The Lamar register., 1893-08-05
DANGERS OF THE RAIL.
ABOUT THE CAUSES OF RAIL
ROAD DISASTERS.
Railroads Are Ahead of All
Others In safety Appoint m cuts-Are
Obliged to Cross Deep Ravines and
Tunnel Lofty Mountains

best regulated railroads As mat
ter of fact people travel so much
nowadays, and the percentage OF
those who meet with disaster is SO
small. the average American forgets
about danger when he takes his seat
in a luxurious drawing-room car.
There are dangers of railroad
travel. however. and it is not per-
haps amiss once in awhile to recall
them.
Tne author OF "Railway Acct
dents,n who knew nothing OF Rocky
mountain tunnels and Nihilist train
wreckers. enumerates some forty
different causes of disaster. and di-
vides them into three classes-those
Of the first due to arrangement OF
;he machinery, the second to the
damaged condition of the track, the
third to extraneous causes. such as
floods, storms and landslidcs. The
possibility of explosions has been
greatly diminished. though by no
means obviated, by the test OF modern
science and the precautions against
the employment of incompetent en-
gineers. but no committee Of expert
machlnists could have prevented
such accidents as the derdngemenJ
of an brake appar atus. which a
few days ago failed to stop runaway
freight train on a railroad and sent 1t
crashing into depot
few miles west OF the station
there was rather steep down grade
ana in trying to check the speed of
the train, the engineer found to his
horror that the young loafers OF the
last main station had been fOoling
with his sand-boN- The box was
empty, and the oyerstrain upon the
brakes caused them to give way alto
gether, and the train dashed into the
depot with force that drove the en-
gine through brick wall at the end
OF the car shed. and shivered pieces
of metal that looked solid enough TO
resist a cannonade.
The danger OF car-wheels flying
asunder in mid-carcer, increases with
the rapidity of the revolutions. as IL
lustrated by the bursting of massive
fy-wheels in cutlery works, and pre-
monitory symptoms Of such accidents
are often as difficult to recognize as
the peculiar texture of the iron that
causes rail to spread and derail
the next train unless the slope of the
| track should throw the main weight
of the car to the other side.
A considerable percentage of ruin
Gus accidents is due to that cause,
which train-wreckers contrlve to re-
produce By driving wedge-shaped
spike into cross-tie so close TO a
rail that it will defect the wheels
in succession and ditch the train be-
fore the crew can fly to the brakes
Railway dams are liable to be un-
dermired by sudden floods that cause
the track to sink under the weight
of the locomotive. and there is no
such thing as an absolutely safe rail-
way bridge. American railway CON
tractors have been bitterly de-
nounced for the employment OF in
competent bridge builders. but the
constructor and designer of the
bridge which year ago caused the
most horrible accident in the chron-
icles of the Swiss railway was tho
Engineer Eifel. the builder of the
Paris cloud tower, and supposed
master of the art of combining dura-
bility and strength with extraordin-
ary dimensions of iron structures.
The track of z hurricane is often
less than mile wide, and we'll
timed squirt has now and then carried
a train beyond the reach of the -p-
preaching storm. The stout locomo-
/ tives of the Northern Pacific have
often enough kept ahead of snow
tornado which few minutes after
/ covered the track to depth OF TWEEN
| ty odd inches, and year and half
ago an engineer of the Cincinnati
| Southern railroad contrived to run
the blockade of forest fire.
Seeing the smoke and the glare OF
the confiagration he stopped his train
and sent one of his brakemen on
prospecting trip. Flaming cinders
began to fall like snowdakes. when
the scout at last returned with the
report that the woods we're afire for
half-miie ahead. but the track was
yet clear. though liable to blockade
at any moment, since the burning
pines We're falling in all directions
After short consultation with his
conductor the engineer flung a wet
shawl about his neck and pulled out
. at rate that reduced the crisis of
the ordeal to a fraction Of minute
the decisive minute, for all he could
tell-for quarter of an hour later
freight train following in the wake
of the express was actually stopped
by the heat and the barricade of