A collision on the Boston and Providence Rail Road at Roxbury, Massachusetts Harry Chase, March 2012 Abstract On Wednesday, 29 June 1836, at 12:40 p.m., an 11-car northbound through passenger train on the single-track Boston and Providence Rail Road collided head-on with a 3-car southbound local passenger train, at Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1.5 miles south of Pleasant Street depot, Boston. The collision, caused by failure of the conductor and engineer of the northward train to observe safety precautions, resulted in one employee fatality, numerous injuries to passengers, and major damage to locomotives and cars. A suit brought in Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court against the railroad corporation by some of the more seriously injured passengers resulted in the plaintiffs receiving generous monetary awards. The Boston and Providence Rail Road Company then took steps to prevent the recurrence of such an accident. Background The Boston and Providence Rail Road connecting the capital cities of Massachusetts and Rhode Island was chartered 22 June 1831 and opened for service over its 42-mile main line 28 July 1835. It was built as a single-track railroad, but the roadbed was made wide enough to permit addition of a second track. A number of sidings with turnouts at either end allowed trains to meet or pass one another.[1] Most pioneer railroads in the Atlantic coastal region of the United States ran from a seaport into the interior. The Boston and Providence was an exception. It was planned primarily to connect one important seaport – Boston -- to another – New York – by means of coordinated train-boat service having a connection at Providence. The Boston and Providence, which was the only railroad entering the Rhode Island capital, enjoyed a monopoly on rail travel and shipping to and from that city. It also dominated the passenger business between Boston and New York. At Providence its trains met the Long Island Sound steamboats President and Benjamin Franklin of the New York and Boston Transportation Company, and Lexington and Cleopatra of “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt's rival firm also based in New York City.[2] Interlocking directorates of the railroad and steamboat companies solidified the arrangements between them.[3] A contract between the Boston and Providence Rail Road Company and the New York and Boston Transportation Company contained the agreement that the steamboat trains connecting with the New York boats “shall at all times proceed to and from the steamboats at a rate more rapid, so as to effect the passage in less time than ordinary passenger trains of equal burden, and without stopping more than three times on the route.”[4] The northbound boat trains averaged 20 or 21 miles per hour on their runs between Providence and Boston.[5] Quick and reliable overnight rail-water service from Boston to New York commenced as soon as the railway opened. It was possible for Manhattan-bound travelers to eat a leisurely noon dinner at a fine hotel in Boston, be in Providence after a two-hour train trip in time to board a luxurious steamboat at four in the afternoon, and arrive in New York before businesses opened the next morning. The best locomotives and cars and the most competent and reliable engine and train crews were drawn for the steamboat trains. In the beginning, the only stop for the boat trains was Mansfield, the junction of the Taunton Branch Rail Road, 18.2 miles from India Point station in Providence, 23.8 miles from Pleasant Street depot, Boston. At Mansfield the engine took on wood and water, while passengers who wished to do so transferred to and from Taunton Branch trains. The departure time of the northbound steamboat train from Providence depended on the arrival of the boat from New York, which in bad weather might be delayed from one to 12 hours. This created a dangerous uncertainty on the railroad, because southward trains leaving Boston at regularly scheduled times were operating on single track head-to-head with northward boat trains running at irregular and unpredictable intervals out of Providence. This practice caught up with Boston and Providence after it had been in operation a bit less than a year. Risky operating practices One of the hazards of single-track railroading is unplanned violent encounters between opposing trains. On the Boston and Providence, regularly scheduled opposing trains leaving the terminals at fixed times were expected to meet at the approximate midpoint of Foxborough, 21.5 miles from Boston, 20.5 miles from Providence, the train that reached there first taking siding to let the other through on the main track.[6] In those early days, when there were no wayside signals or other advanced forms of communication, if the opposing train failed to arrive at the meeting point in a certain number of minutes, the waiting train was authorized to leave the siding and proceed cautiously, slowing to a crawl at danger points and sending a brakeman with a blue flag[7] ahead on foot to peer around the next curve; while the tardy train, when its conductor saw by his watch that he had overrun his time at the meeting point, was required to stop and then back cautiously to the nearest siding in its rear, to the annoyance of its passengers. The Boston and Providence Rail Road up until 29 June 1836 had experienced several train accidents The line was open for only 11 days when a car in a moving train near Providence became detached from the engine, though apparently there were no injuries.[8] An unidentified locomotive nicknamed “Creeping Turtle,” hauling an outbound work train loaded with wood, stone and iron near Boston on 28 November 1834, suddenly lost its steam pressure and stopped when “one of its boiler bolts flew out.” Luckily, no one was injured in the explosion.[9] On 22 August 1835 a mishap near Providence caused by lack of a locomotive headlight was reported: An accident occurred on the Providence rail-road on Saturday evening, but fortunately no lives were lost, although the cars were detained two or three hours. The train which left Providence at sunset, came in contact with the cars on their way from the city [Boston] – one of the locomotives had a light, and the other had not. Some damage was done to the cars, which did not reach the city till nearly 12 o'clock.[10] Five days later, the locomotive Philadelphia, later to be involved in the 1836 Roxbury collision, hauling a southbound 2-car night train jumped the track on a curve near the Dedham Branch junction. Little or no damage resulted, but the train was delayed 90 minutes.[11] Either a spark from the engine or flammable material in the car ignited the baggage car of a 9-car southbound steamboat train carrying 150 to 200 passengers within 7 miles of Providence on 13 April 1836. No passengers were injured, though the newspaper mail for New York and half the baggage were destroyed.[12] One week before the 29 June 1836 Roxbury collision, two freight trains ran into one another near Roxbury, one engine being overturned, with a cylinder ripped loose, producing a great cloud of escaping steam.[13] Approach to collision The “Steamboat Train” leaving Providence on Wednesday morning, 29 June 1836, consisted of the locomotive Philadelphia and 11 passenger coaches. The engine was a typical one of that era. Built by American Steam Carriage Company in Philadelphia, it had been in service for about a year. Before coming to the Boston and Providence it was tried out by the Boston and Worcester Rail Road, which found it unsatisfactory.[14] A 30-horsepower 4-2-0 type with two driving wheels, it hardly seemed powerful enough to pull the 11-car load assigned to it. But cars in those days were small, and between Providence and Boston there were no heavy northward grades (steepest was about 0.5 percent for a short distance just north of Mansfield and again at Toll Gate, 4.4 miles from Boston),[15] so on the Boston and Providence Rail Road, apparently, Philadelphia had proved itself as “the little engine that could.” It was said to be “equal in speed to the best foreign [engine],”[16] which may have been why it was picked to handle the “Steamboat Train.” Most of the 300 passengers who boarded the train at Providence had left New York the previous evening under a full moon aboard the six-year-old, twin-engine, side-wheel steamboat Benjamin Franklin of the New York and Boston Transportation Company. The Franklin, commanded by Captain Robert B. Coleman, was considered the “crack boat” on Long Island Sound. The connecting “Steamboat Train” being the Amtrak “Acela Express” of its day, the passengers expected a safe, fast ride to Boston. Among them were 120 seamen and marines from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, bound for Charlestown Navy Yard near Boston, where they were to be assigned to the U. S. sloop-of-war Boston, which had already “hauled off into the stream” and was about to sail.[17] In charge of the United States Navy detachment was Passed Midshipman John A. Russ.[18] He and his men boarded the boat train’s first two cars, which apparently had been reserved for them. The train pulled out of Providence’s India Point station at about 10 a.m., crossed the movable bridge over Seekonk River, then headed north on the longest straight track in New England – a 16.1-mile bee line to the first curve, 1.2 mile north of Mansfield depot. After the customary wood and water stop at Mansfield the “Steamboat Train” proceeded without a problem until it neared the station called Toll Gate, 37.6 miles from Providence, 0.4 mile south of Forest Hills and 4.4 miles from the Boston terminal.