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 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 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 thrown--at the second
when it was set neither the one way nor the other--and 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
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
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 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 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 _débris_ of the train. Had they not done
so nothing could have saved the large number of passengers confined
in the shattered cars.