(The following story by O’Ryan Johnson appeared on the Boston Herald website on March 26.)
BOSTON — A quick-thinking MBTA commuter rail engineer slammed on the brakes seconds before a runaway freight car – rolling uncontrolled from a siding onto the main track – smacked head-on into his train yesterday near Canton Junction, injuring as many as 150 passengers.
Passenger Bob Hooper of Stoughton, blood still on his face, said it was as if the No. 917 train “hit a brick wall.”
“There seemed to be no warning,” said passenger Gary Rozenas, 55, of Brockton. “All the lights went out. People went flying down the aisle. People were on the floor. The cars started to fill up with dust.”
Hooper, in the third car, smacked his head on the seat in front of him, opening up a 2-inch gash over his left eye. Lisa Kent of Brockton said, “It was horrible. Just horrible. People were screaming.”
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the commuter train’s locomotive was no longer moving when it was struck by a CSX freight car that rolled off a branch onto the main line near Canton Junction. He said the train’s engineer was among the injured.
There were about 300 commuters onboard the 4:40 p.m. train out of Boston’s South Station, bound for Stoughton, when the bulkhead freight car crashed into it at 5:20 p.m., causing broken noses, twisted ankles, neck and back injuries and several facial cuts, witnesses and fire officials said.
Canton Fire Chief Tim Ronayne said more than 20 ambulances were called to the crash site near Canton Junction, but many of the injured were shipped by MBTA bus to Norwood Hospital, Milton Hospital and Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton.
Acting MBTA Police Chief Paul MacMillan said the alert engineer may have saved lives: “The signal stopped our train, and, if it had not worked, the injuries would have been more severe.” The stop signal warned the engineer of the approaching hazard, and he hit the brakes.
The runaway CSX freight car rolled nearly three miles from the siding to where it crashed into the train, MacMillan said. CSX Transportation spokesman Gary Sease said their crew put it on the siding about five hours before the crash.
“It was a car that we had placed there at a customer’s request earlier in the day,” Sease said. “Right now, were cooperating with authorities on the investigation.”
Sease said it was too early to say if the rail crew had properly placed the car’s handbrake, put chocks in place beside the wheels, and put a derail device in place that would push the train off the tracks if the brakes and chocks failed.
A rail safety source said those measures are required when leaving a car at a siding.