B&M derailment into Mascoma Lake

Hello all. First post here, but I have been browsing around for a few weeks. I am looking for any information about a derailment on the B&M Northern line along Mascoma Lake in New Hampshire. The wreck was apparently in or around 1960 and just west of Enfield, NH. There is still some debri in the lake at this location, but I really cannot find any information about it other than very basic info from a rail-trail website (http://www.vt-bikeroutes.com/easy3.html). Any information or photos available would be most helpful. Thank you ahead of time.

I love questions like this, and yes, I do have photos, the unfortunate part is, I don't have a complete date or cause for this wreck. It happened in November 1960, the train was probably BU-3 out of Boston to White River Jct., the diesel units involved were 4257a-4267b-4267a, all were extensively damaged in the rock cut. The 4257a was sent to Billerica Shops to be stripped for parts and was retired for scrap in December 1960, although not scrapped immediately (I have a photo taken at Billerica in June 1961). The 4267b lost some side panels and stainless steel grille on one side, a homemade replacement grille was fabricated at Billerica Shops , it was the only unit of the three that survived to run again. The 4267a was held at Billerica Shops until it was traded back to EMD along with the BL-2's for GP-18's in 1961.

Most excellent answer... thank you. I lived on Mascoma Lake as a child and every once in a while still ride/run the rail-trail with my father. Our neighbor (back in the early 1980s) was a SCUBA diver and spent some time around the location of the wreck. According to him, there were was still some significant debri from the derailment in the water near the cut. Thank you again for the information and photos.

ah yes, 4267b, F7 on one side and F3 on t'other. Ran for ages like that.
http://forums.railfan.net/Images//NScal ... er1970.jpg
always wondered how that came about.

Managed to dig up some more photos of this wreck, in the last shot you can see the wrecker working on the shore of Mascoma Lake and note that some of the embankment and rock had to be cut away to get at the damaged cars.

These are great photos. Looks like I need to get back out to the cut and investigate further, it seems like such a small area for such a huge mess.

I've ridden quite a few cabooses in the 37 years I've worked on the RR, I sure wouldn't have wanted to be in the buggy on that train when those cars started going all over the landscape.

If anyone was in the engine room or on the cushions of 4257-A, there must have been a rapid increase in pulse and respiration rates.
No injuries severe enough to trigger an ICC report -- amazing!

The cut still exists more or less as it did when the accident occured... it isn't a very long cut. If those locomotives had been just a tad further west when the derailment occured they might have ended up in the lake. There isnt much of an enbankment on either side of the cut, nothing to stop something as heavy as a locomotive from going all the way in and the lake drops steeply off to 30ft of depth in that area. This could have been much worse than it was.

Any way to get the photos of 4267 restored? Does anyone have other pics and/or video of 4267 from her short time operating? There's very little out there. Thanks!

I've always been curious to know what happened to 4267 when it was traded back to EMD. Someone out there must know if it was scrapped upon its return or rebuilt.

Actually, I think I did save the photos on a portable hard drive somewhere. If bmcdr doesn't have them available, I may be able to track them down.

Ahhhh... I managed to locate the missing photos. I will post them here (they all came to me via BMCDR, so if you do not approve of their having been reposted, feel free to have them removed)... there will be multiple posts because there are 7 photos total:

Not much in the way of photos of 4267 in service but there is a pretty good post-wreck photo.

Just an update, I was out at the rock cut yesterday and poked around a bit more than normal. The woods around the rocks are littered with tie plates and spikes. Various pieces of what appear to be freight cars are scattered about, at least one was lodged under a rock near the water, a piece of twisted and broken rail is protruding from the ground, and generally there is still a lot of evidence of the wreck to be found all of these years later. According to a neighbor we had when I was a child the deep water adjacent to the rock cut also contains various bits of the train, he frequently SCUBA dived in that area. I really find that impressive considering the wreck occurred in 1960, over 53 years ago. I hope the people who manage the Rail Trail work with the state (who owns the metal) to preserve this stuff instead of pulling it out to scrap it in an effort to beautify the trail or make it safer. They have already been stripping the rail out of the areas in Lebanon where they are expanding the trail towards White River Jct., I'm not sure where that rail is going but it would be nice to see it go to a short line in need of decent rail.

A piece of freight car lodged under a rock near the water:


A piece of twisted/broken rail protruding from the ground: