Notes on Railroad Accidents Author:Charles Francis Adams Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 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... more » 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 ad- RUNNING THE RISK. 21 mitted 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 derail...« less