(The following article by Mac Daniel was posted on the Boston Globe website on October 28. Jeffrey Constantineau is a member of BLET Division 57 in Boston.)
WRENTHAM, Mass. — Commuter rail engineer Jeffrey Constantineau sees potential accidents on the rails every day — people walking beside the tracks with earphones on, a pack of children racing a commuter train on a dirt road beside the tracks, cars slaloming around dropped safety gates.
But when he rounded a corner in Franklin Monday morning, blew the whistle, and saw a man waving his arms violently, Constantineau was certain something bad was about the happen, he said Friday in an interview at his home here.
‘‘Close calls happen everyday,’’ he said. ‘‘But I knew right away there was something on the tracks. ….. This was different, the way this guy was waving.’’
Constantineau, a train engineer since 1988, hit the brake at 40 miles per hour with about 400 feet of track left and waited as seconds seemed to turn into screeching minutes.
‘‘There’s not much you can do after you hit the brake,’’ he said. But officials credit him with saving lives by opening the door of the double-decker car from which he was controlling the train and yelling as loud as he could, ‘‘Hold on!’’
Passengers braced and the collision rocked the 126,000-pound car. The force of the crash tilted the vehicle and caused a tractor-trailer loaded with construction equipment that was stuck on the tracks to strike the side of the train. Passengers were screaming.
Constantineau, 50, compared it to a scene in the film ‘‘The Fugitive,’’ in which a powerful train just keeps going after a collision, propelled by its speed and the weight. ‘‘I was bounced around and I ended up on the floor,’’ he said.
His train crew and conductors were all relieved to see each other as they searched the car for what they were sure would be fatalities. But there were none. Nineteen people were injured, but most were released from a hospital the same day.
In some ways, it was just part of the job for Constantineau, whose grandfather, father, uncle, and mother worked on railroads, the men all serving as engineers.
‘‘It just worked out the right way,’’ said his wife, Ellie. ‘‘He did save lives. But he’s been through a lot.
‘‘He’ll get over this,’’ she added, ‘‘and get back to work.’’