Fort Point Channel Accident

On November 7, 1916, double truck box car No. 393, controlled by hand brakes and having a seating capacity for 34 passengers, left P street barn, North Point, South Boston, at about 5:13 pm, via L street and Summer street extension for Summer and Washington streets, Boston. This car stopped at several points en route to receive and leave passengers and nothing unusual in its operation was observed until it was nearing Fort Point Channel, when the motorman in charge suddenly discovered that the warning gates were across the street and the drawbridge open. He claims to have immediately applied the brakes and reversed the current, but the car was too close to the gates, which were only 25 feet from the opening, that it crashed through the gates, plunged into Fort Point Channel and was at once submerged in water.

Nearly fifty persons lost their lives tonight when a crowded passenger car of the Boston Elevated Street Railway plunged through an open drawbridge into Fort Point Channel, just outside the South Station terminal.

Twelve pther persons were rescued from the water by fireboats and tugs. One man, Thomas J. Gannon, died after being brought to shore. Five bodies were found with grappling irons.

Shortly before midnight thirty bodies had been removed from the car. There are still others in the car.