The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-05-06
TRAIN WRECKING.
Movement to Make This Profess
sion a Federal Offense.
New York Times.

New York Times.
Efforts are being made by a number OF
railroads in the West to bring about the
formation of an association for the purpose
of stamping out the crime of train wreck
ing. All the railroads, and especially those
traversing the thinly populated districts in
the West. are deeply interested in prevent
ing hold-ups of their trains. which are
often accomplished by derailments abuse
of signals or other dangerous methods. even
if the robbers do not resort to methods re-
sulting in the actual wrecking of the trains.
The latter plan has. however. become the
one which bandits look upon with most
favor insuring them plumber without
their taking any great risks for in case OF
accidents there is generally so much else
to do that the criminals can make good
their escape before IL is even suspected
that the wreck was deliberately planned
and executed by human hyenas
There can be no doubt" said a repre-
sentative of a Western railroad the other
day, that the cost of an association.
formed for the purpose of taking whatever
steps may suggest themselves as feasible
to stamp out this crime, would be many
times paid back to the railroads by the
saving not only of their property but OF the
lives of their passengers. Every train
wrecking attempt Is generally followed BY
suits for damages against the railroad.
and while il is impossible to gather ex-
act figures on the losses so incurred e can
be safely assumed that they run way up
into the hundreds of thousands.
Perhaps still more important from the
point of the actual cash loss incurred Is the
damage done to the equipment by these
wrecking attempts. The value of first
class train, consisting of engine, bag
gage car, coach, chair car and several Pull
man sleepers, approximates 100000. FIRE.
quently there is so much damage occa-
stoned there is no salvage on the equip
ment. For this reason IL is fair TO assume
that wrecks Of this character would repre-
sent an actual loss of from $4,000 TO $4,000
to the railroad company.
Adding to this the damages resulting
out of personal injury claims. IL is fair to
assume that the cost of every such wreck
is very nearly 100000. This is by no means
a small item, and anything that could be
be glad to undertake. IL is believed that
Joint action in prosecuting train wreckere
to the very end will prove to be more eff
fective than the independent efforts which
the railroads have so far made.
AT present the prosecution OF train
State laws. This involves great difficulties.
and II is proposed TO secure the enactment
of a federal statute making train wrecking
a crime under the federal laws. For very
apparent reasons criminals fear federal laws
and authority more than State laws. The
United States court. Extradition proceed
ings cannot be invoked to delay United
States officers are not handicapped by lack
of means The criminal classes fear the
laws of the United States because punish
ment under them is swift. The United
States government exercises authority over
interstate commerce. and there Is no
reason why it should not protect the lives
of passengers. We hope TO accomplish this
by Joint action"