(The following story by Noah Bierman and Milton Valencia appeared on the Boston Globe website on March 27. Ronald A. Gomes is a member of BLET Division 57 in Boston, Mass. George J. Newman is Chairman of the BLET’s Massachusetts State Legislative Board.)
CANTON, Mass. — Train engineer Ronald Gomes had 20 seconds to react as a runaway freight car came barreling around a tree-shrouded bend, down a steep grade, headed right for his locomotive and the 300 unsuspecting commuters in the cars behind him.
“He very well could have opted to get out of that cab and run,” said Gerry DeModena, the general road foreman who oversaw Gomes’s train.
Not a chance, according to those who know him. Gomes, a 61-year-old with 39 years on the rails, stood by his post Tuesday evening and radioed for permission to reverse the MBTA commuter train. He had already stopped the Boston-to-Stoughton-bound train, responding to vague warnings from the railroad’s signaling system that came in 2 minutes earlier.
Before he could get the train into reverse, the freight car smacked the sitting locomotive, with force great enough to knock the six-car train back 47 feet and throw Gomes “all over the cab, off the walls, all over the deck,” DeModena said yesterday during a press conference and subsequent interview at South Station.
Transit police, federal investigators, and others spent yesterday trying to reconstruct the evening rush-hour crash that injured 150 people, to determine how the runaway freight car rolled nearly 3 miles from a Stoughton lumber yard, through three grade crossings, and into the southbound commuter rail train in Canton.
Some investigators interviewed employees of Cohenno Inc., the lumber yard that had received the runaway car and five others from CSX Transportation Tuesday as part of a construction materials shipment.
The freight car rolled downhill from the lumber yard to the crash site, a descent of about 100 feet, according to topographical records, giving the car plenty of momentum by the time it hit the train. An official close to the investigation said investigators do not yet know how fast the car was moving, but some estimated it was traveling at least 25 miles per hour. DeModena said it could have been going 40 miles per hour.
“The primary focus of the investigation right now is on the actions of the [Cohenno lumber yard] employees, who are not supposed to be moving freight cars,” said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Investigators are also examining the hand brakes used to secure freight cars and a device on the tracks called a derail, which is intended to push runaway trains off the tracks.
Investigators have not said whether the derail malfunctioned, had been improperly set, or whether the freight car was traveling too fast out of the yard and could not be stopped.
“They have a derail . . . which obviously didn’t work as intended,” said George Casey, local chairman of the United Transportation Union. Casey represents the CSX conductor who delivered the lumber car to Cohenno. He said the conductor told him the two-member crew set the cars at noon and secured it.
Andrew Cohenno, whose father owns the lumber company, said his employees did not move the freight car while it was on their property, held on a railroad siding. When they saw the car roll away, they called Stoughton police.
“We’re trying to help as much as we can with the investigation,” Cohenno said.
It is unclear who from the company dialed 911 at 5:11 p.m.
But on a recording of the call released yesterday by the MBTA, a man identifying himself as “Cohenno Incorporated” makes several pleas to a dispatcher, to explain the problem.
“The freight car from our siding is sitting out on the commuter rail,” the caller said. “We’ve got to somehow get the MBTA to stop the commuter rail. . . . You understand . . . we’ve got to notify the train to stop.”
After a tense few moments, the dispatcher seemed to grasp the dilemma and hung up.
As the freight car rolled from Stoughton to Canton, it triggered sensors at Canton Center and then Canton Junction, which reached Gomes’s cab in the form of a white stop light, said Stephen Urban, chief transportation officer for the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., which runs commuter rail for the MBTA.
But such warnings are not uncommon and do not necessarily indicate a runaway train, said George Newman, chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, Division 57. “It could just be a dropped circuit.”
As investigators focused on what went wrong, other officials said Gomes’s actions prevented the crash from being far worse. Gomes, colleagues said, is a reserved, methodical engineer who meticulously researches even the smallest personal and professional decisions before making them.
Gomes was recovering from his injuries at home in Rehoboth last night, said his niece, Mary Beth Ferreira.
She said her uncle said little about the accident except, “There was nothing he could do.”
“If you’d met him, you’d know he was in the room,” Ferreira said. “He’s that rough and tough kind of guy, a quick thinker.”
Before the crash, Gomes was at his customary post inside an 8-by-6 1/2-foot metal cab in the locomotive, filled with gauges, lights, and switches.
Although Gomes stopped the train after he was warned by a dispatcher and the warning light flashed, it was not until he saw the runaway car ahead that he knew something was very wrong. He quickly notified dispatchers.
The two conductors aboard notified as many passengers as they could, but many were standing up, getting ready to get off at Canton Junction, DeModena said.
There was no announcement over the train’s intercom, said passenger Lisa Jacobs of Brockton. DeModena could not confirm that, but said it is possible the conductors were getting ready to unload passengers and did not have time to gain access to the public address system.
About 5 minutes after the freight car rolled out of the lumber yard, it collided with MBTA commuter train No. 917.
One passenger called 911 and said, “We’ve got several people with bloody noses, bruise, banged up,” according a tape of the conversation.
Others at the scene reported broken arms, back pain, and other assorted injuries, none that was life-threatening.
His body bloodied, Gomes got on his radio to tell dispatchers where he was, so they could rush emergency crews to help injured passengers. Then he tried to help passengers off the train, said DeModena.
Numerous ambulances and rescuers rushed to the scene, helping to take the injured to various hospitals. There were so many injured they needed a bus.
“Who among us would have that presence of mind, that personal and professional discipline to do that?” DeModena said. “You’ve made the decision to sit there as this approaches you, and then [it] slams the engineer all over the cab, and then [he] gets back on [the radio] and calls.”
Gomes sustained bruises on his face, shoulder, and arm and was not available for comment, said a friend at the house.
DeModena said he had spoken to him.
“I think he felt as though he personally was hit by the train,” DeModena said. “He told me, in a much more humble way, ‘Gerry, I did everything I could do.’ “