(The following story by y Andrew Ryan and James Vaznis appeared on the Boston Globe website on March 14.)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — One person was killed, and two others were injured here yesterday afternoon when a northbound train hit workers who were inspecting tracks, an Amtrak spokesman said.
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The Boston-bound train was heading out of downtown Providence at 1:15 p.m. when it hit the workers, said railroad spokesman Cliff Cole. Two of the workers were Amtrak employees, and the third was a contractor. Their identities were not officially released.
An official of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, an Amtrak workers’ union, identified the dead man late last night as contractor Gary Graves, who retired in June from the railroad’s Philadelphia office after decades of service. The official asked that his name not be used.
The two injured workers were taken to a local hospital. Their condition was not available.
Train 2154, a high-speed Acela train, had begun its journey in Washington, D.C., and had 162 passengers and six employees on board, Cole said. The train was traveling below the 55 miles per hour speed limit authorized for the area, he said.
Six inspectors from the Federal Railroad Administration went to the scene to investigate the crash, spokesman Robert Kulat said. The National Transportation Safety Board took over the investigation last night because it involved a fatality.
Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the safety board, said its investigators would examine all aspects of the accident, including the speed of the train, whether its brakes worked properly, whether it blew its whistle, and whether railroad personnel followed correct procedures.
“We go into this with a fresh set of eyes,” he said.
The three workers were working near a stone overpass about a mile north of the Providence station, at a point just beyond a bend in the tracks.
“It’s a blind spot,” said Richard Bonafiglia, an employee of the Cadillac Lounge, which is near the site of the accident.
“You can’t hear those trains; they’re electric,” he said. “It takes only a second. . . . It’s a freak accident.”
After the train arrived at South Station, Brian O’Leary, an account executive for Dell who was traveling to Boston from New York City, said he rides the train often and knew from the way it had stopped that something unusual had happened.
“We were just leaving Providence, and I felt this jolt,” he said. “They hit their brakes pretty hard, so you knew something was wrong.
“It was very surreal to think that life is so short,” he said.
Patrick Scholes, an analyst for JP Morgan who was also traveling from New York, said the accident happened “literally outside my window.”
Scholes took a picture with his cellphone camera that showed a worker comforting an injured worker beneath his window.
He said riders were shocked and somber.
Amtrak service was suspended through Providence 2 1/2 hours while officials investigated. Service was restored at 3:48 p.m.
The MBTA also halted commuter rail service between Providence and South Attleboro, busing riders between the two communities. Service was restored by about 4:30 p.m., the MBTA said.