The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-06-22
COLOR BLIND ENGINEERS.
Railroad Men Who Cannot Distin-
guish Red From Green.

fNCW 1Ork Oun.D
You hear very little nowadays about
color blindness among railroad en-
ployes. said the railroad manager.
because a very rigid and constant
system Of examination and inspection
is maintained. Some very interesting
experiments are made in these exami-
nations and some. odd incidents occur.
The color inspector gets in time 20
be something Of an amateur Eeientist
and gamers a considerable stock of
knowledge. He. learns, for one thing,
that most peaples whose sense of color
is deficient are blind to red, still 9TH
ers to green, and only few to violet.
"A man blind to red cannot distin-
guish between red and green: neither
can the green-blind. The red-blind
man will see red. but it looks bright
gree nto him. The green to the green
blind is a light hue of red.
AT first our inspection was confined
entirely to the eyes Of engineers and
firemen, but nowadays every man in
the operative department, whether
switchman, brakeman or train hand,
must pass the tests prescribed. We find
that about per cent of the applicants
have a defect OF one kind or other.
and denominations are necessary Oft
en- because luck or boldness sometimes
favOrs a man; and then once in awhile
q man develops blindness later.
when we first began the inspection
we were constantly surprised at find
ing that some of our most careful en-
gineeUs. men who had driven engines
for years without any accident that
could be traced to mistaken signals.
were affected. 1t may seem odd that
railroads happened to select green and
red for their danger signals, the two
cOlOrs upon which most cases of blind
ness occur, but it was simply because
no other cOlOrs have the luminous
character Of these. can be seen fur
Their along more distinctly.
Much of this immunity is due in
the first place to the fact that every
old engineer on road is familiar with
the location of the signal lights. In
the second place, suppOsing him to be
red blind. ne is quick to discover the
difference this kind Of a lamp presents
to him from the ordinary green.
He sees in the red lamp simply a
lighter shade of green. and if aware
of his defect strives to differentiate
between the two. The danger, of
course, lies in the fact that the differ
ence is not sufficiently marked to him
to make it possible all the time to dis
tinguish it,
"Once in awhile we have run across
cases in which a man once rejected
for supposed color blindness success
fully passed a second examination.
This was not due to any defect in the
last inspection, but to the fact that the
man mad previously suffered from lack
of color development. He simply did
not know Color blindness is itself
incurable. But there are so many diff
ferent shades and hues that very few
can pass an examination save in the
ordinary colOrs.
1T may sound a little odd. but among
laboring people, especially I'm large
cities there is a wOeful lack of educa-
ton even in the simpler colors. If an
afflicted person learn early enough in
life that ne is defective in his color
sense he may be able to keen the
knowledge from others by learning to
apply color designation TO objects Just
as the child learns to name objects in
the form in which they present them
selves to him.
But when one Of these color blind
persons attempts TO deceive the ex-
aminers he falls down. 1t might be as
sumed that because we want To find
out if the men can distinguish between
red and green lights we use these lights
10 make our examination.
This, it VIII be admitted. seems %
be the fair thing to 10. but as train
men must learn 10 distinguish lights
in ali sorts OF weather. on fOggy. damp
nights as we'll as on dear nights. with
distances constantly varying. fl csn
readily be seen that these are not safe