A current tranquil view of the Bussey Bridge in Roslindale, used by MBTA commuter trains on the Needham Line. On the snowy morning of March 14, 1887, the scene was quite different. A Boston and Providence Railroad local, headed by a 4-4-0 named the D.B.Torrey, headed towards Forest Hills pulling nine open-platform coaches over the bridge - which then collapsed. The bridge had been poorly constructed by a company with no bridge building expertise, and the constant weight shift of trains on disproportionate weight bearing bridge members caused the iron-truss bridge to experience catastrophic metal fatigue on that day. Twenty-three passengers were killed when five coaches plummeted onto South Street, thirty-five feet below, splintering and expelling their human cargo. The disaster was a major factor in the growth of Roslindale as a community, due to the fact that many came to examine the scene from all over for months afterwards, finding the rural countryside attractive, and settling in the area. The current granite stone bridge, about 600 feet south of the original, is the bridge's replacement. A local rumor persists to this day of a distant, urgent sounding whistle from an unknown source, heard in the adjacent woods of the Arboretum in March.

Photographed by Paul Joyce, July 14, 2005.
Added to the photo archive by Paul Joyce, June 12, 2006.

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