The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-11-16
the HEATING OF CARS.
Substitutes for the Stoves that are so
Dangerous In Accidents.


In the recent terrible railroad accident at
Rio, Wis, almost every person in one railway
car was mangled or roasted to death by the
taking fire Of the wreck from either coal
stove or the kerosene oil lamps.
When railroad accidents happen during
cold weather when the stoves are in use. or
at night when the lamps are lighted, the
train generally takes fire, with the result OF
adding to the horror and increasing the de-
struction to life In an enormous degree
When crowded cars are derailed and smashed
only, the percentage Of deaths Is eOmpara-
lively low--ten per cent. Of all in a ear being
a large death rate but when an overturned
car takes fire, the stunned fainting and
frightened people are roasted alive long be-
fore assistance can be rendered.
That there Is no necessity for this whole
sale murder and cremation cannot be con-
troyerted, and that 1t Is within the power OF
railroad management to provide means Of
warming and lighting trains that will be rea-
sonably safe in the matter of fire Is also a
well established facs, known TO the men who
should mold the care OF the life and the limb
OF thelr passengers paramount to all other
considerations.
The Sanitary Engineer has on several oc-
casions described and illustrated means for
warming cars by steam or hot water from a
central source. There is no serious difficult
ty in taking steam from locomotive boiler
and passing 1t through cars to warm them.
railroad managers object to this because
In cold weather they say they have 'little
enough steam to put the train Oh time" This
Is not difficulty that is insurmOuntable. A
small boiler In corner Of a baggage car
Will overcome all this; or ears can be warmed
from q terminal station by storage heaters
several OF which are before the public That
the warming of cars by steam or storage
heaters Is more than an experiment has been
damon IA faA 10 "a
New York, and was strongly advised by Col
Hahn for the Brooklyn elevated roads and
Bridge ears. In the case of the New York
elevated roads they take steam from the lO-
c0motive when 1t can be spared, on down
grades, etc, and warm the storage heaters
thereby. two or three minutes OF steam adj
mission being enough to warm the storage
heaters for twenty minutes or half an hour.
But the kerosene oil lamps should at once be
prohibited by law, as also the heating Of
cars by stoves within them.
A few roads have abandoned the lamps,
but the great majority Of ears, and including
the most expensive and elegant ones, are vet
lighted by mineral oil. In a smash-up the
copper bodies Of the lamps are fractured and
the oil Is distributed over wood work aud
passengers. 1t Is this that facilitates the
burning of train from end to end and pre-
vents strong and uninjured men and women
from escaping. Gas in train Is far safer
than oil, but incandescent electric lighting Is
safer and better than either. The auxiliary
boiler which runs the steam or hot-water
plant for the warming Of a train can also
run the dynamo, and to prevent q car from
being left in darkness, by accident or de-
sign, few sperm candles in holders, such as
were formerly used can be introduced. It Is
the duty OF our legislators, and Of all who
travel by train, TO make it imperative on
railroad managers to abandon the coal stove
and all infiammable oils in railway carriages,
and until such law Is on the statute books
OF each State. just so long will we hear Of
such holoeausts as has happened at Rio, and
so will the merchant and business man when
ne lies down In a sleeping car take the risk
OF being roasted in his blankets