Nashua Railway Accident
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When railway accident in Nashua derailed at dawn on November 12, 1954, a passenger train of the Boston & Maine Railroad at the train station of the Union Pacific Railroad in Nashua , New Hampshire . One woman died and 21 other passengers were injured.
the accident
The train was approaching the station where it was supposed to stop at excessive speed. The cause of the derailment could not initially be determined, but Albert S. Baker, assistant to the railroad president of the Boston & Maine Railroad, said the high speed possibly caused by a brake failure could have triggered the accident. The actual speed, and why it was excessive, he did not know at first. The train was later found to travel at nearly 70 mph (112 km / h), although the maximum speed there was limited to 30 mph (48 km / h).
The train with about 65 passengers was the Red Wing . It consisted of eight cars and two diesel locomotives in double traction. Most of the cars overturned after the derailment and destroyed the tracks before they came to a standstill. The baggage cart landed on the roof. Other wagons crashed freight cars parked on a siding and destroyed two of them as well as the concrete and stone wall of an adjacent building. Only the front engine units and a Pullman club car at the rear of the train remained upright.
The freight cars broke loose and smashed the wall of a goods shed when they arrived at the station.
consequences
30-year-old Mary Buckley from Manchester , New Hampshire died in the accident. It was the first passenger fatality on the route since 1918. In addition, 21 other passengers were injured.
Mary Buckley had just got on the train in Manchester to take her 11-year-old daughter Catherine to the Boston Children's Hospital for treatment for an unknown disease. Catherine's excruciating screams for her missing mother gave the police and railway officials an initial clue to the identity of the dead woman, whose body was in the ruins. Taxis have been used to help the congested local police get injured people to hospitals. Catherine was one of the first injured to reach the hospitals.
Several hours passed before railroad workers cleared the way for a recovery crane to lift the wrecked wagon so that the body could be removed.
Samuel Burns, 62, a train driver from Saugus, told Nashua police that he braked as he approached the station. He added that there was a spark and a noise before the rail vehicles derailed.
The railroad then conducted an investigation. New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission officials were at the scene early. A commission from the Interstate Commerce Commission also conducted an investigation.
Web links
- Lesley Jones: Two overturned cars
- Lesley Jones: Bogie in the woodshed
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Stu Beitler: Nashua, NH Train Derails, Nov 1954.
- ↑ Dean Shalhoup and David Brooks: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 Nashua hasn't seen a major train derailment since 1950s. ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Telegraph. Wednesday November 18, 2009.
- ^ Red Wing Leaves Track at Union Station; One Dead and 19 Injured. Nashua Telegraph, Friday November 12, 1954, p. 6
Coordinates: 42 ° 45 ′ 41.1 ″ N , 71 ° 26 ′ 59.5 ″ W.