The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-03-06
DEATH RIDES WITH NAILS
The Hazard Life of the Railway
Postal Clerk.


ice last year came twenty-five
deaths to clerks, seventy-eight serious
injuries, 39S hurts that were more or
less slight in comparison. Looking at
these figures, ii is not enough for the
postal clerk 10 be reminded that In this
fiscal year the cars of the service ran
over 1885 separate routes. aggregating
192,S52 miles, and that virtually 10000
clerks We're in the service
In the opinion Of the National Asso-
citation OF Railway Clerks. this death
and accident rate has been but of all
true and necessary proportion, even
when il is recognized that the hazard
OF raliroadiES in any form must be ac-
cepted. President Kidwell Of the ma
tonal association in a recent speech
echoed the sentiment OF the association
when he said:
1T Is no exaggeration when 7 say
that one-fourth of these men would
have been alive today if the cars were
required to be built Of steel, or even
with steel stills, ribs and ends. The fact
ahat trunk lines are running cars that
nave been in service so long that the
floors have worn out and new ones are
4 necessity and the sills are 40 rotted
that the new floor must be laid over the
Old one in order to find something that
nails VIII hold in, should convict with
no further evidence. But without sta
fistics further than that cars have been
In constant service for twenty-five
years, we believe we have made a case
that will easily show that the lives Of
clerks are endangered daily, while the
railroad companies profit by it.
w S. Shallenberger, the second as
sistant postmaster general, has made
inquiry into the condition Of the rail-
way mail service with reference TO
what he terms 'the large number of ac-
cidents which have occurred to trains
carrying railway postOffices in the last
fiscal year." Investigations are under
way to discover if there be a possibili-
y Of a perfected steel car that will be
a better buffer in a train than are some
of the cars referred TO by President
BjdweU.
For" as the assistant postmaster
general says. 1.-The position of the pos
tai car in the train and the fact that
our clerks are constantly engaged, with
least opportunity to protect themselves
in the event Of a collision. have justi-
fed this office in demanding OF railroad
companies the strongest construction,
az well as the most convenient ar
rangement, that IL is possible to give to
these cars
As to the position OF the postal car
in the train, the department will make
explanations enough. 1t has been found
that with the ordinary train the station
platforms are not long enough to admit
OF the mail bags falling as they should
10 the hand Of the receiving pOstoffice
men if these cars were to be attached
70 the rear Of the trains. As to why a
baggage car with one man in il should
not be coupled next the engine. how
ever, instead of a postal car with per-
haps five OF six men in it. is not so
easy of explanation; and especially as
the baggageman, having so little to do,
and 50 many more chances to escape
by jumping, probably would enter no
selfish objections 10 the change.
For I'm most cases it is the engine
ahead that is the menace to the clerks
in the postal car coupled close up to
the tender. Whether from a head-on
collision, from leaving the track, or
from the application Of the emergency
brakes of the newest pattern, the postal
car next the engine is the chief suf-
ferer.
Two wrecks in the last year stand
out with striking distinctness. The
first was that of Feb. %, when in a
head-On collision. between two Big -Four
trains at Berea, O., four postal clerks
were killed and the bodies Of three Of
them burned to ashes-the whole crew
being annihilated.
The other awful disaster was at Dan
vile. Va, when the fast mail on the
Southern road plunged from a high
frestle at sharp curve, falling forty
i've feet. and continuing for III feet
III the line at which it left the rails.
-Four OF the eleven clerks on the train
were instantly killed. and every other
man OF them was injured. The loco
motive was reduced to scraps. Fast
running downgrade against all warn
ing signals was given as the cause Of
this accident, the locomotive striking
the nine degrees trestle curve at the
rate Of ninety miles an hour.
speed has come to be the bugbear of
the service \ slight accident at sixty
or seventy miles an hour means more
than an old-time collision OF twenty
five miles. At eighty miles an hour the
application Of a modern emergency
brake is something TO make the postal
clerk in a modern car vince when re-
garding il as a possibility. This brake
is constructed TO bring the car wheels
90 the verge Of sliding in the fraction OF
"A second, and this. without any warn
ms Of a lookout for the postal clerks
IN n fast mail train on a modern rail-
road, is only a little short of the hor-
rors OF the collision that il may be
called upon TO avert.
The man who ordinarily makes his
trips by rail in a sleeping car or parlor
car has little idea of the sensations Of
speed in a postal train under fast
schedule schedule which with posi-
bilities Of delays and the hardships of
making no time may force running at
times To ninety miles an hour.
The cars making up No. i had been
under the sheds Of the Northwestern
station in Wells street since 10 o'clock
the night before. They were a letter
car. one paper car and a storage car.
which were scheduled TO make the 300
miles into Cedar Rapids, Ia, in 265
minutes, including the seven stops
two for water and one for a change Of
engines and train crew.
Clerk II. 5. Mann in charge. with
Clerks Frank Klauk. a. NJ. Brandage.
II. Z. TeachOut. II. Kobe. T. w. FRYE
and H G. Settle. had been toiling with
mail pouches. heaps of letters tied in
punches. piles of'ChTistmas boxes and
wrappers overlooking the tables and the
aisles of the cars ever since s o'clock
I'm the evening, and il was 2:30 O'Clock
in the morning when the writer passed
mounds Of the newspaper maiI-hils of
ii from the eastern trains and noun |
tains Of it a little later from the Chica- |
go newspaper offices.
For nine hours I'm the STIFFNESS and
dust Of the letter and paper cars the
postal crew had been slashing mail in |
the endeavor to have it worked be- |
fore the newspaper mail at the last
would swamp them With the paper
wagons came the conductor of the
train. Arthur +. Bassett. and out OF |
the gloom ahead doomed the black out |
lines OF John Aliens locomotive. No. |
1891. into which Fireman Dysarf shov-