(The following story by Matt Collette appeared on the Boston Globe website on May 17. R.A. Gomes is a member of BLET Division 57 in Boston.)
BOSTON — When engineer Ronald Gomes saw a runaway freight car barreling toward the commuter rail train he was operating, he knew he had to act quickly.
“I knew that the impact . . . was unavoidable,” said Gomes, a 61-year-old with 39 years of rail experience, recalling the evening of March 25. “I knew that we were going to need emergency services, so I just tried to inform the dispatchers that we were going to need medical attention.”
As he was on the radio and attempting to move the train into reverse, the 112-ton freight car smashed into his train.
“It was just ‘Bang!’ It was so quick,” Gomes said yesterday after a ceremony in Boston, honoring him and his two fellow crew members, Richard Platt and Christopher Leaman, for their actions in the crash.
“These men reacted professionally, swiftly, and calmly in a life-threatening situation they never could have expected when they got up in the morning,” said Bernard Cohen, the state secretary of transportation. “All three members of the crew deserve our thanks and recognition.”
Cohen was joined by officials from the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., which runs the commuter rail service for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, at the ceremony honoring the crew of Train 917. It also marked the graduation of eight new locomotive engineers.
Upon impact that night, Gomes was thrown from his post and knocked out for a few minutes – he doesn’t know exactly how long – and woke up with a split lip, fractured ribs, and two missing teeth. Dripping with blood, Gomes reached again for his radio. “A box car crashed into us,” he told the dispatcher.
The Canton crash sent the southbound train hurtling backward and threw passengers and crew to the floor, injuring 150.
When Gomes got out of his engine, he said, he saw Platt, the conductor, and Leaman, the assistant conductor, helping injured passengers off the train.
Leaman, who has worked for the MBCR for two years, wasn’t supposed to be on the rails that day; he had picked up the shift on what was supposed to be his day off. Watching Gomes and Platt assist passengers despite their own serious injuries gave him a new perspective on the work he does each day.
“I have a deeper appreciation and respect for my crewmembers,” Leaman said after the ceremony.
The ceremony offered the new graduates the chance to learn one final lesson.
“To the members of the class of 2007, we hope you are never faced with a similar situation to the one in Canton Junction,” Cohen said. “But if you ever are, you now have a model for how to respond in the crew of Train 917.”