Smithfield R. I. Railroad

April 9, 2018

Originally published in the Smithfield Times, April, 2018

Smithfield’s Woonasquatucket Railroad

By Jim Ignasher

A locomotive of the type that once ran through Smithfield in the late 1800s.

In the February issue I wrote about Smithfield’s Air-Line R.R. This month’s article is about another rail line that has long since disappeared.

If someone today were to propose the construction of a railroad through Smithfield, they would likely face strong opposition. The town hall would be inundated with residents demanding the tracks be laid elsewhere, and not through their “back yard”. Yet one might be surprised to learn that there was a time when just the opposite was true, and the citizens of Smithfield eagerly awaited the construction of a new railroad.

After the division of the town in 1871, Smithfield, as we know it today, was left without a railroad. However, there were those who hoped to remedy the situation by reviving the charter for the Woonasquatucket Railroad Company. The charter had originally been granted in 1857, with a plan to lay tracks that more or less followed the Woonasquatucket River from Providence to Massachusetts. Unfortunately, financial setbacks, followed by the onset of the American Civil War delayed the project for nearly fifteen years.

In 1871 the idea was revisited and planning of the route was begun. Although everyone agreed that a rail line would be good for the town, there was much debate as to exactly where the rails should be laid, for every mill owner and farmer wanted the trains to pass as close as to their property as possible. It was finally announced that the proposed route would run through the villages of Esmond, Georgiaville, and Stillwater, and then continue on into North Smithfield, and Burrillville, which was good news to some, but not for Greenville.

On November 20, 1871, a meeting was held at Tobey’s Store in Greenville to discuss the possibility of constructing a branch line that would run from Stillwater to Greenville. If it proved successful, the branch line would later be extended to North Scituate and Chepachet. The meeting was well attended, and efforts to have the branch-line constructed continued for several years, but history has shown that it was never built.

By the spring of 1872 construction on the main line was begun, but sometime between March and June the name of the railroad was changed to the Providence and Springfield Railroad. The project moved quickly, and on August 11, 1873, the line was open for business.

Smithfield had four railroad stations: the Esmond Station located behind the Esmond Mills; the Georgiaville Station, located on Station Street; the Stillwater Station, located on Capron Road; and the Smithfield Station, located on Brayton Road just to the east from Farnum Pike. The stations became social centers where people could catch up on the latest news, mail a letter, or ride to Providence in less time then it took to ride a horse from one side of Smithfield to the other.

By 1878, the Providence & Springfield R.R. was running three locomotives, three passenger cars, and seventy-seven freight cars along the Smithfield route.

Waterbury Evening Democrat
August 8, 1896

During the 1890s the rail line changed hands three times; to the New York & New England Railroad in July of 1890, to The New England Railroad in 1895, to the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad in 1898.

The railroad had a great economic influence on the town as it allowed business owners and farmers to transport more goods to other markets than ever before, and at a lower price. It even played a part in World War I by transporting Esmond Mill army blankets destined for troops overseas.

Unfortunately, just as rail lines eclipsed the horse-drawn stage coaches, improvements in roadways and automobile technology eventually eclipsed the “iron horses” of the rails. Passenger service along the Smithfield route was discontinued in 1931, and in 1962 the tracks that ran from Olneyville to Pascoag were abandoned and eventually removed. The only surviving rails known to exist were found under the asphalt of Esmond Street during road construction several years ago. Today they can be viewed at the Smith-Appleby House Museum next to the restored Smithfield Station.

Accidents

As with all rail lines of the time, the Smithfield portion experienced its share of accidents. At a town meeting held on January 29, 1876, local citizens cited several instances of narrow escapes at rail crossings in town, and urged the Town Council to force the railroad to use flagmen. The council, however, didn’t have the legal authority to do so.

On October 22, 1878, a 45-year-old man was killed when he fell from the railroad bridge in the Waterford section of North Smithfield.

The first known accident to occur along the Smithfield portion of the line happened on Christmas Eve in 1878 when a wagon was struck broadside by a speeding train at the Brayton Road crossing. The driver survived, but his horse did not. Click here for newspaper account.

Although not within the borders of Smithfield, on July 17, 1887, a severe storm passed through northern Rhode Island with winds strong enough to blow down a train-car storage building in Pascoag, damaging the cars within. At 1:00 a.m. the following morning a locomotive was sent down the line to Providence to get more cars, and when it reached the area of Tarklin it went off the tracks due a washout by the heavy rains. It’s unknown if there were any injuries.

In March of 1888, two young girls, Margaret and Anna O’Reilly, were struck and killed by a passing train in the Waterford section of North Smithfield.

According to Smithfield town death records, the first railroad fatality in present-day Smithfield (After the town was divided.) occurred in 1888 when a man was struck by a passing train. The exact location isn’t given.

One of the more notable accidents involved a head-on collision between two trains on June 12, 1894 in the area of what is today the Stillwater Scenic Walking Trail. Ten people were seriously injured. The crash was blamed on human error. For more information see The Stillwater Train Wreck

The Brayton Crossing was reputed to be one of the most dangerous for it was frequently traveled by those heading to or from Woonsocket. On April 15, 1925, it was the scene of what might be the worst accident to occur on the rail line. At about 7 p.m., a car carrying seven adults was struck by a southbound train. One man and three women were killed, and the others were severely injured.

Three years later on November 30, 1928, yet another accident occurred at the Brayton Crossing in which a husband and wife were injured when a train collided with their car.

Other accidents are documented, but space does not permit their inclusion here.

Until recently, it was thought that Smithfield’s only surviving train station was the Smithfield Station presently located at the Smith-Appleby House. However, recent information has come to light that Esmond may have had two railroad stations; a smaller one that was replaced by a larger one. The smaller one is indicated on early maps, and may possibly have been sold to a private party and relocated to Farnum Pike in Georgiaville. Research to confirm this continues.

For more info click here: Moving The Smithfield Railroad Station – 1975 and here: Woonasquatucket R. R. Newspaper Articles

The Stillwater Train Wreck

October 9, 2014

By Jim Ignasher

Originally published in Your Smithfield Magazine – June, 2010

This sharp bend in the Stillwater Scenic Trail just south of the Stillwater Viaduct Bridge is the likely site where two trains collided head-on in 1894.

Some long-time residents of the area may remember the days when Smithfield had a railroad. The tracks opened in 1873, and for nearly a century they carried freight and passenger trains between Providence and Massachusetts. The rails were abandoned and removed in the early 1960s, and today portions of the old rail beds are still in use as walking trails. One in particular is the Stillwater Scenic Trail that runs for almost a mile along the Woonasquatucket River from Capron Road to Farnum Pike. Those who walk this trail generally do so unaware that more than one-hundred years ago this stretch of the line was the scene of a head-on collision between two trains that left dozens injured. Safety concerns along the rail lines had been an issue since the tracks opened. However, this wreck was not the result of some failed regulations or defective signal device; it was caused by simple human error.

The incident began on the afternoon of June 12, 1894, when a northbound train left Providence for Pascoag at 4 p.m., while at about the same time a southbound train left Southbridge, Massachusetts, for Providence. Both trains were carrying freight and passengers.

Smithfield had four railroad stations; Enfield, (Later called Esmond), Georgiaville, Stillwater, and the Smithfield Station located on Brayton Road near Farnum Pike.

The Stillwater Station was located on Capron Road, next to the Woonasquatucket River. Farther to the north was the Stillwater Woolen Mill, as it was known at that time, where a spur of railroad track ran behind the mill where trains could be loaded and unloaded. (This mill was known by several different names over the years until it burned in 1984.) This spur could also be used to allow trains headed in opposite directions to pass each other by allowing one train to detour off the main line until the other had gone by. The detoured train would then back off the spur and continue on.

There were many train stations between Southbridge and Providence, one being the Tarklin Station in eastern Burrillville, which the southbound train would need to stop at on its way to Providence. A telegraph message had been sent to the Tarklin and Stillwater stations relating that the two oncoming trains were to pass at Stillwater, and that the northbound train was to have the right-of-way. The station operators were instructed to relay this information to the conductors of each train.

Telegraph messages were transmitted in Morse code, which utilized a series of dots and dashes that represented individual letters of the alphabet used to form words. Unfortunately, for reasons never determined, the station operator at Stillwater misunderstood the message, and thought the trains were to pass at the Smithfield Station farther up the line. Why the operator would have thought this to be the case is unclear as there was no spur at or near the Smithfield Station that could have allowed the trains to pass.

When the southbound train reached Tarklin, the crew was instructed to detour off the mainline onto the spur at Stillwater. The southbound then continued on to the Primrose Station in North Smithfield, and then to the Smithfield Station where it stopped to discharge passengers. At about the same time, the northbound train arrived at the Stillwater Station where the crew was erroneously told that the track ahead was clear until the Smithfield Station. This critical error led to disaster.

Both trains proceeded onward with each crew believing the track ahead to be clear; the southbound traveling at 20 mph, and the northbound moving along at a leisurely 12 mph. One newspaper account related that the two trains met on a sharp curve close to a steep embankment which accurately describes the area just to the south of the Stillwater Viaduct Bridge which spans the Woonasquatucket on Washington Highway. Apparently the collision was so unexpected that the crews of each train didn’t have time to react, either by applying the brakes, or by jumping to save themselves. Each train, weighing thousands of tons, plowed into the other, the faster moving southbound inflicting more damage. The horrific sound of screeching metal and splintering wood followed by shouts and screams echoed up and down the small valley alerting nearby residents of Stillwater that something awful had happened.

Miraculously there were no explosions or fires as a result of the collision. Each train was pulled by a coal-fired steam locomotive which operated by burning coal, to heat water, to create steam, which powered the engine. In such cases it was not uncommon for a boiler to rupture allowing scalding steam to roast injured crewmen alive, or for red-hot coals to ignite wooden portions of the train. This small bit of luck no doubt prevented the accident from being much worse. In 1894, the only fire company in Smithfield was in Greenville, and their apparatus consisted of a horse-drawn, hand-pumper, which was too far away to be of use if it had been needed.

Numerous people lay injured in the wreck, the most serious being the crews of each train. John Sewall, the fireman aboard the northbound suffered the worst injuries: two broken legs, both arms crushed, and internal bruises. It was reported that he was not expected to survive. However, research has revealed that he is not listed in either Smithfield or Providence death records so one has to wonder, did he survive, or was this a case where each community thought it was up to the other to record the death?

Conductor Ballou of the Providence train also suffered severe injuries, but he too apparently survived. Other crew members of each train suffered broken bones, severe bruises, cuts, and scrapes, but all recovered.

Each train had been carrying about twenty-five passengers, all of whom were reported to be “shaken up” from being tossed about in the wreck, but fortunately their injuries were not life-threatening.

At the time of the accident, the tracks were owned by the New York & New England Rail Road, which kept a “wrecking train” in Providence for just such an emergency. The wrecking train was a disaster response vehicle for the railroad that carried necessary rescue and repair equipment, as well as medical personnel to treat the injured. When word of the crash reached the city, the wrecking train was immediately dispatched, along with a second train to bring the injured and other survivors to Providence.

The salvage crews worked throughout the night to clear the tracks so service could resume the following day, for as long as the tracks were blocked, the railroad was losing money. By 9 a.m. most of the wreckage had been pushed aside to allow trains to pass, but clean-up and complete removal of the debris no doubt required several more days. The crews worked quickly, for train wreckage along the line was not a good advertisement for railroad safety.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first railroad accident to occur in Smithfield, nor was it the worst, nor was it to be the last. However, it serves to illustrate how one mistake can affect the lives of many others.

Smithfield’s Woonasquatucket Railroad

The Stillwater Train Wreck

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