The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TlMES.—Fifteen railway accidents, with their
causes, incidents, and results, are carefully chro-
nicled and philosophically discussed in a paper now
before us, issued from the Board of Trade. It has
become a regular practice, which ought to be very

satisfactory to the human freight of excursion wag-
gons, that as soon as a smash has happened, and
while the delinquent engine is yet hissing and splat-
tering among the ruins of the broken carriages,
Captai❑ Tyler, or Captain Rich,or Colonel Yolland
appears upon the scene, and with full powers and
ail the necessary knowledge of every mystery of
railway craft inquires into the whole mischief, and
makes a full and lucid report of it to the Board of
Trade. What "my Lords" do upon receiving this
report does not clearly appear. It would be reason-
able to suppose that they have soma powers, for it
seems scarcely possible that so important a body
ae " my Lords" of tl. e Board of Trade should exist
as a railway jurisdiction only in order to receive re-
ports of accidents, and to send copies of those re-
ports to the homicidal corporation against which
they are directed. We fear, however, that they
can only act by this variety of that mysterious force,
called " mural influence," whic'a forms so important
a weapon in the armoury of the Foreign-office. How
little rff,ct it has upon a Railway Company we
need not explain. For ourselves, we prefer the
effective responsibility enforced by Lord Campbell's
Act. Whether, indeed, anybody ever reads these
really valuable reports, whether they are much
studied at the Beard of Trade, or by the secretaries
and directors to whom copies are addressed, may,
as we fear, be doubted. Inconvenient statements
seldom attract much attention unless under the
dread that they way be but the preceding shadows of
disagreeable acts. Tne probability is that Col. Yol-
land and Capt. Tyler, although writing always what'
well deserves careful attention, write bat too often

for the waste-paper basket. Yet, if there should
be an intending excu •sioni,:t of unstrung nerves just
contemplating the purchase of a cheap ticket to
some far-off pace, and doubtful es to the nature of
the danger to which he is about to subject himself,
we can recommend to Hm these thirty-seven pages
of descriptive matter and these three diagrams of
the fragments of exploded engines as good sensa-
tional reading between the purchase of the ticket
and the day of departure. With very small talent
for generalisation, he will be able, after turning
over the pages, to class the perils he is about to
affront. First, there are the perils of the perma-
nent way, and he will learn that " longitudinal
irregularity in the level of the rails" is an ordinary
reason for the engine "leaving the rails," and that
Captain Tyler is constantly reporting upon acci-
dents arising from " trenail fastenings," which
seem to be specially productive of this longitudinal
irregularity. As Captain Tyler's reports have
hitherto failed to extirpate the trenail fastenings,
we do not see what is to be done under this head by
the excursionist except to put up a prayer against
trenail fastenings in general and every longitudinal
irregularity in particular. Having made up his
mind to endure the risk of the permanent rail, the

danger from a recalcitrant locomotive will next
come before him. These diagrams will show him
exectly how they burst. It may, however, be con-
solatory to him to know that Captain Tyler thinks
" there is no reason. in the present state of our
knowledge, for the explosion of a locomotive from
any cause." But the occurrence of three explo-
sions in one month on passenger railways shows,
nevertheless, that they do explode. There is an
instance of a smash occurring from a "flying
shunt," which will be very pleasant reading to our
nervous friend. A flying shunt is defined to be " the
sudden turning the engine upon one lino and the
waggons upon another, while all ore in motion"—a
very delicate operation, upon the success of which
our excursionist may be made to stake his life
without his consent being asked to the wager.
Then coma the countless dangers arising from the
trains being late. In cases of collisions and flying
shunts the trains are always late. Our friend had
better shut his eyes to this class of perils, and com-
fort himself by recollecting that in railway accident
actions a sensible juryman invariably now asks
whether the train was late, and, if it was, trebles
the damages he would otherwise have given. It :s
too terrible a reflection that if during all the six
weeks of our friend's projected tour any one signal-
man should omit to make Vie signal at the proper
moment, or any one engine-driver should omit to
see it at the proper moment, then our friend may
never come back again. His fate momentarily
depends upon the manipulation of those little lever
handles he will be constantly passing. Under these
circumstances he will naturally take some interest
in the description given in this paper of how these
levers are sometimes managed, and how the casual
workmen on the line and the guards of the trains
are accustomed to arrange these delicate operations
by vague shouts and promiscous exhortations. Cap
tam Tyler says, in accounting for the meeting of
two trains near Preston :—"The goods engine
would have proceeded along the down line without
getting in the way of the passenger train, if it had
not been for the interference of a foreman platelayer
who happened to be standing close to the lever by
which these points were worked. This man had
been putting in a new crossing, and had just com-
pleted ilia work. He was about to leave the spot to
go over his ' own length,' which laa.s an the other
sid3 of the Preston Junction, when he heard, or be-
lieves that he heard, some one say, Turn them
across.' He has no idea from whom this instruction
canoe, but he pushed the lever of the cross-over road
points over, and turned the goods engine across to
the up line as the passenger train was approach•
log ; and he thus caused the collision which I have
described." It is clear, therefore, that it was not
considered an unpardonable offence fur a labourer to
touch the lever, and that it was not an unexpected
thing for him to get an order from the guard, or
some one, to do so. With all these chances against
the railway traveller, the wonder would seem to be
that he ever gets to his journey's end with his bones
unbroken. It would appear that, after calculating
for the temptation to cheapness and bad workman-
ship, and for low wages and the ignorance of the
class which alone low wages cm buy, the wonder-
ful fact is that sooner or later the passenger give-
rally does get to his journey's end, and that the
evils so possible are in reality scarcely appreciable.
What it might be if there were no Lord Campbell's
Act we leave to any imagination in want of a subject