BOSTON — Service on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Fairmount line for the morning commute today (Wednesday, April 10) has been cancelled as the result of a Tuesday night collision and derailment of two MBTA trains near Boston’s South Station.
No injuries were reported when a Fairmount Line train collided with an out-of-service train at low speed, derailing three cars, the Boston Globe reports. Work by the MBTA and its contract operator, Keolis Commuter Service, to rerail the cars, clean up, and inspect the accident site was not completed.
Bus service was replacing commuter trains this morning. The status of service for the afternoon commute was not immediately available. Check the MBTA website for more information.
Early analysis by MBTA believes human error was involved as engineer on the out-of-service train apparently ran a red signal where its track converged with the track in use by the Fairmount train. Oy.
Hey TRAINS-MAG editors – start working on the 50th anniversary article of the unattended New Haven freight engines in this area that decided to go out for a walk and ended up across the northbound lanes of the Southeast Expressway. That was 1969.
We drove home to Quincy that afternoon, southbound, and saw the engines parked on the northbound roadway. We had the same reaction as everyone else: “Didn’t know there were tracks there….. “.
Thanks Doug, I’m not sure where “Newmarket” is. You and I may or may not be referring to the same tracks. I left Massachusetts within a few weeks (50 years ago) and obviously much has happened since including the rebuilding of the expressway and massive new developments in the South Boston district. Including development replacing former New Haven tracks.
The engines left the South Boston engine terminal, headed south for a mile or two, jumped the stub-end storage track, crossed a local street (paralleling the expressway on the east fence line), demolished a fence or two and ended up across three lanes of the expressway at the MassAve/ Roxbury interchange.
At this point the engines either ran out of momentum or else hit the median barrier. Even if the median barrier had been breached, it would not have been possible to cross onto the southbound lanes. The southbound lanes were higher, descending south from having crossed over the MassAve/ Roxbury ramps.
This was rush hour. Supposedly Boston was traffic was badly tied up, but we actually had less traffic to deal with as fewer cars were able to get into the city. We were home to Quincy in short order.
Ironically I had some years earlier been in my own totally bizarre, totally unpredictable crash at the exact location. I was in the front passenger seat. My dad was driving the median lane northbound in his 1963 Studebaker Lark station wagon (it was only later he started buying real cars like a 1968 Dodge Coronet station wagon). He hit the brakes. The brakes grabbed unevenly. The car went out of control, climbed a “snow ramp” and ended up balanced two wheels on either side of the median beam guard. What’s strange is with the stepped section (the southbound lanes higher) we’d climbed about four to six feet over snow compacted by the plows. (For those of you who haven’t been there, it snows a lot in Boston.)
The car (body on frame in those days) was undamaged without a scratch. Dad simply drove home to Quincy from the police impound lot.
Charles, there used to be tracks there that served what is now called Newmarket before the XWay was built, across the XWay from the MBTA storage tracks, with produce and meat distributors. You can still see remnant rail here and there.
Hmmmm, misplaced switch or an occupied track not protected? I hope not!!! Thank Goodness no injuries.