The Savannah morning news., 1903-01-31
STEEL COACHES FOR SAFETY.

! 1OAOhES FOh
The loss of life in railroad accidents
! this week has been appalling. The
/ cause of the accident on the New Jer-
! sey Central Railroad is known, and 50
/ is the cause of that on the Southern
| Pacific. None of the means that have
been adopted for securing safety to
! travellers on railroads could have pre-
| vented these accidents. They were due
to the failure of employers to meet fully
the responsibilities of their positions.
On the New Jersey Central road the
block signals gave the necessary warn
ing of danger. torpedoes that had been
| placed upon the track in accordance
with the regulations also gave warm
ing and the precaution of sending a
fagman from the delayed train to no
tify the approaching express was OBJ
served. Every required precaution was
taken, and under ordinary circum-
stances d collision would have been
prevented. The precautions did not
prevent it because owing to a mental
condition of the engineer, all of the
warnings were disregarded. What the
trouble with the engineer was no one
can tell. He is dead, but he lived long
enough to say that he had seen the
danger signals, but thought they would
quickly turn to signals of safety-sig
mails that the track ahead of him was
clear.
No doubt many, if not most of the
railroad accidents are the result of the
failure of employees to comply strictly
with the rules and regulations for Sc
curing the safety of trains. And will
it ever be possible to prevent these fall
ures on the part of employees? Are
there not times in the life of every man
when his mind refuses to respond free
ly to the demands upon it? How often
it is that man, ordinarily a good
speller, cannot spell a word with which
he is familiar! He knows it is spelled
wrongly when he sees it written, but
he cannot spell it rightly. In a little
while. however. the hitch gets out of
his mind and he has no difficulty in
spelling il.
There are a million or more employees
VI an OcluSs anu Il us ptlNNilAtlSG VI
them occupy responsible positions. 1t
is not at all strange that now and then
one of these responsible employees gets
a hitch in his mind so that he disre-
CARDS danger signals. The result is an
accident-an accident often in which
many lives are lost.
But what additional precaution can
be taken to prevent the wounding and
killing of people in railroad wrecks? 1t
seems to us that as it is practically GER
tain that there will be railroad acct
dents as long as the human mind falls
to do its full duty, notwithstanding the
precautions taken to prevent them,
passenger coaches should be construct
ed with the view of protecting their oc-
cupants against both collisions and fire.
1t is a fact of course that Pullman
cars are seldom smashed or derailed In
a collision, whether the collision is from
the front or the rear, and it is only once
i'll a great while that Pullman coach
is burned. AS matter of fact compar-
atively few of those who travel in Pull
man COdNlCo dlG lilJulth III dCGluGHlSs
The reason is that a Pullman coach is
much stronger and heavier than the or
binary passenger car.
The lesson to be drawn from this is
that railroad companies ought to be re-
quired to employ stronger coaches in
their passenger service. The time will
probably come when both Pullman
coaches and the ordinary passenger
coaches will be made of steel, but ought
not Congress hasten the use of steel in
the manufacture of passenger coaches?
With coaches made of that material a
collision, unless it were of unusual vio-
lence, would not cause the death of a
passenger, and there would be no such
thing as the destruction of passengers
in railroad wrecks by fire.
Has Congress the power to require
railroads to adopt cars made of steel?
Why not? 1t required them to adopt
automatic couplers for the safety of
railroad employees. 1t can certainly re-
quire them to adopt steel coaches for
the safety of travellers.