The Washington times., 1902-01-11

NEW YORK, Jan. 10.-The New York
Central and Hudson River Railroad. ac-
cording to trustworthy information, made
contract with the New York Edison
Company today to install in the Park Ave-
nue. tunnel, which was the scene of We'd
resday's wreck. from fifty to one hundred
electric arc lights. These lamps are to be
Installed as soon as possible.
The result Of the test trip through the
tunnel made by Assistant District Attor-
ney Garvan. the State railroad commits
sion's officials, and others are said TO
have impressed the railroad company
greatly. There are lights in the tunnel
now, but only at rare intervals
Torpedo Did Not Exp'ode.
To demonstrate this the eng ne vas run
at full speed through the tunne, over the
track on which the wreck occurred, and it
was planned to have the automatic tor
pedo holder place torpedo on the track
at exactly the same point where, accord
ing TO the railroad people, one was ex-
ploded by Wisker's engine on Wednesday
morning. The engine failed to explode the
torpedo.
For long time it was mystery to the
railroad men why the torpedo did not ex-
plode. A heavy switch engine was run
over it after the observation engine. but
with no better result. Five times the en-
gines were run over the torpedo, but there
was no explosion.
Mechanism Ont of Order
Then tc see ii the torpedo itself was de-
fective it was placed on the rail and one
OF the engines was sent over it. 1t ex-
ploded at once. An examination was made
Of the mechanism which automatically
places the torpedoes on the track and it
was found that the bed on which the tor
pedo is placed sank with the track
1t was propped up and another attempt
was made to explode a torpedo. but the
machine was hopelessly out of gear and
did not work.
The railroad officials were much embar-
rassed, but they contended still that the
machine was in working order on wednes-
day and that Wisker's engine did explode
torpedo at that point They produced
John Dalton. a trackman who examined
the rcadbed Immediately after the acct
dent. He says he found pieces OF exploded
torpedo.sb4-s. Lt5Iate .if
Obscured by Smoke and Fog.
The trip through the tunnel demon
strated still another thing which is that
when fog and smoke are in the tunnel it
is impossible to distinguish things ahead
Although none of the State or city Of
flcials would express any opinion as
result of the journey it was clear. through
the failure of the torpedoes to explode,
that the mechanism controlling the track
signal was out of order yesterday if not
on Wednesday. and the conditions prevail
ing in the tunnel on foggy days. or when
ever another train in passing had filled
the tunnel with smoke. had created de-
cided impression in favor of Engineer
Wisker.
Immediately on receiving a report of
what had occurred on the trip through the
tunnel District Attorney Jerome an
nounced to reporters that he had in
formed Coroner Scholer that he would not
object to an application for bail for
Wisker.
Funeral services over the bodies of sew
eral OF those killed in the wreck were |
held in New Rochelle today. None of those |
injured in the collision died today, but the |
condition of several is said to be still |
serious.