The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1872-06-06
Our Railroads and Their Reckless Man
agement.

agement.
From the Pittsburgh Iron World and lIdnufac-
| turer.
| The reckless management of railroads
In this country has long formed theme
| upon which it delights European visitors
to "spread themselves" when they wrote
letters to the papers Nor is there usu-
ally much exaggeration in the letters on
| this subject coutrbted to the London
Times and other such journals by the
British traveller, who fears not to tempt
fate by trusting himself to the uncertain
mercies of our railroad corporations
Figures, which "cannot lie," show strange
aud humiliating facts regarding the com,
parative rates of accident by rail in this
country and in Europe. OF course ter
terrible calap,ities have occurred both in
Englaad and on the continent of Europe,
BY accidents to railroad trains, but one
may read over all the European papers
week after week, nay, month after month,
without once eneountering such detailed
horrors as are brought home to the Ameri
can public by the American papers, in
their almost daily reports of awful catastro
phies upon the lines of railroad through
out the length and breadth of the land
SO callous have men become, from long
custom, to these terrible announcements,
that they will merely skim the column
containing the details, and, having asccr-
tanned from the list of sufferers that no
friend of theirs have been killed or injured,
will quietly fold away the paper and dis
miss the awful event from their minds
Nevertheless, there is a spirit abroad
just now that sets thinking men to ask
themselves whether this sort of thing is
to last forever, and whether the fearful
holocausts of human life recorded day af-
ter day are indeed to become an Ameri.
can institution, and fixed order of things,
from which there can be no appeal. An
absurd idea, this, in country which,
above all others, is signalized by the re-
markable inventive powers of its inhabi-
tants, whose inventiveness, indeed, may
be said to have no limits, and to have
been carried into all departments of me-
chanism aud skilled labor. And yet, this,
perhaps, only aggravates the slur but too
justly cast upon Us Americans for having
suffered steam power to reach the point
to which it has now arrived, without hav-
ing devised commensurate means where
by the risks arising to human life aud
limb from that power can be mitigated if
not altogether removed.
A move in that direction has at last been
made, and if the travelling public know
what is for their own interest, they will
see to it that this move shall have fair
play, and that no consideration of ex.
pense shall be admitted as an excuse from
any greedy corporation who may decline
to avail themselves Of the idea originated
in it. To all intents aud purposes, the
conditions of railway travel professionally
known as "telescoping" and Oscillation"
are in a fair way of becoming obsolete by
the introduction of trussed platforms, com
preston buffers, and automatic couplers,
inventions by which perfect immunity
from the two causes of railroad crashes
referred to is secured Both of these
models of smashing up railway trains are
due, solely, to the defective kind of coup.
ling hitherto used upon our railroad lines
A gentleman who for years past has been
connected with railroads, introduced some
time since a new aud original method of
coupling cars, which completely obviates
all the causes, that gave rise to the tee
scoping and osillation of trains. On some
roads trussed platforms, compression buf-
fers, and automatic couplers have been in
use for eight years, and the result justi
fes the statement that the companies us
ing them have pro6ted immensely by
these inventions, while the loss of life and
limb upon the railroads on which they
were used has been reduced to cipher
BY the use of the new platforms and buff
fers telescoping is simply rendered i'm
possible, while the new mode Of coupling
the ears connects them in such way that
the trains move smoothly on, without any
of that disagreeable and dangerous lateral
motion known as oscillation.
Here, then, by inventions that appear
to be very simple indeed, when we know
all about them, the fears and anxieties
hitherto inseparable from railroad travel
in this country may easily be set at rest
1t is incumbent on all railroad corpora |
tions throughout the country to adopt !
these inventions without the least delay.
A days delay, and another holocaust,
which would have certainly been prevent
ed by these simple precautions, may oc
cur. The managers of the Pennsylvania
Railroad have talked of adopting the in
vention. Let them see to it that this is
at once done, else the recoil of an out
ragged public may be too much for them
In little village in Virginia, there
lived family named Ransom. They