Trains and train stations have a certain allure to many. Alex loves them, especially during morning rush hour. This morning
proved to be a little more interesting than most. It was cold with snow flurries blowing around. Alex and I were freezing.
But he had to stay to see two trains at the West Medford commuter rail station.
As the northbound train approaches, a women walks across the tracks to wait for the southbound train. Of course, the
oncoming train is slowing down for a station stop, so this is not that scary a situation, really.
This, on the other hand, gets me a little worried. There's a very big difference between these two photos.
In the photo below, you now have a dog involved. You also have an oncoming train and since it's further from the station it's
going much faster. To be fair, this is shot at a medium telephoto, so there is distance compression going on. Specifically,
the distance from the man and dog to the train bridge is further than it appears. Still, it doesn't take much more than getting
a leash or shoelace caught for this to suddenly become a very dangerous situation.
Now let me tell you a
story. It was early morning, November, 1957. Rainy. Cold. The B&M #30 was traveling south towards Somerville from White River
Junction, Vermont. The crew is supposed to be aware that a section of the main line has been pulled out for repair. They'll
be riding a side line after passing the bulk of Tufts University. In Winchester, they apply the brakes a bit, but don't really
slow down.
The signal they are looking for is the slow board. It is supposed to be a 2 foot by 2 foot sign mounted
on a 10 foot pole containing the speed limit written in black on a yellow background. The board that was put in place didn't
quite live up to that. It was only 1 foot by 1 foot on a four foot pole. But it had a yellow lamp on top - nice touch. But
in the end it didn't really matter, because someone stole it.
By now, you all know what's going to happen, so let's rejoin our hapless dog-walker and see if he escapes
the clutches of disaster:
OK, great, so he's fine. Can I just make the point that walking on train tracks is dangerous at any time?
You'd be surprised at how quiet a train can be when the wind is blowing a certain way and your ears are in another direction.
But walking on the tracks when you can actually see the oncoming train -- much more dangerous. At least statistically. Don't
do it. And don't ever cross a train bridge. Think about it.
Now both slow boards (there's on on either side of the side line connection) were mysteriously pulled out
the day before and left lying on the ground. Because there is a rule for everything in the train business, we learn that the
masts of these boards are supposed to be placed three and a half feet into the ground. That clearly wasn't going to work with
a four foot pole, so they put them one foot eight inches deep. They'd certainly be easier to pull out if you had the intent,
and who would?
Someone did, because someone not only took the southbound sign, they hid it in the brush. There is speculation
that they came back and dug a hole to try to put it back in, but then weren't able to finish the job. I'd imagine not, because
what happened to B&M #30 was absolutely horrific.
The train is supposed to be slowing down to 15 miles per hour. Instead, it barrels along at 57. It passes
Tufts on the right and crosses under College Avenue by Alumni Field. As it passes behind the factory buildings and approaches
the Harvard Street bridge, it is switched over to the side line at speed. A few seconds later it derails.
The train is pulled by two diesel engines. The first one separates and crashes along until it comes to a rest
partly on the bridge and partly on Harvard Street. The second engine and the first car (full of milk) hit a building and demolished
a corner of it. It is
said you can still see the where the engine hit. Luckily, the passenger cars were more towards the back. The first five cars were
not passenger cars. The first three were completely destroyed as were the diesel engines. The first passenger car, a sleeper
car, was heavily damaged. In all, 71 people were injured and two killed (the engineer and fireman). There is at least one
photo of the accident online.
So we're pretty much in snow heaven here in the Boston area. I heard a newscaster say tonight that we've had more snow
in the past week than all last year. By my count, we've had three storms in a week for about 26 to 28 inches (that's about
2/3 of a meter for you metric folks). It's been hard to shoot the snow due to my schedule, but there are some times that I
can manage. In this case, Alex was napping and I saw some crows getting frisky in the neighborhood. So I took a slapped on
a telephoto lens and went out to the porch. My porch is a floor up from ground level, so it has a nice roof-level vantage
point.
First, this guy, a real flyer, shoots across to the roof of the house across from me.
OK, so clearly it's snowing, right? Right. Because it's snowing and this was a fairly long telephoto, snowflakes
near the bird will be sharp white spots. Snowflakes that are closer to the camera become increasingly large and fuzzy spots
as they move away from the plane of focus.
Now it flies back across the yards to another roof where it is joined by a very strange friend.
The 'friend' spends a bunch of time rooting around through the snow on the rooftop eating or licking or something.
I couldn't tell, but it made me wonder if it had
pica or something.
Anyway, they eventually drifted away, but not before more spirited aerobatics.
