The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-07-07
The Disaster ON the Southern Rail-
road OF Long Island.

because II should not have happened at all as
by its terrible and sickening details. Col
lisions on railways oughs never occur, and
if there was anything like system in our rail-
way management they never would occur.
1t is true il is now some years since there was
an appalling disaster anywhere in this
vicinity on the roads centring in New York;
but, while this is true of the immediate neigh
borhood of the metropolis, it has been our
duty to recount very long list of catastro-
Plies on the railroads in different parts of the
country since that appalling affair at Norwalk
bridge in 1853. Within a few months there
was distressing collision on the Baltimore
and Potomac Railroad, near Washington; and
Angola, Carr's Rock, New Hamburg and o
score of other names recall scenes almost as
terrible as that at Norwalk twenty-five years
ago. Minor accidents, involving the loss oflife,
arc Of almost daily occurrence on nearly all
the roads, and where one of these is reported
in the newspapers twenty are concealed from
the public knowledge. 1t is part of the policy
of our railroads to refuse information to the
press in regard TO accidents, except in cases
where the truth cannot be concealed; and
this policy Was pursued even in this latest
would be made public No clearer proof of
the general ineficiency and imbecility of our
railway management can be found than in
this disposition to hide away all damaging
facts from public knowledge and scrutiny;
aid this persistent policy of silence would be
conclusiva in couden IN tion even IL accidents
were less frequent than they are. But even if
the truth was always told, or if disasters were
as infrequent in the whole country as they
have been in this vicinity in tie last two or
three years, there would still be no excuse for
this one. The calamity of Monday was need
less one, and rs such it should have been i'm
possible.
Whatever may have been the fault of the
conductor whose conduct cost him his life, we
are not disposed to assume that he was guilty
of criminal negligence. The principal blame
belongs to the managers of the road, and not
TO the inattention of the conductor, even
Stunning that he was disobedient TO the rules
of the company. No railroad-and especially
no single-track railroad-can expect to run
trains, regular and special, according to a set
of cast-iron rules. 1t is the system that is at
fault. II is almost inconceivable that after
forty years experience in railroad manage
ment so much should be trusted to the Judg-
ment or obedience to rules of two conductors
as to make it possible for their trains to come
into collision. glance at the cause of the
accident on the Long Island road will make
this reasoning plain. A heavily laden train
leaves Williamsburg at noon on q day when
whole multitudes from the metropolis are
seeking the beach at Rockaway. The train is
too long and too heavy to keep the time
marked for it by the rules Of the company.
Another and special train approaches
from the opposite direction, and, having
waited the prescribed time at the last
station, is entitled to the road. There is but
one track and should the two trains meet there
could only be one result terrible and cis-
tressing accident. The down train, evidently
in ignorance of the exact whereabouts of the
other, also moves out from its last station
the two meet, and there are the wreck and
loss of life it was yesterday our painful duty
TO record. Under such circumstances it is
easy to look for and even to find criminal neg
lgence on the part of one or other of the
conductors. 1t is plain that both trains
should not have been on the track at the same
time, and that one or the other was in the
wrong We must not forget, however, that
both trains had their destinations to make
and that toe conductors we're as much re-
sponsible for not making them as tor col
lision. They we're guided only by set of
rules. Evidently they we're not well informed
as to each others whereabouts, and conse-
quently were ignorant of their rights of the
road. Under such circumstances both should
have waited, perhaps but it was more like
human nature for both to go ahead, and both
went ahead, with tie distressing results we
have already recorded
In such case the fault is clearly in the
management, or rather the mismanagement, of
the road. There may have been culpability
on the part of Conductor Hubbard; but he
paid the penalty of his culpability with his
life, and, even we're he living, no punishment
that could be inflicted on him would be a
guarantee against similar accidents in the
with the evil at its root. If we would have
more security to life on our railroads we must
obtain it by means of systematic railroad
management. A set of rules is not a sufficient
guide to the conductors of trains on the rail-
roads in the neighborhood OF New York
Every movement should be controlled by
single will and the trains should be guided
with more than the certainty and precision
of an army on the march. No con-
ductor should be allowed to pass from one
station to another without express au-
thority, and this authority, so far as the
running of trains is concerned, ought to be
superior, not to the conductors merely, but
even to the President and Board of Direc-