The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-30 00:00:00

THE GREAT EXHIBITION.
(Continued from The Sun of Wednesday.)
The official return made annually by the Railway
Commissioners of the number of accidents which
occur upon the railways and their causes, and also of
the quantity of traffic in passengers and goods carried
upon them in the same tithe, supplies the means of
ascertaining the actual chances of accidents to which
each railway passenger is exposed.
It is not enough, however, to compare, as is com-
monly done, the number of accidents with the total
number of passengers booked, for it is easy to show
that such a comparison does not afford a true mea-
sure of the ristr. By adopting such a measure it
would be inferred that a passenger who travels 10
miles is exposed to as much risk as one who travels
500—an obvious error. The risk of accident to each
passenger is, Ceteris paribus, in the exact proportion
of the distance he travels. To calculate the risk,
therefore, it is only necessary to compare the number
of accidents with the mileage of the passengers booked.
Such a comparison has been made, and the result of it
shows that when a passenger travels one mile on a
railway the chances against his encountering an ac-
cident fatal to life are 65,363,735 to 1, and that the
chances against his encountering an accident pro-
ducing personal injury, even of the slightest kind, are
8,512,486 to 1.
Of course the chances of accident of either kind
will be augmented in the exact proportion of the dis-
tance travelled. Thus, if a traveller go 100 miles the
chances against his suffering an accident fatal to
life are 653,637 to 1, and the chances against an
accident productive of mere bodily injury are 85,125
to 1.
It must he observed here that this calculation ap-
plies only to accidents arising from causes beyond the
control of the passenger himself. The causes of
accident which are independent of the passenger are
generally through collision or the escape of the train,
or some parr of it, from the'rails.
Since all trains moving in the same direction travel
on the same line of rails, it is evident that, if the
trains moved at the same speed and all stopped at the
same stations, no collision could ever take place,
except when a train should be retarded or stopped by
accident, or in the case of a vehicle being improperly
left standing on the line. The probability of a collision
will, therefore, depend on the difference between the
speeds with which several trains travel, and the
difference between the number of stations at which
they stop.
But on railways, as worked at present, it is impos-
sible to maintain that uniformity which would re-
move this risk of collision. Passengers and goods
being worked upon the same line of rails, and the
latter being carried at a less speed than the former,
a serious source of danger is produced. If the pre-
sent enormous amount of transport had been foreseen
when railways were in an early stage of their pro-
gress, it might have been a question for consideration
whether it would not have been advatageous to con-
struct the trunk railways at least, with three lines of
rails instead of two, reserving an exclusive one for
the goods traffic and the third class passenger trains
which stop at all the stations. But the railways being
now constructed, it is too late, and nothing remains
to be done but to adopt the most efficient protection
against these collisions, the probability of which is
augmented with the frequency of the trains and the
difference of their various speeds.
The accommodation of the public requires frequent
departure, great expedition, and means of arriving at
numerous intermediate stations on the line; and these
demands cannot be satisfied without the calling into
existence all the conditions which are productive of
danger of collision.
It appears from an analysis of the returns of acci-
dents made by the Railway Commissioners that in
every 100 accidents the following is the proportion of
he causes which produce them :
Accidents from collision ... 56
broken wheel or axle ... 18
defective rail ... ... 14
switches ... ... 5
impediments lying on road 3
off rails by cattle on line... 3
bursting boiler ... 1

100
It appears from this table that 56 per cent. of all
the accidents arise from collision ; next to this comes
escape from the rails by the breaking of a wheel or
axle, and by defective rails, which make up 32 per
cent., the cases making up but a small proportion.
►Many of the railway accidents which are recorded
arise from the imprwience and the rashness of the'
passengers themselves, by far the most frequent
causes of such accidents being the getting into or
out of the train while io motion, and sitting or
standing in an improper place, attitude, or position.
The following analysis of the accidents occurring
on railways from causes which may be avoided by
proper care on the part of the passenger is taken
from the work on "Railway Economy " already
quoted :
ANALYSIS OF 100 ACCIDENTS PRODUCED BY IMPRUDENCE
OF PASSENGERS. .

_
Sitting or standing in improper positions, killed 17, in.
jured 11, total 28.
Getting off when train in motion, killed 17, injurel 7,

total 24.
Getting up on a train in motion, killed 10, injured 6

total i 6.
Jumping off to recover hat or parcel, killed 8, injured 5,
total 13.
Crossing the lino incautiously, killed 11, injured 1, total

12.
Getting out on wrong side, killed 3, injured 3, total 6.
Handing en article into train in motion, 1 killed.
The incautious railway passenger may derive a
salutary lesson from this table. lie will see from it
that two-thirds of the accidents resulting from im-
prudence are fatal to life, and that nearly seven of
every tan of such accidents arise from sitting or
standing in an improper or unusual place or position,
or from getting on or off a train while in motioa.
This latter circumstance should be most carefully
guarded against, for it is the peculiarity of railway
locomotion that the speed when not very rapid always
appears to an unpractised passenger to be much less
it is. A railway train moving at the rate of a fist
stage coach seems to go scarcely as fast as a person
might walk.
To show the rate at which the traffic *upon the
railways of the United Kingdom has augmented, we
shall exhibit in the following table the passenger
traffic executed daily upon the railways in each of the
last five years. In each case the amount of traffic is
expressed by the equivalent number of passengers
transported one mile. Thus, a single passenger
travelling 20 miles is here regarded as equivalent to
20 travelling one mile. We also give the number of
passengers booked daily, and the average distance
travelled per passenger :

Average number Average distance
Average daily of passengers travelled by each
mileage. booked. passenger.
Miles.
.846 2,184,300 119,975 18.22
1847 ... 2,205,494 139,440 1514
1848 ... 2,484,944 159,134 15'65
1849 ... 2,978,635 194,854 15'30
1850 ... 3,290,864 228,265 s 14'41
The results of this table, so far as regards the dis-
tance travelled per passenger, will, no doubt, be un-
expected.
Few would have supposed that the bulk of the
passengers made such short trips. It appears from
calculations, for the details of which we have not space,
that the average distance travelled by the first class
passengers is 27 miles; that of the second class, 16i;
and that of the third class, 14 miles. It is evident
from this, that short traffic constitutes the staple of
the railway passenger traffic.
From the above table, it appears that the amount of
passenger traffic daily executed upon the railways
augmented in the ratio of 218 to 329 in the last five
years. But, in that interval, the length of railways
under traffic was augmented in a much higher ratio.
At the middle of 1846 the total length of railways
under draught was 2,500 miles, while at the middle
of 1850 it was 6,300 miles. While, therefore, the
length of railway under traffic was augmented in the
ratio of three to one, the passenger traffic was aug-
mented only in the ratio of three to two. The traffic
did not increase half as fast as the railway.
We take th© following curious comparison of this
locomotive service with a corresponding service by
horse coaches from the work already quoted.
The experience of stage coach proprietors in busi-
ness conducted on a large scale establishes the general
fact that a fast coach travelling between any two dis-
tant places both ways daily requires to work it as
many horses as there are miles. The average load of
such a coach is found to be about two-thirds of what it
is capable of carrying. Thus, supposing it to be
capable of carrying 15 persons inside and out,
its
average load would be 10.
These 10 passengers would be carried both WBy
one mile per day per horse. The daily locomotlve
service of a horse thus working is therefore repre-
sented by 20 passengers carried one mile.
If we would then ascertain the number of horses
which would be necessary to execute the service of
the railways, it is only neceseary to divide their daer ofily,
mileage by
.90; the quotient will be the numb
horses required.
Let us take, for example, the six months ending
Dec. 31, 1848. The daily mileage of the
passengegenerally during these six months was 2,866,682.
gees