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In an era before MBTA mishaps became almost a daily occurrence, a ‘normal’ Boston-bound trip from Forge Park Station nearly turned deadly.
It was Monday, October 23, 2006, and an MBTA commuter train had departed Forge Park at 7:45 AM, traveling at a moderate clip to navigate the numerous curves and grade crossings that lead to Dean Station. But at nearly the same moment, less than a mile away, a trucker bearing a piece of rock-crushing apparatus on a flat bed trailer, specifically a “low-bed” trailer that allows equipment to easily drive on and off, was navigating the streets near the Franklin DPW.
All perfectly routine activities, except that the trucker missed or ignored a sign, admittedly wordy and imprecise, prohibiting trucks like his from area of Fisher Street where it crosses the MBTA tracks. Nor would a casual glance at the right of way immediately signal that the track crossing would present a problem.
But it did, grinding the trailer and its load to a stop athwart the tracks at a curve where an approaching train would have no inkling of the trouble ahead. According to published reports, the driver of a vehicle behind the stuck trailer, immediately recognized the imminent danger and ran along the tracks in the direction of Forge Park attempting to flag the train down. But by that time the train, operating in push-pull mode, with the locomotive pushing the train from the rear toward Boston, and the engineer operating from a control station in the lead passenger car, was almost on top of the stuck trailer. It was too late.
Even at low speed, it can take hundreds of feet to bring a train to a stop and the operator realized that was clearly impossible as he came around the curve. So, he applied brakes and then retreated to the passenger compartment to avoid likely death as his little cab would be the first part of the train to come into contact with the truck and its cargo.
Passenger in that lead car remember the shouted warning from the engineer to “hold on” and then almost immediately came the crash which tossed some people around. A Bellingham resident recalled what happened next – as if in slow motion – the boom of the rock crusher was swinging directly toward him giving him just a moment to leap to the other side before it smashed through the side window and into the compartment.
Had he been dozing – his original hope for the long trip – he would likely have been killed, he speculated.
All in all, some 19 people were injured, 15 requiring hospitalization, Forge Park service was interrupted, and the MBTA had a badly damaged train car to replace.
In the aftermath, the sign that read, the word sign that “prohibited” low-beds without saying why (an invitation to scofflaws), a bold graphic sign went up that clearly depicts the unhappy consequences for low-bed trailers taken further down Fisher Street.
Whether it is luck or the new sign, no further incidents involving low-beds have been reported at the crossing.
