100th anniversary of the Great Molasses Flood

[Gerry6309]

"Due to a weather related incident there is no service on the Atlantic Avenue Elevated between Battery Street and City Square or North Station. Trains from Dudley are turning at South Station. A shuttle train is operating between Battery Street and South Station and surface cars are serving State St. and Rowes Wharf. Passengers for North Station take Cambridge Tunnel trains to Washington and change for Sullivan bound trains. Passengers for South Station take Forest Hills bound trains to Winter and change for Broadway bound Cambridge Tunnel Trains."

[Arborway]

This totally messes up my plans for the day.

[dieciduej]

I think I a tank of molasses burst over by Commercial Street. I believe some damage has been done to the Atlantic Ave El. This will be a sticky situation.

JoeD

"This Is Just A Drill - Only A Drill"

[Gerry6309]

Service to the Copps Hill Street Railway Freight Terminal and on the Union Freight RR has also been disrupted...

Prices for Industrial Grade Molasses are rising on the Boston Flour and Grain Exchange.

[Arborwayfan]

Frustrated passengers are drowning their sorrows in some of their last legal glasses of beer and shots of whiskey.

[3rdrail]

If your El car feels like you're boatin', on a wave of molasses you may be floatin' !

[Gerry6309]

WBZ-4 mentioned the event in its noon newscast. It got me thinking, "How would the MBTA have reported this today.?"

I posted this on RR.net,and two other boards. Joe D picked it up right away!

[Arborway]

WBZ-4 mentioned the event in its noon newscast. It got me thinking, "How would the MBTA have reported this today.?"

"Atlantic Avenue service is experiencing 3 - 7 day delays due to a medical emergency."

[Gerry6309]

WBZ-4 mentioned the event in its noon newscast. It got me thinking, "How would the MBTA have reported this today.?"

"Atlantic Avenue service is experiencing 3 - 7 day delays due to a medical emergency."

Nobody was sick or injured on a train, so I used the all encompassing "Weather Related Incident". The tank burst because it was overloaded, and the day was too warm causing the molasses to expand!

[danib62]

"Due to a weather related incident there is no service on the Atlantic Avenue Elevated between Battery Street and City Square or North Station. Trains from Dudley are turning at South Station. A shuttle train is operating between Battery Street and South Station and surface cars are serving State St. and Rowes Wharf. Passengers for North Station take Cambridge Tunnel trains to Washington and change for Sullivan bound trains. Passengers for South Station take Forest Hills bound trains to Winter and change for Broadway bound Cambridge Tunnel Trains."

I think this is over 160 characters.

[dieciduej]

I posted this on RR.net,and two other boards. Joe D picked it up right away!

I am somewhat a history buff, plus it was an unusual event. The sad note that 21 people were killed, drowned or suffocated by molasses, something that doesn't happen on a regular bases. So it is memorable.

But to avoid the "War of The Worlds" syndrome, for members that are not knowledgeable of the Great Molasses Flood I closed with This Is Just A Drill - Only A Drill.

JoeD

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

My experience with this cluster@#$% today. . .

So the automated announcements weren't working at Rowes Wharf on account of not being invented yet. Inspectors just milling about, not being helpful. Eventually one says we're moving, but with delays, because of a switching problem near Tower C. A long time passes, then an OOS train meanders wrong-rail through the northbound platform with the operator shouting "Oh, the humanity!...there's another train directly behind this one." as it heads to South Station without letting anyone on. 20 more minutes go by. I see the ticket collector take a sniff of whiskey in the booth and start to think, "This is going to be a repeat of last week's Brill rear-ender at Adams, isn't it?" I go downstairs and look for the shuttle cars, which of course are not running. Started heading north up Atlantic Ave. to State St. to catch the Harvard-Jeffries Point inbound through the East Boston tunnel, hoping traffic wasn't snarled in Charles Circle. And then this pungent sugary odor starts wafting downwind from the North End. And that's when I said, "@#$% it, I'll just catch a horsecar."

[Gerry6309]

Why didn't you just take the Narrow Gauge Ferry to Jeffries Point?

[StefanW]

I know this might not be worth its own topic, but nothing has been said recently about the Great Molasses Flood and I didn't want to inappropriately bump old and unrelated threads.

Tomorrow (Tuesday January 15) is the 100th anniversary of the Molasses Flood which affected streetcars, trolley freight, and the Atlantic Avenue elevated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood

Boston_1919_molasses_disaster_-_el_train_structure.jpg

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One of the previous threads: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=100&t=158813&p=1342155#p1342155

The Boston Elevated had no regular freight or express service of its own, but it hosted freight service operated by two other lines. The Boston & Worcester Interurban operated express service between its namesake cities and intermediate points. The Bay State Street Railway and its successor the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway ran such service to all of its divisions, including Newport, RI and Nashua, NH. They shared a downtown terminal at Copps Hill Wharf until it was destroyed in the Molasses Flood in 1919, thereafter a less central location on Harrison Ave. in the South End, was used. Demand for the service lessened during the 1920s, and it had ended by 1930. Several Eastern Mass freight motors were converted to snow plows and sweepers, with one surviving on the Elevated network until about 1950. The Elevated, whose streetcar network far exceeded its rapid transit operations, also hauled molasses cars for Purity Distilling, owner of the infamous tank at Copps Hill Wharf. The failure of the tank put an end to the operation before prohibition did. One of the tank cars used in the service was converted into a water spray car for the Elevated. Although there was no desire to haul RR freight cars over its tracks, the Elevated had several connections to the national system where it received cars and supplies for its system.

These are the hits when searching for "molasses flood":
http://www.railroad.net/forums/search.php?keywords=molasses+flood

[StefanW]

This high-res photo shows the trolley wire ripped down off the hangars along the edge of the elevated structure:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/GreatMolassesFlood_1919-Wreckage_under_the_elevated_tracks.jpg

(Image info page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GreatMolassesFlood_1919-Wreckage_under_the_elevated_tracks.jpg)