Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-01-24

the instruction derivable from them,
all the circumstances and surround
ings Of such events should be care
fully noted and recorded, and the
best scientific scrutiny be directed
to the investigation eff the causes
and the suggestion of precautions
for the future.
That the lesson of the Tay disaster
may not be lost, we have thought it
right to publish what is known
about the accident, waiting, how
ever, the receipt of English papers,
because of the deficiency of detail
in the Telegraph accounts. In our
outside columns viii be found an
extract from the Times giving all
that eyewitness can state, if those
can be called eyewitness who
gazed through the darkness and
saw first line of advancing lights,
then a flash and a shower of sparks,
then the descent of the line of
lights, and then--darkuess only.
Sound there was none; the roaring
of the hurricane so far out-thundered
everything else that the crash and
plunge of a train hundred yards
long and a thousand feet of iron
bridge, all swooping into the sea,
made to the ear no sign at all.
And now what caused the disas-
ter ? 1t will be seen in our extracts
from the Times that careful expert
ments were made at the time when
the bridge was completed before
trains were allowed to run on it.
The report of the engineers was
that the bridge was entirely safe
from the effects of any train that
could be run on it in ordinary
weather, but that further expert
ment We're required before they
could divine the effect of trains
running over it while heavy gales
were exerting their lateral pressure
upon it. Such further experiments
were never made, nor do we see
how they could be made until the
28th of last December, when exactly
the described experiment was made,
with the result of a ruined bridge,
a crushed and drowned train and
the instantaneous loss of ninety
human lives.
The disaster took place at the
highest part of the bridge, where
/ the road bed is nearly a hundred
feet above the surface of the water,
and where the girders rise high
above the top of the train, enclosing
it on both sides. At this point the
train was most exposed to the fury
of the gale, and it is believed that it
was capsized by it and driven
against the girders on the lee side
! of the bridge. Spectators noticed a
bright flash and a shower of sparks
Immediately before the fall. This
is attributed to the grinding, as it
were, of the train against the grid
ers, and the force of the train added
to the force of the gale, both in the
same direction, overcame the iner-
tia of the structure and it gave way
in mass. 1t is said that the pressure
of the gale was as much as tifty-siX
pounds to the square foot. a train
a hundred yards long would present
to this pressure a surface Of three
hundred square yards, making the
whole lateral pressure on the train
as much as seventy tons, force far
greater than the weight of the train,
and therefore fully competent to
sweep it from the track and dash ii
against the girders. That the train
did receive a tremendous shock in
this direction is an opinion since
confirmed by the discovery of the
divers who have been investigating
the wreck that every car had its
roof completely torn off in the pro-
cess.
The engineers are now discussing
the question how the bridge can be
rebuilt so as to resist the lateral
pressure of similar storms, which is
all right, but whatever devices of
this kind may be adopted, they
ought to be supplemented by reg
ulatiOn that no train shall be al
lowed to pass over such a structure
when the wind-pressure on its sur
face is over a certain amount. An
thermometer attached to the station
house at such a point would suffice
to regulate this with perfect exacti-
/ tude.