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Multiple injuries when one B Line trolley crashes into another
By adamg on Fri, 07/30/2021 - 6:53pm
Rear of the train that was hit. Photo by Greg Moseley.
An outbound Green Line trolley crashed into the back of another outbound trolley on Commonwealth Avenue just past Agganis Arena shortly after 6 p.m.
The Boston Fire Department reported 23 people with injuries were transported to local hospitals. None of the injuries were considered life threatening.
Multiple injuries @universalhub pic.twitter.com/3o0qiXMY6H
— Chris in 02134 (@Chrispmullen) July 30, 2021
The trolley on the left hit the trolley on the right:
Companies are all working to secure scene of trolley accident in front of Agganis Arena. Please avoid area. Multiple people being evaluated by @BOSTON_EMS pic.twitter.com/a96P3L9xUY
— Boston Fire Dept. (@BostonFire) July 30, 2021
B Line service was halted between Kenmore and Packards Corner. The T promised shuttle buses, but much of Commonwealth Avenue was shut as well around the crash scene, although some lanes were later re-opened.
After the trolleys were cleared, Transit Police unrolled police tape around the trolleys.
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Comments
Another driver texting again?
Another driver texting again?
how the hell does this happen
how the hell does this happen, in broad daylight, on one of the clearest stretches of track in Boston?
Medical incident maybe? I'm
Medical incident maybe? I'm only speculating here, but there was a similar incident on the green line several years ago where the operator had lost consciousness and rear ended the trolley in front.
Not kidding but….
I am surprised there were that many people on the T during BU summer session in general and that they were going fast enough in that area to injure anyone.
Myopic
The B Line carries anyone from BC all the way downtown.
While BU has a lot of local traffic in that section, it's by no means the primary use of the B Line.
Newton can explain it
Objects in motion like to stay in motion, after all. And when object A acts upon object B with a certain force, object B exerts that equal and opposite force onto A. And that force, not only is proportional to the (negative) acceleration of the train, but also to the mass of the train. They do have significant mass to them, after all, whereas the passengers on the train have much less mass to absorb the acceleration from the applied force.
It's often not speed itself that causes injury in collisions, it's the rapid change in speed. We could design the most crash-resistant automobile, but if you are driving fast enough when you hit a solid object, they'll find your body intact, buckled in to your seat, dead from your heart tearing from your aorta during rapid deceleration.
Or maybe the T driver
Or maybe the T driver suffered a medical emergency?
What does the signaling system look like
on this surface part of the Green Line? Is there any automatic train stop here?
Serious answer: I don't know,
Serious answer: I don't know, but I think they're planning to do it someday.
Anecdotal answer: It stops at every damn intersection on Comm Ave between Kenmore and BC anyway, so why would they bother?
Hold that thought ...
Am working on a story about it right now.
The Green Line
has, I believe, all wayside signaling. There's no ATS. One of the issues is that it would be difficult to put on the street-running and at-grade portions, another is that it would reduce the capacity of the Boylston subway because they regularly pull trains close together (albeit at low speeds, which this was most certainly not).
How this happens is beyond me, although there's also the question of, if anyone were dispatching trains at Park Street, why two B Line trains would be running back-to-back at this location. Although it looks like one of the cars may have split a switch or fully derailed? Maybe we can blame a Type 8 for this.
Right, no ATS
The T finally got around to hiring a company to build a "Green Line Train Protection System" last year, but no actual physical work has begun.
Probably rear conductor's fault
WBZ quotes the GM saying they derailed after the crash.
Either way, you have to figure there's a minimum safe following distance between trolleys. I used to train people to drive big vehicles downtown---you simply *cannot* run into somebody from behind like that; if you did, you were too close and/or going too fast.
Unless there was some catastrophic mechanical failure, this sort of things is absolutely preventable even without more modern electronic safety features
There is no signal system.
There is no signal system. Trains have to keep visual separation on the surface branches, except the D branch which has signals. Trolleys on the surface don't really need signals to protect from rear-end collisions any more than cars do, since visibility is good and trolleys can stop much faster than a train. A signal system wouldn't even make sense on the street-running part of the E, since the train runs in mixed traffic with cars, etc which would have nothing to do with rail signals.
I saw a T worker using a
I saw a T worker using a yellow signal flag the day before in that area, so possible extenuating circumstances.
It must the first time that
It must the first time that Green Line B has ever been described as fast by passengers.