For additional information on the "tragic and early death" readers may
be interested to learn about the 1871 train wreck that killed him at
Wappingers Creek (now Wappingers Falls, NY) - going too quickly over a
bridge, it hit an oil tanker train and went into the water. The
following link goes into detail and mentions George S. Benedict in
the body of the article and at the end among those that were
killed. http://www.newhamburg.net/history/two_disasters.htm
The tragedy could have been avoided. By the time of the Wappinger Creek
disaster, an air brake invented by an obscure twenty-two-year-old
inventor named George Westinghouse had more than proved its worth on
many smaller lines. The big railroads, however, balked at the expensive
installation costs that adopting the air brake would have required. But
the crash of the Pacific Express prompted an outcry that could not be
ignored. The New York Central almost immediately began equipping its
passenger trains with Westinghouse air brakes. For more on this see