What someone hasn’t mentioned yet is that this accident may have been caused by the failure of the handbrake to actually work. A friend of mine is an engineer/conductor on a short line around here, and he told me about the time when he was riding a car that had been kicked. He wound up the handbrake…and nothing happened. Fortunately, the car came to a halt by itself without hitting anything too solid, but a lot further than where he wanted it. Handbrakes can fail.
However, that being said, my money is on the lumber co. moving the car and it got away from them.
Oh, and FYI: that RR friend of mine also said that one of his RR buddys (a CSX engineer) told him that the lumber co. derail had a gouge right across the top of it after this incident. On the Railroad.net MBTA Forum, another CSX employee told everyone that these derails are tied into the CTC system. Since several other trains had passed this lumber co. switch without getting a restricting signal, this means that the switch and the derail were both apparently lined and locked for the Stoughton Branch main.
More info: I have the track charts for this area, and the grade is all downhill from the lumber co. The grade is mostly 0.7% to 0.9% with only a small grade going up towards Canton Jct. Also, the grade on the NEC in this area is 0.71% down towards Boston.
DMUinCT,
The runaway car went through three grade crossings, not two. The car hit the MBTA train on the NEC, not on the Stoughton Branch. If you look at the video on this incident, the helicopters show the catenary quite well…and the Stoughton Branch is not electrified. Also, the only Amtrak speed limits above 125mph in all of North America are between Bleachery Curve (MP 205) in Mansfield to East Jct. in South Attleboro and in the Kingston flats south of Providence, RI. Both are 150mph zones.
This runaway could have been far, far worse. If the MBTA train it hit hadn’t been a St