Notes on Railroad Accidents

by Charles Francis Adams

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 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 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 somewhat 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 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, intricate in the extreme as it was, thus depended solely on a schedule arrangement and the watchful intelligence of individual employés. 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 employés 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 employés, 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 P.M.: 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 into the rear of 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.

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 employé 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 employé in charge there had used the branch or other main track as a siding. On the day of the accident this employé 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 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 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 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 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 employés along the line, who, though they noticed 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 tail-lights 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 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."