The train hit the curve at Dudley Street at 60 or 65 m.p.h.; the driver had no chance
![Subway trains lie scattered about curve at Dudley Street](https://www.universalhub.com/files/styles/main_image/public/images/2023/dudleysmash-paper.jpg?itok=0qlvXYgE)
Contemporary newpaper photo. The A car was the lead car; C initially stayed, mangled, on the tracks, workers pushed it down to the street to remove it. See it larger.
Shortly after 1 a.m. on Aug. 4, 1910, Thomas Manning, a veteran motorman for the Boston Elevated Railway, widely known as a careful and sober driver, picked up a four-car train at Egleston Square from the crew that had just let off the last passengers of the night at Forest Hills to guide it into the Guild Street yard near Dudley station for several hours of cleaning and repairs.
But, the Boston Globe reported at the time, something went horribly wrong. Somehow, the train accelerated rapidly. "Automatic stops" meant to stop runaway trains had been turned off for the night and while he was able to get through the first of two curves, when he hit the second, at Washington and Dudley streets, doing 60 to 65 m.p.h., his car caromed off the tracks - underneath which a trolley had just past - and down to the street. As soon as his car hit the ground, he was shot out of what used to be a window - after which "a shower of torn steel, wood and glass" fell on top of him as the second car came hurtling off the tracks as well and into the walls of a nearby building.
Amazingly, local police and bystanders were able to get Manning into an ambulance to City Hospital - where he was pronounced dead about four hours later.
The Boston City Archives has two collections of photos from the Dudley Street disaster, including:
One of the cars smashed into a building:
![El car smashed into building](/images/2023/dudleysmash.jpg)
The curve after the cars had been removed:
![Dudley Square tracks](/images/2023/dudleysmash-aerial.jpg)
The first and second cars on the ground:
![El cars on the ground](/images/2023/dudleysmash-ground.jpg)
Workers and officials afterwards:
![El crash aftermath](/images/2023/dudleysmash-ground2.jpg)
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Comments
pardon me boy
is this the Transylvania Station?
dudley
i rode the orange line from 1952-1966 on a daily basis. The screech of the wheels at Dudley were always terrifying.
If that happened today it
If that happened today it would much worse. As a rider of the All Bad Orange Line, they already are breaking. Control Alt Delete. Tells people they are at Jackson when they are at Downtown. My head keeps hitting the emergency button each time the breaks slam. Seats are so fucking bad as well. Riding in a piece of tin.
His Final Conversation...
"I think she has." The final thing Thomas Manning is known to have said to another person, per a BERy internal report on the accident. The other man was wondering if the train had "flat" wheels {worn spots from excessive wear}. The report also noted that Mr. Manning had formerly been a streetcar motorman working out of Division Five {Southie}.
Accidents were extremely rare on the Elevated; the few that did occur were catastrophic.
Safe?
Which makes me wonder why you would turn a safety feature off at night...