PHOTO BY ARTHUR REYNOLDS AND BILL CONWAY
Bystanders and emergency personnel look at the aftermath of the deadly train wreck that happened 60 years ago in Swampscott.
BY GAYLA CAWLEY
SWAMPSCOTT — This month marks the 60th anniversary of one of the worst train wrecks in North Shore history.
On Feb. 28, 1956, there was a crash involving two trains in Swampscott at about 8:18 a.m., that resulted in the deaths of 13 people and injuries to about 100 others.
Swampscott Fire Captain Kevin Thompson said at the time, trains ran through Danvers, Peabody and Salem to Boston. He said Train 214 had departed from Portsmouth, NH to Boston and experienced a loss of power just short of Newburyport. At the time, there was a blizzard outside and wet snow covered the traffic light signals, causing the train to halt for a third time in Swampscott. He said the rules are if a train can’t tell what the signal says–if it’s a green or red light–the train has to stop and call in to get orders from the central dispatch area.
Thompson said the foreman of the train got out and headed back to the telephone station a couple hundred yards back, as there were no radios on the train at the time, to call dispatch. The foreman went out with flags and flares and when he was heading back to Train 214, he heard the sound of another train approaching and tried to run back to his train to warn it. From the curvature of the track, it made it difficult for him to see the oncoming train until it was right past him. Thompson said the man waved the red flag, but the train went right past him.
Richard Symmes, former curator for the Walker Transportation Collection at the Beverly Historical Society, where the train wreck collection is featured, was 14 years old at the time and visited the site the day after the crash. He said it was “snowing like the dickens” on Feb. 28 and he was off from school, watching the footage on the news.
Symmes said the train from Portsmouth was having locomotive trouble that morning. The engineer on the other train from Danvers, Train 2406, knew from the schedule that Train 214 was in front of them. He said the Danvers train followed along, after making a brief stop in Salem to pick up more passengers.
Symmes said somewhere at about Essex Street, Train 214 was stopped short of the Swampscott station, unable to tell if the signals were red or green. An attempt was made to wipe snow off of the signals. He said the man with the flares from Train 214, who was about 150 yards back from his train, heard Train 2406 coming from behind and “waved the red flare as much as he could.”
“The Danvers train went roaring past with no intention of stopping,” Symmes said.
Then, Symmes said there was a tremendous crash.Thompson said Train 214 was struck so hard from behind that all six cars and the locomotive were shoved 50 feet down the tracks and the frame of the first car of Train 2406 was sheared away from the shell, leaving the roof opened as if by a can opener. Both the engineer and the fireman in Train 2406, as they were in the first car, were killed.
Thompson said the wheels on the rear car of Train 214 were completely separated from the car and were lying by the side of the train. Symmes said most of the people who died from the crash were in the first car of Train 2406 and were decapitated or cut in half. He said even the seats were ripped right off the floor.
Symmes said the crash was all over the news at the time. Every time he goes by the tracks where the crash occurred, he thinks about it.
“It was one of the worst wrecks like that on the North Shore for decades,” Symmes said.
A day after the wreck, Symmes said he and a friend rode their bikes over there from Beverly to see the site. He said all of the carnage had been cleared up, but some of the wreckage was still lying around.
Symmes said the cause of the wreck was never really explained, although there was a lengthy investigation. He said because the engineer and fireman died, they couldn’t testify, but questions arose about why an engineer with that much experience would have been going that fast in a blizzard when he knew a train was somewhere in front of him.
“He made an excellent scapegoat and was largely blamed for causing the wreck without being able to defend himself,” Symmes said about the engineer. “He was a veteran employee with many years on the railroad. His widow stood up for him when he died.”
Symmes said another train was dispatched to pick up the uninjured people and bring them back into Boston. He said the train was going 15 mph and hit a train that had stopped ahead of them. Thompson said the accident occurred in Revere 90 minutes after the first crash. He said 20 people were injured, including two from Swampscott.
“It was very lightly reported because the other one was so serious,” Symmes said.
Lou Gallo, Swampscott Town Historian, said he was off from school because of the snow on the day of the trainwreck. He said he was about 12 or 13 years old at the time. He said he was sitting at the table coloring when his grandmother came in from next door “all excited telling us there was a trainwreck in Swampscott.”
Gallo said his father was a special policeman and had been contacted because all of the police were needed at the site. He said his father was at the corner of Essex and Burrill streets turning turning people away.
“I remember him telling my mother they had caught someone trying to steal some jewelry off of one of the bodies,” Gallo said.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley
