20 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE WOLLASTON ACCIDENT.
A LARGE party of excursionists were returning from a rowing
match on a special train consisting of two locomotives and twenty-one
cars. There had been great delay in getting ready for the return,
so that when it neared Wollaston the special was much behind the
time assigned for it. Meanwhile a regular freight train had left
Boston, going south and occupying the outward track. At Wollaston
those in charge of this train had occasion to stop for the purpose
of taking up some empty freight cars, which were standing on a
siding at that place; and to reach this siding it was necessary
for them to cross the inward track, temporarily disconnecting
it. The freight train happened to be short-handed, and both its
conductor and engineer supposed that the special had reached Boston
before they had started out. Accordingly, in direct violation
of the rules of the road and with a negligence which admitted
RUNNING THE RISK. 21
of no excuse, they disconnected the inward track in both directions
and proceeded to occupy it in the work of shunting, without sending
out any signals or taking any precautions to protect themselves
or any incoming train. It was after dark, and, though the switches
were supplied with danger signals, these were obscured by the
glare of the locomotive head-light. Under these circumstances
the special neared the spot. What ensued was a curious illustration
of those narrow escapes through which, by means of improved appliances
or by good luck, railroad accidents do not happen; and an equally
curious illustration of those trifling derangements which now
and again bring them about. In this case there was no collision,
though a freight-train was occupying the inward track in front
of the special. There should have been no derailment, though the
track was broken at two points. There would have been no accident,
had there been no attempt made to avert one. Seeing the head-light
of the approaching special, while yet it was half a mile off,
the engineer of the freight train realizing the danger had put
on all steam, and succeeded, though by a very narrow margin, in
getting his locomotive and all the cars attached to it off of
the inward track and onto the outward, out of the way of the special.
The inward track was thus clear, though broken at two points.
The switches at those points were, however, of the safety pattern,
and, if they were left alone and did their work, the special would
22 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
simply leave the main track and pass into the siding, and there
be stopped. Unfortunately the switches were not left alone. The
conductor of the freight train had caught sight of the head-light
of the approaching locomotive at about the same time as the engineer
of that train. He seems at once to have realized the possible
consequences of his reckless neglect of precautions, and his one
thought was to do something to avert the impending disaster. In
a sort of dazed condition, he sprang from the freight car on which
he was standing and ran to the lever of the siding switch, which
he hastened to throw. He apparently did not have time enough within
perhaps five seconds. Had he succeeded in throwing it, the train
would have gone on to Boston, those upon it simply knowing from
the jar they had received in passing over the first frog that
a switch had been set wrong. Had he left it alone, the special
would have passed into the siding and there been stopped. As it
was, the locomotive of the special struck the castings of the
switch just when it was half thrownat the second when it
was set neither the one way nor the otherand the wreck followed.
It was literally the turning of a hand.
As it approached the point where the disaster occurred the special
train was running at a moderate rate of speed, not probably exceeding
twenty miles an hour. The engineer of its leading locomotive also
perceived his danger in time to signal it and to reverse his engine
while yet 700 feet from the point where
NOT THE AUTOMATIC BRAKE. 23
derailment took place. The train-brake was necessarily under
the control of the engineer of the second locomotive, but the
danger signal was immediately obeyed by him, his locomotive reversed
and the brake applied. The train was, however, equipped with the
ordinary Westinghouse, and not the improved automatic or self-acting
brake of that name. That is, it depended for its efficiency on
the perfectness of its parts, and, in case the connecting tubes
were broken or the valves deranged, the brake-blocks did not close
upon the wheels, as they do under the later improvements made
by Westinghouse in his patents, but at best remained only partially
set, or in such positions as they were when the parts of the brake
were broken. As is perfectly well understood, the original Westinghouse
does not work quickly or effectively through more than a certain
number of cars. Twelve is generally regarded as the limit of practical
simultaneous action. The 700 feet of interval between the
point where the brakes were applied and that where the accident
occurred,a distance which, at the rate at which the train
was moving, it could hardly have passed over in less than twenty-two
seconds,should have afforded an ample space within which
to stop the train. When the derailment took place, however, it
was still moving at a considerable rate of speed. Both locomotives,
the baggage car and six following passenger cars left the rails.
The locomotives, after going a short distance, swung off to the
left
24 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
and toppled over, presenting an insuperable barrier to the
direct movement of the cars following.
Those cars were of the most approved form of American construction,
but here, as at Shipton, the violent application of the train-brakes
and reversal of the locomotives had greatly checked the speed
of the forward part of the train, while the whole rear of it,
comparatively free from brake pressure, was crowding heavily forward.
Including its living freight, the entire weight of the train could
not have been less than 500 tons. There was no slack between its
parts; no opportunity to give. It was a simple question of the
resisting power of car construction. Had the train consisted of
ten cars instead of twenty-two a recent experience of a not dissimilar
accident on this very road affords sufficient evidence of how
different the result would have been. On the occasion referred
to,October 13, 1876,a train consisting of two locomotives
and fourteen cars, while rounding a curve before the Randolph
station at a speed of thirty miles an hour came in sudden collision
with the locomotive of a freight train which was occupying the
track, and while doing so, in that case also as at Wollaston,
had wholly neglected to protect it. So short was the notice of
danger that the speed of the passenger train could not at the
moment of collision have been less than twenty miles an hour.
The freight train was at the moment fortunately backing, but none
the less it was an impassable obstacle. The
HAMMER AND ANVIL. 25
three locomotives were entirely thrown from the track and more
or less broken up, and three cars of the passenger train followed
them, but the rest of it remained in line and on the rails, and
was so entirely uninjured that it was not found necessary to withdraw
one of the cars from service for even a single trip. Not a passenger
was hurt. This train consisted of fourteen cars: but at Wollaston,
the fourteen forward cars were, after the head of the train was
derailed, driven onward not only by their own momentum but also
by the almost unchecked momentum of eight other cars behind them.
The rear of the train did not leave the rails and was freely moving
along them. By itself it must have weighed over 200 tons.
The result was inevitable. Something had to yield; and the six
forward cars were accordingly either thrown wholly to the one
side or the other, or crushed between the two locomotives and
the rear of the train. Two of them in fact were reduced into a
mere mass of fragments. The disaster resulted in the death of
19 persons, while a much greater number were injured, more than
50 seriously. In this as in most other railroad disasters the
surprising thing was that the list of casualties was not larger.
Looking at the position of the two cars crushed into fragments
it seemed almost impossible that any person in them could have
escaped alive. Indeed that they did so was largely due to the
fact that the season for car-warming had not yet arrived, while,
in some way impossible to
26 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
explain, all four of the men in charge of the locomotives,
though flung violently through the air into the trees and ditch
at the side of the road were neither stunned nor seriously injured.
They were consequently able, as soon as they could gather themselves
up, to take the measures necessary to extinguish the fires in
their locomotives which otherwise would speedly have spread to
the debris of the train. Had they not done so nothing could have
saved the large number of passengers confined in the shattered
cars.
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