m. as a precaution, said News 12. The Bergen County Sheriff's Office Bomb Squad took control of the items.