St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-10-22
RAILWAY sLauaarEE.

The sacrifice OF human life on the rail-
roads of the West during the past two
weeks has been appalling. A haif-seore
of trains, heavily laden with passengers,
have been wrecked either by collision
or derailment, and hundreds of persons
have been killed or terribly mangled.
In the last Of these so-called accidents.
near Battle Creek, Mich. Friday, fire
was added to the horror of collision, and,
twenty-six persons, injured by the
shock. were slowly burned to death in
the ruins in which they were penned.
while greater number were horribly
burned, and will be crippled or dis
figured for lite.
The immense increase OF travel, in
duced by excursions to the worlds fair,
has taxed the carrying capacity of the
railways 10 the utmost. There does not
appear to have been, however, a CORE
spending increase in the number of
trainmen employed, at least OH the East
ern roads, nor an increased vigilance to
prevent accidents. The trainmen in
many instances have been overworked,
and the vigilance of the SWitchmen has
been taxed to the utmost Great con-
fusion has been caused among the latter
class by the large number Of special
trains added 20 the regular complement,
and in their bewilderment they seem to
have forgotten the running time of
trains. and in consequence neglected to
take the necessary precautions to avoid
collisions. 1t is stated that for the past
two months the employees of the rail-
roads running east from Chicago have
been compelled to be on duty from four
teen to eighteen hours daily. AS con-
sequence, they are reduced to state of
physical exhaustion bordering on col
lapse. 1t is not to be expected that
men thus overwOrked can be as alert
and vigilant as they would be under Or
binary circumstances. The large num-
Der OF extra trains rendered necessary
by the enormous travel to and from the
fair has proved confusing TO all classes
Of railroad men, from the train dispatch
erS down to the fagmen at the cross
lngs. In addition, the rolling stock has
been taxed to its utmost capacity, and
it is to be feared than some cars have
been pressed into the service that were
defective and dangerous. ALI these
causes, and others less prominent, but
equally the outgrowth Of the eXtraordi-
nary passenger traffic, have added to
the dangers of travel by rail.
The railway managers are coming in
for large share of censure for this con-
dition of things. Perhaps they are more
lpSS hlomn FHhnt, did nf do
in time for the extraordinary increase
of travel. Neither railway officials nor
any one else had any conceptions of its
immensely. They expected tens of
thousands; there proved to be hundreds
of thousands of travellers. They ex
pected a rush; it has proved to be n
avalanche. No human foresight could
have anticipated such torrent of hui
mainly as has been pouring into Chi
cago for many weeks to witness the
marvels of the White City. 1t has sur
passed the widest dreams Of the most
enthusiastic. From every city. town
and hamlet, from the farm and the
ranch, from the factory and the mine
the torrent of humanity has increasingly
flowed back and forth. Every continent
and every cline has been represented
in the great throngs; every class ard
condition of society has furnished its
quota to the army Of sightseers.
The most sagacious did not foresee
this enormous pilgrimage, and therefore
they could not be prepared for it. The
railways were compelled to work their
employees hard-perhaps too hard for
their physical powers. They have been
compelled to divide their trains into
sections, one following the other at in
tervals of a few minutes. AS was to
have been expected, the rear section has
occasionally crashed into the one pre-
ceding it, and great loss OF life has been
the result. SWitchmen, not knowing
of the coming of second section, have
left the switches open, as has been
their custom in ordinary times, with the
result OF derailing train. On several
occasions the switchman has become eX-
hausted by the great labor imposed
upon him, and derailmeut or collision
has followed.
No man, be he ever so sagacious,
could have provided against all these
accidents. Some were due, no doubt,tO
ineXcuSable carelessness, but the great
majority can be attributed to the I'M
precedented volume of traffic which has
upset the calculations of the railway
managers, unduly strained the endur-
ance of employees, and caused an I'M
usual and unforeseen impairment of
the roadbeds and rolling stock. Yet
some were clearly avoidable, and in
such cases the officials merit and should
receive the severest punishment of the
law and condemnation of the public.