Investigation begins into fatal crash on Green Line
By Noah Bierman, Ralph Ranalli, and John R. Ellement, Globe Staff
NEWTON -- Investigators have begun their probe into Wednesday's fatal trolley crash on the Green Line in Newton by examining the signals along the track, taking measurements, and seeking documentation from various sources, a federal safety official said this afternoon.
A team from the National Transportation Safety Board expects to begin interviewing people involved in the crash tomorrow, said Kitty Higgins, a safety board member who is being joined by 11 other investigators at the site.
"Our job here is to work with MBTA officials and others to determine what caused this accident and to then form recommendations that will help to prevent similar accidents from happening in the future," Higgins said at a news conference today in Newton.
The crash just before 6 p.m. yesterday on the D branch between the Waban and Woodland stations threw commuters from their seats and killed an MBTA operator. Officials say one trolley rear-ended another.
The investigators will look at a variety of factors, including the signals, the track, the trolleys, and "human performance," Higgins said.
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The federal team will be in Newton for at least a week, said state Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen. The first trolley was removed from the tracks this morning. The second has been left in place.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will not release any information about the operator killed in the crash, said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo. The father of the operator identified her as Terrese Edmonds, 24, of Boston, who had been on the job since August. Rescuers early this morning extricated her body from the wreckage about seven hours after the crash. A medical examiner had declared her dead at the scene.
Earlier, Terry Jones recalled how he used to bring his daughter lunches during her break, saying: "She loves the T. She said she was having a lot of fun and meeting a lot of interesting people."
Higgins said 180 to 200 passengers were aboard the two trolleys at the time of the crash. She said she didn't know the speed of the trolleys, but the limit in the area is 40 m.p.h. The damaged trolley will be moved from the tracks so it can be examined, she said.
"If there's any need for an immediate corrective action, we willl certainly be making those recommendations to the MBTA," Higgins said, reassuring riders that the system is safe.
"This is an accident that's a very rare occurrence. I think people should have confidence in the system," she said. She also said that the emergency response by local police and fire departments was "very good."
This morning, Edmonds's aunt, Naomi Crumb, showed off pictures on her wall in Roxbury of her smiling niece. "She was a very sweet, bubbly person," Crumb said. "She laughed at everything."
In the hall were suitcases from a trip Edmonds took last weekend to pickup Crumb's daughter at college in Philadelphia.
"I woke up this morning and thought of Scripture -- you can't enter the kingdom of heaven unless you become like a child," said Crumb, whose cheeks were streaked with tears. "She was always bubbly as a child."
The accident resulted in one passenger being flown to Boston Medical Center with serious injuries, Pesaturo said. Six others were taken by ambulance to nearby Newton-Wellesley Hospital with serious injuries not believed to be life-threatening. Five passengers were treated at the scene for cuts and bruises. Others walked away, some bleeding, only to wander into hospitals on their own.
Passengers on the train described how the routine of an evening commute was disrupted by the crash and transformed into fear and chaos.
The pair of two-car trolleys were heading outbound from Boston, near the end of the D branch. The first trolley was stopped at a red signal, just before Woodland Station. It was hit from behind by the second. Edmonds was at the front of the second trolley, which bore the brunt of the impact.
"We were stopped, and all of a sudden we got hit from behind," said Matt Stone, 46, an accounting manager from Framingham who was sitting in the first car of the first trolley, on his way to pick up his car at the Riverside Station. "There was no warning, nothing. There were two separate impacts: The first knocked me off my seat; the next knocked me across the aisle."
"It was like an accordion -- the two front ends squished together," said Joyce Friedman, a resident of Dorset Road, which is along the tracks, who witnessed the accident's aftermath.
One woman who was standing "got thrown back about 20 feet," said Frank Lam, a commuter from Natick who was on the same trolley as Stone.
Stone said there was chaos briefly.
"There was a 70-year-old guy who went ballistic screaming at the conductor, 'You killed my wife! You killed my wife!' And the wife is going, 'I'm OK! I'm OK,'" he said.
Lam said passengers were initially shocked and urged each other to wait for help. But then they saw a fire behind them, which turned out to be a small brush fire, and they rushed off the trolley. Lam walked back to the second trolley and saw blood on the seats. Then he saw Edmonds.
"The whole cabin wrapped around her," he said. "All I saw was a T blue shirt."
Lam was among many passengers who were able to walk away on their own, getting their cars at nearby stations.
Daniel A. Grabauskas, MBTA general manager, extended his condolences from the T to Edmonds's family and he wished a quick recovery to the injured during a press conference at 1:15 this morning.
"It's a miracle more people were not hurt," he said. He declined to discuss specifics of the crash.
After the crash, rescue workers had clustered around the smashed trolley cars, helping injured people onto stretchers. Others worked feverishly to try to free Edmonds.
Several witnesses were surprised that so many people walked away unharmed.
Jack Condon, 74, a resident of Dorset Road, said: "I was going for a walk and I heard a crash and I said, 'Uh-oh, this is a bad one.' And then I heard what I thought were a couple of explosions, or at least they sounded like they were explosions."
He said he thought it might be a car accident on nearby Route 128, and then he saw "all the ambulances, and that's when I knew it was a train."
Steve Cadrain, who also lives nearby, said he ran down to the accident site, jumped a fence, and boarded one of the trolleys.
"I went on the train," he said. "There was one woman who was bleeding."
He said he saw a female conductor walking off the trolley, "looking for a friend." He said he thought she might have been looking for another operator.
Friedman, also a neighborhood resident, said neighbors offered to open up their houses to victims, but none took advantage of the offer.
The MBTA shut down part of the D branch after the crash, offering shuttle bus service between Reservoir and Riverside stations. The T expects that busing will continue through today between the Newton Highlands and Riverside stops.
Workers were still clearing debris from the tracks early this morning.
"This is a terrible tragedy and our hearts go out to the family of Ms. Edmonds," Newton Mayor David Cohen said.
The accident occurred only one day after two subway stations on the Red Line were evacuated when a small electrical fire broke out on tracks just outside Downtown Crossing, creating a major disruption for commuters.
The Green Line has seen several other accidents in recent months. A trolley on the B branch derailed and caught fire on May 14 on Commonwealth Avenue near Chestnut Hill Avenue, disrupting service and damaging the trolley and track but resulting in no injuries.
In February, a passenger was injured when a trolley collided with a truck on the B branch at Commonwealth Avenue near Cummington Street. In December, a trolley crashed into another at Boylston Station, leaving nine people with minor injuries.
In September, a trolley and a flatbed truck collided near Coolidge Corner, leaving the truck driver and three passengers with minor injuries.
James Vaznis, Michael Levenson, Rachana Rathi, and Martin Finucane of the Globe staff and Globe correspondents Jillian Jorgensen, John Guilfoil, and Matt Collette contributed to this report.
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