The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-10-02 00:00:00

qli toubtihe OD-115trber.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2nd, 1875.

THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.

WE have been told by Sir John Hawkshaw,
one of the most eadutnJ oi living engineers,
thatAllere is a regulation or average number of
railwry accidents, and that there always will be.
Expel icnce has proved that the President of the
t:ritish Association is right so far as the past
history of. railway management is concerned.
The annual returns of .the killed and the maimed
crop up with as much regnlarity as the mor-
tality statistics of the Registrar-General, or the
figures showing the annual slaughter by vehicular
traffic in the streets cif London. Sometimes
they my appear fewer, and at others more ; but
the decrease one week is made up by an increase
in another, and the order and completeness of
what appears to be a natural law are preserved.
With railway accidents, there are certain pro-
portionate numbers of preventible casualties. At
one time the preventible, at another the inevi-
table, preponderate, but a balance is struck and
an average arrived at, and there you are! Such,
at all events, appears to be the conclusion of

the stoics. At the same time the general public
may be forgiycn if they look at the matter in
another and a different- light. They may well
argue that those who are responsible for the
management of our iron roads ought to regard
in the world of science nothing is really impos-
sible, and to consider nothing dwie for the
safety of thepassenger while anything remained
undone.

At the same time there is no doubt that the
verdicts of juries have done something towards
rousing those who have the management of our
railways from an unsympathetic attitude. It
has often been said that a railway company has
neither a soul to be saved nor a body to be
kicked; but it has money bags to be opened,
and that these are opened pretty widely some
times there can be no question. The public,
who are neither shareholders nor directors, do
not seem to believe that railway accidents are
really inevitable. By care and by new inven-
tions the one passenger who is now said to be
injured for every four millions of miles of a
Journey, might perhaps be made tko one pas-
senger injured in eight millions of miles, or
even the one in sixteen millions. The fact that
the passengers injured from causes beyond their
own control are only two-thirds as numerous
now in proportion to the number of miles tra.-
veiled, as in the preceding ten years, is eloquent
on the number of accidonts which might still be
prevented. To complacently acquiesce in the
inevitable is not to prevent casualties, but to
encourage them. The maxim that "What must
be, must be," is not a good one to apply to such
a matter as this. Instead of looking at these
things with a fatalistic eye, it would be better
to regard them as utterly abnormal and excep-
tional and not at all a necessary and inevitable
incident of railway travelling.
There is we fear no blinking the fact that it
takes a icing time for a new invention or precau-
tion, so far as the protection of life on our rail-
ways are concerned, to make way in this couutry.
Every Board of Directors is omnipotent over
its own line, and although the efficacy of any
particular appliance may be demonstrated over
and over again, it is thoroughly optional with
the Board whether it shall be adopted or not.
One line puts in force the block system of sig-
nalling ; another does not, nor is there any con-
trolling power to compel it to do so. There is
again the plan of using continuous brakes,
which enable a . driver to stop his train in a
marvellously short space of time when he sees
the danger signal against him. Yet the Board
of Trade can only recommend its adoption, and
cannot enforce it. Again, how many instances
have arisen in which passengers have lost their
lives by falling between the carriage steps and
the platform? One coroner's jury after another
has suggested the use of the continuous foot.
board, which would absolutely prevent a person
from falling any lower than its own surface, yet
people are still killed according to the old plan,
and. the Government authorities are powerless
to interfere. Once more, there is the expedient
of a communication between passengers and the
drivers and guards of trains. It has made its
way very slowly indeed, although its value has
been proved over and over again. Some recent
events show that such a communication is

indispensable toithe safety of railway travellers.
The truth seems to be that the tendency of
locomotive management in the United Kingdom
is to reduce the traffic to a kind of mechanical
system. Rigid rules are laid down, and no
margin is left to chance, nor upon the other
hand to individual discretion. The trains are
supposed to run like clockwork; and passen-
gers, as they are conveyed from place to place,
by day and night, feel that they are mere coun-
ters, without having the least voice in their
destiny. There is no reason why a first-class
railway carriage should not be as comfortable as
a drawing-room by day, or as a bedroom at night
And here it may be mentioned that Pullman's
sleeping cars, which are first introduced into
this country by thd Midland Railway Company,
are only one of many inventions which will be-
come necessities in the ordinary meaning of the
term. The uncomfortable style of carriage first
adopted will not last for ever. Saloons, through
which passengers might go from one end of the
train to the other, would solve more than one
problem. Ladies will be protected from insults
and gentlemen from charges which are never
easy to refute when they depend upon indivi-
dual testimony. People might then, at any
moment, communicate with the officials who
could provide against many dangers incidental
to the present system. That is the plan which
is in force in the United Etates ; and although
it is unreasonable to expect railway companies
always to be having new rolling stock, it is
reasonable to anticipate that modern improve-
ments should be carried out as opportunities
oiler.

IRON TRADE.
WOLVERHAMPTON, Wednesday.
FURTHER COAL DISCOVERY.

THE

Some ironmasters were disposed this afternoon
to believe that they can see the effect of the con-
siderable extent to which buyers have lateley ab-
sented themselves from the market—that stocks
having become low and requirements almost
pressing, purchasing, certainly to a larger extent
than lately, can no longer delayed. Doubtless
there are some enquiries being made which
would bear this interpretation ; but there are
only too many ironworking firms which are still
sadly in need of work, and which have been able
to secure the orders which they are now execut-
ing soley becaus,:: of the low prices at which they
were accepted. Thise are prices which, like
those that have for some months past been quo-
ted, leave little niargiu for profit.
The district does net wear an active aspect ts
the observers accustomed to its autumn appear-
ance a few years ago ; but the proportion of
workpeople unemployed is small, and no man
having practical knowledge. of any sort of oper-
ation outside the offices at finished ironworks
need want a wage-earning occupation for an hour
In this respect the current we/1i is no improve-
ment upon last. Peddlers are compelled more
widely than ever before to work level-handed—
that is, they cannot get enough under-bands, and
two puddlers finding themselves in this predica-
ment combine their energ:es, and:each in turn
do the work of the under-hand. The effect of
this is to considerably reduce the aggregate
make of the district.

All these difficulties were much complained
of this afternoon on Change. The district
ra-
suit was to strengthen quotations; for even as
it has been impossible with the labour market
in such a condition to bring about the drop in
wages which ironmasters had regarded as now
imperative, as itis assumed that the reductions
in the price of iron, which buyers assert must be
declared before the enquiry will be as good as
the ironmaqers desire, cannot be effected until
labour is more plentiful or the cost of production
is otherwise diminished.

The future. of the coal produce of this part of
the kingdom continues to brighten. A telegram
posted on Change this afternoon notified a fur-
ther important discovery of coal on•the Cannock
:old Huntingdon estate. On this property of
Lord Hathertcn, which is outside the formerly-
defined boundry of the Staffordshire coalfield, a
sew. eight feet thick was bored through this
morning, during the regular operations of the
Diamond Rock Boling Company. This one
s,alo couktins more in itself than is fond in
the other 5C21119 before passed throtvh. At
434 ft. down, 51t. 4iiu. was come upon; at 4401 t
4in. was passed ; t 446 ft., if t, 2in. was revealed