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South End crash sends car plunging 40 feet onto commuter-rail tracks; four injured, train service disrupted
By adamg on Wed, 08/18/2021 - 7:44am
Photo by BFD.
The Boston Fire Department reports a two-car crash near Washington and Herald streets around 4 a.m. ended with one car on its back on the commuter-rail tracks 40 feet below.
Four people were taken to the hospital.
The car caused major problems on several lines out of South Station; Providence and Franklin Line trains bypassed Hyde Park, Ruggles and Back Bay.
A crew eventually got the car off the tracks.
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Comments
Threading a needle
I'm surprised the car managed to slip between all the wires and not to take out any of the 25kV catenary or support structure.
Lucky/unlucky
Unlucky that they went over, people were hurt.
Lucky that nobody got electrocuted.
Would be tricky
To be electrocuted from the 25 kV AC the car would have had to complete a circuit to the ground. The clearance is such that even if it had stood straight up and been caught by the wire, it's relatively unlikely that it would have stayed that way before falling to the ground. The occupants would have been relatively protected by the faraday cage effect of the car; if it had formed a circuit the electricity would have passed across the skin of the car, not through it. (This is what protects you in a car from lightning, although the spark gap for 25 kV with about 200 amps—which is about what an Acela power car pulls—is about one two-millionth that of lightning, which is about 300 megavolts and 30 kilo-amps.)
Assuming ...
Assuming of course that windows were closed, people stayed in the car, etc. and structural pieces did not come down with the vehicle.
The faraday cage effect helps, but only if arms aren't hanging out open/broken windows live wires don't end up in the car - things that can happen when a car is tumbling 40 feet that don't when the car is on tires on the ground.
It may not be a big risk, but the hazard is there depending on how everything comes down.
Amperage can matter more than voltage as well.
It seems drivers speed down
It seems drivers speed down Herald at all times of the day. Not a pleasant intersection to cross whether on foot, bike, bus or private vehicle.
How Fast Was The Car On Herald Street Going?
50? 60? 70?
I was not good at physics but for a car to get knocked up over the sidewalk and go through the fending and posting, you got T-Boned hard by someone exceeding the posted speed limit of 25 mph there. Just a hunch.
Slow down.
By the way before any of our velophiles wax on how a bike would have not done this, stop at all the red lights today just for fun so you can show you can obey the law too unlike the person who caused this accident.
Amusing how you try…
… to turn this into a rant against cyclists when not a single cyclist was involved.
Amusing Being In Cambridge, Somerville, and JP Yesterday
...and at this intersection and watching bikes blow through red lights with a blatant disregard for the law.
I want respect for traffic laws. That covers a lot.
Piss off Lee.
You seem enamored of traffic laws …
… that disregard the safety of cyclists and pedestrians.
Also your outrage is getting quite predictable and boring.
Counterpoints Are Part of A Disucssion
What you call outrage is a counterpoint.
Your inability to understand this concept is quite predictable and boring.
That isn't a counterpoint
That is just contradicition!
And John Cleese Is An Anti-Irish Bigot
So, yes, go on posting stuff from bigots. You sad approaching social security age qualifying person.
Time to hop on the …
… exercise trike and take a breather, Costello.
Don’t run any imaginary red lights.
Not the person I expected to turn into
a right-wing caricature of wokeness over a couple of tame dad jokes from the 80-year-old Cleese (effectively, "Irish spelling is funny" and "Irish people, especially old ones, are slow-witted").
Guess it's different when you feel your own ancestry (or perhaps that of any White European people) is being attacked or slighted, eh?
Also, weird to follow with an ageist insult, especially from someone whose uHub posts frequently sound like a rage-fueled Abe Simpson. It's like you never even heard of irony.
How many of them
caused cars to flip over or anyone to be hurt as a result?
Enough with the bicycles please
Bicycles had nothing to do with this crash. Folks, hold your anger for a more relevant discussion.
Washington
Do we know yet that the car was traveling on Herald and not Washington?
What?
This has literally nothing to do with bicycling? Like, we get it, you can't ride a bike. Stop compensating.
I would love to know how
I would love to know how there is literally anything a bicyclist could do that is so egregiously terrible that it would result in a car flying out of this intersection and landing on the tracks. Keep in mind we don't even know of the person who was (obviously) speeding in this case is the one who ended up on the tracks. They may have hit someone else who was otherwise obeying the law. Converting Harold Street into a MUCH smaller road with cycle tracks and real traffic calming instead of keeping it as the de facto highway that it is today would almost certainly have prevented this crash.
So yeah, slow the f down, and no, bicyclists have nothing to do with it.
Cycle tracks are a great idea for Herald St.
Widening the sidewalks too. I almost never use it unless I’m in a car because it’s just too harrowing on foot or on a bike.
It also needs a cop at every intersection especially during rush hour. The safety monitors that attempt to stop red light runners so the kids can cross get to and from the Quincy School are often blatantly ignored.
Ideal spot for traffic cameras.
Cops are expensive and
Cops are expensive and ineffective. Definite +1 for the traffic cameras suggestion though.
That's funny
I seem to remember you whining at other posters about always making it about bikes.
You are a sad little man. Maybe move to a red state where you can spend your entire life in traffic and do your little fighting man thing in person?
9.8
He stuck the landing, but ever so slightly off 90 degrees relative to the tracks.
I figured
That the staties I saw taking the right lane on the inbound Pike this morning at 5 were there for something related to something being on the tracks that shouldn't.