The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-10-09
THE AUTHORITY is GIVEN
The North Carolina Law is Deficient
in Some Respects.
SHOULD CARRY COMMISSIONERS TO SCENE
Other States Require Railroads to Put Special
at Disposal Commissions When Wreck
Occurs. II is Said the Engine
Jumped the Track.


The Corporation Commission will in
vestigate the Seaboard wreck near Mon
roe.
Though all the commissioners were
out of the city yesterday the statement
was made at the commission Offices that
an investigation will undoubtedly be
made.
Chairman Franklin McNeill, who was
at Laurinburg yesterday, doubtless mas
the Investigation in hand. The other
commissioners, Messrs. Rogers and ADJ
bolt, are in Western Carolina, where
they are investigating county tax re-
turns.
The duty the commission owes the
public makes it paramount that there be
full and thorough investigation. There
is specific and ample authority for such
action in the act creating the commits
sion. 1t is embodied in Section "a,
which reads as follows:
1.-THE commission may investigate the
cause of any accident on a railroad re-
sulting in the loss OF life, and of any ac-
cident not so resulting, which they may
deem to require investigation"
While the North Carolina law gives
the commission general supervision of
railroads it H. behind that in other
States with reference to the investiga-
ton of accidents and wrecks. In South
Carolina and other States the railroads
are required to carry the commission
ers on a special train to the scene Of
wreck as soon as possible after its oc-
currence.
Had the South Carolina law
been in force in this State a member of
the Corporation Commission would
have accompanied the railroad officials
on the special that left here
an hour after the wreck occurred, and
the public would have had
full and complete information as to the
cause of the wreck, placing neg
ligence, if any such existed, where it be-
longs. The South Carolina law is one
that will undoubtedly be engrafted in
the State law. 1t prevents the POSSIBLE
ity of shifting responsibility for a
wreck, and gives the public-those vital
ly interested-full information as to all
facts to be ascertained.
G. F. DiclSert, the engineer who was
plunged into deaths clasp without
warning, suffered a horrible fate. The
brave young man was found setting in
his cab with his hand on the brake at
his post of duty. He was literally cooked
to death. The scalding steam envelop-
ed him and he was so hemmed in that
escape was impossible. Not a bone was
broken. 1t was a terrible death that
this noble engineer met
Railroad men here say that the wreck
was the worst they have seen in all
their experience. Both engines left the
track in a cut and the second one pass
ed over the first. The box cars came
next with terrific momentum and they
were piled upon the battered hulks of
the engine telegraph pole high. Fifteen
cars were splintered in ALL 1t took
many hours to recover the body of En-
gineer DicRert. The wonder is that he
was not crushed in all the mass of
wreckage. The tender of the first engine
had landed against the cab where he
was setting and the trucks of a box
car had also found their way into the
cab.
The double header system which was
previously attempted on the Seaboard
and abandoned because of its impracti-
cability, is being severely condemned
by train crews The string of fifty cars
with the two mighty engines rushing
along at speed Of thirty miles gave
those at the helm little chance of escape.
If the fated double header had reached
Monroe the railroad would have saved
the pay of conductor, $500; fiagman,
$1.25 ond brakeman, 80 cents.
The railroad officials have not yet
learned the cause of the wreck. The
front engine jumped the track, ran
thirty feet on the rail and then 100 feet
on the ties before it pitched over on the
side. The front truck of the wrecked
engine has not yet been recovered 1t
is not known yet whether the front
trucks caused the engine to leave the
track