AUGUST 26, 1871. 125
CHAPTER XIV.
THE REVERE CATASTROPHE.
THE terrible disaster which occurred in front of the little
station-building at Revere, six miles from Boston on the Eastern
railroad of Massachusetts, in August 1871, was, properly speaking,
not an accident at all; it was essentially a catastrophethe
legitimate and almost inevitable final outcome of an antiquated
and insufficient system. As such it should long remain a subject
for prayerful meditation to all those who may at any time be entrusted
with the immediate operating of railroads. It was terribly dramatic,
but it was also frightfully instructive; and while the lesson
was by no means lost, it yet admits of further and advantageous
study. For, like most other men whose lives are devoted to a special
calling, the managers of railroads are apt to be very much wedded
to their own methods, and attention has already more than once
been called to the fact that, when any new emergency necessitates
a new
126 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
appliance,
they not infrequently, as Captain Tyler well put it in his report
to the Board of Trade for the year 1870, "display more ingenuity
in finding objections than in overcoming them."
The Eastern railroad of Massachusetts connects Boston with
Portland, in the state of Maine, by a line which is located close
along the sea-shore. Between Boston and Lynn, a distance of eleven
miles, the main road is in large part built across the salt marshes,
but there is a branch which leaves it at Everett, a small station
some miles out of Boston, and thence, running deviously through
a succession of towns on the higher ground, connects with the
main track again at Lynn; thus making what is known in England
as a loop-road. At the time of the Revere accident this Lynn branch
was equipped with but a single track, and was operated wholly
by schedule without any reliance on the telegraph; and, indeed,
there were not even telegraphic offices at a number of the stations
upon it. Revere, the name of the station where the accident took
place, was on the main line about five miles from Boston and two
miles from Everett, where the
FLUCTUATIONS OF TRAVEL. 127
Saugus branch, as the loop-road was called, began. The accompanying
diagram shows the relative position of the several points and
of the main and branch lines, a thorough appreciation of which
is essential to a correct understanding of the disaster.
The travel over the Eastern railroad is of a some what exceptional
nature, varying in a more than ordinary degree with the different
seasons of the year. During the winter months the corporation
had, in 1871, to provide for a regular passenger movement of about
seventy-five thousand a week, but in the summer what is known
as the excursion and pleasure travel not infrequently increased
the number to one hundred and ten thousand, and even more. As
a natural consequence, during certain weeks of each summer, and
more especially towards the close of August, it was no unusual
thing for the corporation to find itself taxed beyond its utmost
resources. It is emergencies of this description, periodically
occurring on every railroad, which always subject to the final
test the organization and discipline of companies and the capacity
of superintendents. A railroad in quiet times is like a ship in
steady weather; almost anybody can manage the one or sail the
other. It is the sudden stress which reveals the undeveloped strength
or the hidden weakness; and the truly instructive feature in the
Revere accident lay in the amount of hidden weakness everywhere
which was brought to light under that sudden stress. During the
week ending with
128 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
that Saturday evening upon which the disaster occurred the
rolling stock of the road had been heavily taxed, not only to
accommodate the usual tide of summer travel, then at its full
flood, but also those attending a military muster and two large
camp meetings upon its line. The number of passengers going over
it had accordingly risen from about one hundred and ten thousand,
the full summer average, to over one hundred and forty thousand;
while instead of the one hundred and fifty-two trains a day provided
for in the running schedule, there were no less than one hundred
and ninety-two. It had never been the custom with those managing
the road to place any reliance upon the telegraph in directing
the train movement, and no use whatever appears to have been made
of it towards straightening out the numerous hitches inevitable
from so sudden an increase in that movement. If an engine broke
down, or a train got off the track, there had accordingly throughout
that week been nothing done, except patient and general waiting,
until things got in motion again; each conductor or station-master
had to look out for himself, under the running regulations of
the road, and need expect no assistance from headquarters. This,
too, in spite of the fact that, including the Saugus branch, no
less than ninety-three of the entire one hundred and fifteen miles
of road operated by the company were supplied only with a single
track. The whole train movement, both of the main line and of
the branches,
AMERICAN INDIVIDUALITY. 129
intricate in the extreme as it was, thus depended solely on
a schedule arrangement and the watchful intelligence of individual
employees. Not unnaturally, therefore, as the week drew to a close
the confusion became so great that the trains reached and left
the Boston station with an almost total disregard of the schedule;
while towards the evening of Saturday the employees of the road
at that station directed their efforts almost exclusively to dispatching
trains as fast as cars could be procured, thus trying to keep
it as clear as possible of the throng of impatient travellers
which continually blocked it up. Taken altogether the situation
illustrated in a very striking manner that singular reliance of
the corporation on the individuality and intelligence of its employees,
which in another connection is referred to as one of the most
striking characteristics of American railroad management, without
a full appreciation of which it is impossible to understand its
using or failing to use certain appliances.
According to the regular schedule four trains should have left
the Boston station in succession during the hour and a half between
6:30 and eight o'clock PM: a Saugus branch train for Lynn at 6.30;
a second Saugus branch train at seven; an accommodation train,
which ran eighteen miles over the main line, at 7:15; and finally
the express train through to Portland, also over the main line,
at eight o'clock. The collision at Revere was between these last
two trains, the express overtaking and running
130 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
into the rear or the accommodation train; but it was indirectly
caused by the delays and irregularity in movement of the two branch
trains. It will be noticed that, according to the schedule, both
of the branch trains should have preceded the accommodation train;
in the prevailing confusion, however, the first of the two branch
trains did not leave the station until about seven o'clock, thirty
minutes behind its time, and it was followed forty minutes later,
not by the second branch train, but by the accommodation train,
which in its turn was twenty-five minutes late. Thirteen minutes
afterwards the second Saugus branch train, which should have preceded,
followed it, being nearly an hour out of time. Then at last came
the Portland express, which got away practically on time, at a
few minutes after eight o'clock. All of these four trains went
out over the same track as far as the junction at Everett, but
at that point the first and third of the four were to go off on
the branch, while the second and fourth kept on over the main
line. Between these last two trains the running schedule of the
road allowed an ample time-interval of forty-five minutes, which,
however, on this occasion was reduced, through the delay in starting,
to some fifteen or twenty minutes. No causes of further delay,
therefore, arising, the simple case was presented of a slow accommodation
train being sent out to run eighteen miles in advance of a fast
express train, with an interval of twenty minutes between them.
COMMON-SENSE AND ITS ABSENCE. 131
Unfortunately, however, the accommodation train was speedily
subjected to another and very serious delay. It has been mentioned
that the Saugus branch was a single track road, and the rules
of the company were explicit that no outward train was to pass
onto the branch at Everett until any inward train then due there
should have arrived and passed off it. There was no siding at
the junction, upon which an outward branch train could be temporarily
placed to wait for the inward train, thus leaving the main track
clear, and accordingly, under a strict construction of the rules,
any outward branch train while awaiting the arrival at Everett
of an inward branch train was to be kept standing on the main
track, completely blocking it. The outward branch trains, it subsequently
appeared, were often delayed at the junction, but no practical
difficulty had arisen from this cause, as the employee in charge
of the signals and switches there, exercising his common sense,
had been in the custom of moving any delayed train temporarily
out of the way onto the branch or the other main track, under
protection of a flag, and thus relieving the block. The need of
a siding to permit the passage of trains at this point had not
been felt, simply because the employee in charge there had used
the branch or other main track as a siding. On the day of the
accident this employee happened to be sick, and absent from his
post. His substitute either had no common sense or did not feel
called upon to use it, if its use
132 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
involved any increase of responsibility. Accordingly, when
a block took place, the simple letter of the rule was followed;
and it is almost needless to add that a block did take place on
the afternoon of August 26th.
The first of the branch trains, it will be remembered, had
left Boston at about seven o'clock, instead of at 6:30:, its schedule
time. On arriving at Everett this train should have met and passed
an inward branch train, which was timed to leave Lynn at six o'clock,
but which, owing to some accident to its locomotive, and partaking
of the general confusion of the day, on this particular afternoon
did not leave the Lynn station until 7:30 o'clock, or one hour
and a half after its schedule time, and one half-hour after the
other train had left Boston. Accordingly, when the Boston train
reached the junction its conductor found himself confronted by
the rule forbidding him to enter upon the branch until the Lynn
train then due should have passed off it, and so he quietly waited
on the outward track of the main line, blocking it completely
to traffic. He had not waited long before a special locomotive,
on its way from Boston to Salem, came up and stopped behind him.
This was presently followed by the accommodation train. Then the
next branch train came along, and finally the Portland express.
At such a time, and at that period of railroad development, there
was something ludicrous about the spectacle. Here was a road utterly
unable to accommodate
THE SCHEDULE OUT OF JOINT. 133
its passengers with cars, while, a succession of trains were
standing idle for hours, because a locomotive had broken down
ten miles off. The telegraph was there, but the company was not
in the custom of putting any reliance upon it. A simple message
to the branch trains to meet and pass at any point other than
that fixed in the schedule would have solved the whole difficulty;
but, no!there were the rules, and all the rolling stock
of the road might gather at Everett in solemn procession, but,
until the locomotive at Lynn could be repaired, the law of the
Medes and Persians was plain; and in this case it read that the
telegraph was a new-fangled and unreliable auxiliary. And so the
lengthening procession stood there long enough for the train which
caused it to have gone to its destination and come back dragging
the disabled locomotive from Lynn behind it to again take its
place in the block.
At last, at about ten minutes after eight o'clock, the long
expected Lynn train made its appearance, and the first of the
branch trains from Boston immediately went off the main line.
The road was now clear for the accommodation train, which had
been standing some twelve or fifteen minutes in the block, but
which from the moment of again starting was running on the schedule
time of the Portland express. This, its conductor did not know.
Every minute was vital, and yet he never thought to look at his
watch. He had a vague impression that he
134 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
had been delayed some six or eight minutes, when in reality
he had been delayed fifteen; and, though he was running wholly
out of his schedule time, he took not a single precaution, so
persuaded was he that every one knew where he was.
The confusion among those in charge of the various engines
and trains was, indeed, general and complete. As the Portland
express was about to leave the Boston station, the superintendent
of the road, knowing by the non-arrival of the branch train from
Lynn that there must be a block at the Everett junction, had directed
the depot-master to caution the engineer to look out for the trains
ahead of him. The order, a merely verbal one, was delivered after
the train had started, the depot-master walking along by the side
of the slowly-moving locomotive, and was either incorrectly transmitted
or not fully understood; the engine-driver supposed it to apply
to the branch train which had started just before him, out of
both its schedule time and schedule place. Presently, at the junction,
he was stopped by the signal man of this train. The course of
reasoning he would then have had to pass through to divine the
true situation of affairs and to guide himself safely under the
schedule in the light of the running rules was complicated indeed,
and somewhat as follows: "The branch train," he should
have argued to himself, "is stopped, and it is stopped because
the train which should have left Lynn at six o'clock has not yet
arrived; but, under the
FATAL MISAPPREHENSIONS. 135
rules, that train should pass off the branch before the 6:30
train could pass onto it; if, therefore, the 'wild' train before
me is delayed not only the 6:30 but all intermediate trains must
likewise be delayed, and the accommodation train went out this
afternoon after the 6:30 train, so it, too, must be in the block
ahead of me; unless, indeed, as is usually the case, the signal-master
has got it out of the block under the protection of a flag."
This line of reasoning was, perhaps, too intricate; at any rate,
the engine-driver did not follow it out, but, when he saw the
tail-lights immediately before him disappear on the branch, he
concluded that the main line was now clear, and dismissed the
depot-master's caution from his mind. Meanwhile, as the engine-driver
of this train was fully persuaded that the only other train in
his front had gone off on the branch, the conductor of the accommodation
train was equally persuaded that the head-light immediately behind
him in the block at the junction had been that of the Portland
express which consequently should be aware of his position. Both
were wrong.
Thus when they left Everett the express was fairly chasing
the accommodation train, and overtaking it with terrible rapidity.
Even then no collision ought to have been possible. Unfortunately,
however, the road had no system, even the crudest, of interval
signals; and the utter irregularity prevailing in the train movement
seemed to have demoralized the employees along the line, who,
though they noticed
136 RA1LROAD ACCIDENTS.
the extreme proximity of the two trains to each other as they
passed various points, all sluggishly took it for granted that
those in charge of them were fully aware of their relative positions
and knew what they were about. Thus, as the two trains approached
the Revere station, they were so close together as to be on the
same piece of straight track at the same time, and a passenger
standing at the rear end of the accommodation train distinctly
saw the head-light of the express locomotive. The night, however,
was not a clear one, for an east wind had prevailed all day, driving
a mist in from the sea which lay in banks over the marshes, lifting
at times so that distant objects were quite visible, and then
obscuring them in its heavy folds. Consequently it did not at
all follow, because the powerful reflecting head-light of the
locomotive was visible from the accommodation train, that the
dim taillights of the latter were also visible to those on the
locomotive. Here was another mischance. The tail-lights in use
by the company were ordinary red lanterns without reflecting power.
The station house at Revere stood at the end of a tangent,
the track curving directly before it. In any ordinary weather
the tail-lights of a train standing at this station would have
been visible for a very considerable distance down the track in
the direction of Boston, and even on the night of the accident
they were probably visible for a sufficient distance
MISCHANCE ON MISCHANCE. 137
in which to stop any train approaching at a reasonable rate
of speed. Unfortunately the engineer of the Portland express did
not at once see them, his attention being wholly absorbed in looking
for other signals. Certain freight train tracks to points on the
shore diverged from the main line at Revere, and the engine-drivers
of all trains approaching that place were notified by signals
at a masthead close to the station whether the switches were set
for the main line or for these freight tracks. A red lantern at
the masthead indicated that the main line was closed; in the absence
of any signal it was open. In looking for this signal as he approached
Revere the engine-driver of the Portland express was simply attending
closely to his business, for, had the red light been at the masthead,
his train must at once have been stopped. Unfortunately, however,
while peering through the mist at the masthead he overlooked what
was directly before him, until, when at last he brought his eyes
down to the level, to use his own words at the subsequent inquest,
"the tail lights of the accommodation train seemed to spring
right up in his face."
When those in charge of the two trains at almost the same moment
became aware of the danger, there was yet an interval of some
eight hundred feet between them. The express train was, however,
moving at a speed of some twenty-five or thirty miles an hour,
and was equipped only with the old-fashioned hand-brake. In response
to the sharply given signal
138 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
from the whistle these were rapidly set, but the rails were
damp and slippery, so that the wheels failed to catch upon them,
and, when everything was done which could be done, the eight hundred
feet of interval sufficed only to reduce the speed of the colliding
locomotive to about ten miles an hour.
In the rear car of the accommodation train there were at the
moment of the accident some sixty-five or seventy human beings,
seated and standing. They were of both sexes and of all ages;
for it was a Saturday evening in August, and many persons had,
through the confusion of the trains, been long delayed in their
return from the city to their homes at the seaside. The first
intimation the passengers had of the danger impending over them
was from the sudden and lurid illumination of the car by the glare
from the head-light of the approaching locomotive. One of them
who survived the disaster, though grievously injured, described
how he was carelessly watching a young man standing in the aisle,
laughing and gayly chatting with four young girls, who were seated,
when he saw him turn and instantly his face, in the sudden blaze
of the head-light, assumed a look of frozen horror which was the
single thing in the accident indelibly impressed on the survivor's
memory; that look haunted him. The car was crowded to its full
capacity, and the colliding locomotive struck it with such force
as to bury itself two-thirds of its length in it. At the instant
of the crash a
THE COLLISION. 139
panic had seized upon the passengers, and a sort of rush had
taken place to the forward end of the car, into which furniture,
fixtures and human beings were crushed in a shapeless, indistinguishable
mass. Meanwhile the blow had swept away the smokestack of the
locomotive, and its forward truck had been forced back in some
unaccountable way until it rested between its driving wheels and
the tender, leaving the entire boiler inside of the passenger
car and supported on its rear truck. The valves had been so broken
as to admit of the free escape of the scalding steam, while the
coals from the fire-box were scattered among the debris, and
coming in contact with the fluid from the broken car lamps kindled
the whole into a rapid blaze. Neither was the fire confined to
the last car of the train. It has been mentioned that in the block
at Everett a locomotive returning to Salem had found itself stopped
just in advance of the accommodation train. At the suggestion
of the engine-driver of that train this locomotive had there coupled
on to it, and consequently made a part of it at Revere. When the
collision took place, therefore, the four cars of which the accommodation
train was made up were crushed between the weight of the entire
colliding train on one side and that of two locomotives on the
other. That they were not wholly demolished was due simply to
the fact that the last car yielded to the blow, and permitted
the locomotive of the express train fairly to imbed itself in
it. As it was,
140 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
the remaining cars were jammed and shattered, and, though the
passengers in them escaped, the oil from the broken lamps ignited,
and before the flames could be extinguished the cars were entirely
destroyed,
This accident resulted in the death of twenty-nine persons,
and in more or less severe injuries to fifty-seven others. No
person, not in the last car of the accommodation train was killed,
and one only was seriously injured. Of those in the last car more
than half lost their lives; many instantly by crushing, others
by inhaling the scalding steam which poured forth from the locomotive
boiler into the wreck, and which, where it did not kill, inflicted
frightful injuries. Indeed, for the severity of injuries and for
the protractedness of agony involved in it, this accident has
rarely, if ever, been exceeded. Crushing, scalding and burning
did their work together.
It may with perfect truth be said that the disaster at Revere
marked an epoch in the history of railroad development in New
England. At the moment it called forth the deepest expression
of horror and indignation, which, as usual in such cases, was
more noticeable for its force than for its wisdom. An utter absence
of all spirit of justice is, indeed, a usual characteristic of
the more immediate utterances, both from the press and on the
platform, upon occasions of this character. Writers and orators
seem always to forget that, next to the
HASTY CRITICISM. 142
immediate sufferers and their families, the unfortunate officials
concerned are the greatest losers by railroad accidents. For them,
not only reputation but bread is involved. A railroad employee
implicated in the occurrence of an accident lives under a stigma.
And yet, from the tenor of public comment it might fairly be supposed
that these officials are in the custom of plotting to bring disasters
about, and take a fiendish delight in them. Nowhere was this ever
illustrated more perfectly than in Massachusetts during the last
days of August and the early days of September, 1871, Grave menmen
who ought to have known betterindulged in language which
would have been simply ludicrous save for the horror of the event
which occasioned but could not justify it. A public meeting, for
instance, was held at the town of Swampscott on the evening of
the Monday succeeding the catastrophe. The gentleman who presided
over it very discreetly, in his preliminary remarks, urged those
who proposed to join in the discussion to control their feelings.
Hardly had he ceased speaking, however, when Mr. Wendell Phillips
was noticed among the audience, and immediately called to the
platform. His remarks were a most singular commentary on the chairman's
injunction to calmness. He began by announcing that the first
requisite to the formation of a healthy public opinion in regard
to railroad accidents, as other things, was absolute frankness
of speech, and
142 RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
he then proceeded as follows:" So I begin by saying
that to my mind this terrible disaster, which has made the last
thirty-six hours so sad to us all, is a deliberate murder. I think
we should try to get rid in the public mind of any real distinction
between the individual who, in a moment of passion or in a moment
of heedlessness, takes the life of one fellow-man, and the corporation
that in a moment of greed, of little trouble, of little expense,
of little care, of little diligence, takes lives by wholesale.
I think the first requisite of the public mind is to say that
there is no accident in the case, properly speaking. It is a murder;
the guilt of murder rests somewhere."
Mr. Phillip's definition of the crime of "deliberate murder"
would apparently somewhat unsettle the criminal law as at present
understood, but he was not at all alone in this bathos of extravagance.
Prominent gentlemen seemed to vie with each other in their display
of ignorance. Mr. B. F. Butler, for instance, suggested his view
of the disaster and the measure best calculated to prevent a repetition
of it; which last was certainly original, inasmuch as he urged
the immediate raising of the pay of all enginemen until a sufficiently
high order of ability and education should be brought into the
occupation to render impossible the recurrence of an accident
which was primarily caused by the negligence, not of an engineer,
but of a conductor. Another gentleman described with much feeling
his observations during
A RASH STATEMENT. 143
a recent tour in Europe, and declared that such a catastrophe
as that at Revere would have been impossible there. As a matter
of fact the official reports not only showed that the accident
was one of a class of most frequent occurrence, but also that
sixty-one cases of it had occurred in Great Britain alone during
the very year the gentleman in question was journeying in Europe,
and had occasioned over six hundred cases of death or personal
injury. Perhaps, in order to illustrate how very reckless in statement
a responsible gentleman talking under excitement may become, it
is worth while to quote in his own language Captain Tyler's brief
description of one of those sixty-one accidents which "could
not possibly," but yet did, occur. As miscellaneous reading
it is amusing.
As four London & North-Western excursion trains on September
2, 1870, were returning from a volunteer review at Penrith, the
fourth came into collision at Penruddock with the third of those
trains. An hundred and ten passengers and three servants of the
company were injured. These trains were partly in charge of acting
guards, some of whom were entirely inexperienced, as well in the
line as in their duties; and of engine-drivers and firemen, of
whom one, at all events, was very much the worse for liquor. The
side-lamps on the hind van of the third train were obscured by
a horse-box, which was wider than the van. There were no special
means of protection to meet the exceptional contingency of three
such trains all stopping on their way from the eastward, to cross
two others from the westward, at this station. And the regulations
for telegraphing the trains were altogether neglected."
Table of Contents
| Contents Page
|