Franklin Pierce's Train Crash in Andover, MA

number7 wrote: I dont' understand how the car would have gotten all the way over to between those two streets.
Were there no houses on Arundel St? If there were I would think the car would have hit one.
Also, the train was either running wrong iron or back then the line was single tracked.

The 1893 Topo Map shows no streets at all in the location of today's Arundel St (http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.a ... g&state=MA), but if you were landing about at the "e" in "Frye Village" that would be a plausible final impact (at the bottom of the "draw" around a Shawsheen River tributary) and roughly corresponds to a spot between todays Arundel and Argyle.

Burnham Rd is the best reference between the "then" (in the Topo map) and now (in Bing http://binged.it/ONjX5a for example)

"The 1893 Topo Map shows no streets at all in the location of today's Arundel St (http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.a ... g&state=MA), but if you were landing about at the "e" in "Frye Village" that would be a plausible final impact (at the bottom of the "draw" around a Shawsheen River tributary) and roughly corresponds to a spot between todays Arundel and Argyle.
"
Thank you Arlington, I agree, the point that you specified is likely where the car came to a rest or very close as to make no real difference.

I think we should all search for an official accident report in order to verify as much as possible the location.

I found this account of the accident in the Francis Boardman book on the B&M.

http://www.archive.org/stream/bostonmai ... 4/mode/2up

Pages 35 and 36 talk about the accident.

Unfortunately the account of where the accident was is not very helpful. It says between 2 to 3 miles out of Andover. 2. to 3 track miles from Andover station would put you in Lawrence or darn close to it.

It does mention that the train was on a slight curve and high embankment. 2 to 3 miles out of Andover station would be on straight track.

Here is an 1872 map of Andover that may be helpful.

http://www.mhl.org/andover/maps/Andover_51.pdf

CarterB wrote:Some info on location of wreck.

http://www.elvastower.com/forums/index. ... iron-down/

"...just after their train departed Andover, Massachusetts, an axle broke and the train jumped the track and went over a fifteen-foot embankment."
If it went down the Shawsheen River embankment it would be here:
http://www.bing.com/maps/#JnE9Lk4lMmI0M ... AxMjE3NjU=

Use Birds Eye view and zoom way in...rotate to better see the steep embankment.

I still think the most likely spot is the Shawsheen River embankment as per above.