The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1907-03-07
Our Railway Management.
Editor Tribune:


crutches l have been thinking that
the wanton destruction of life on our
railways calls for more perfect sys
tenn of handling passenger traffic and
the fixing of the responsibility OF
these fatalities.
The management of our railways
is in the hands of a general manager
who is nothing more than financier
and who outlines the work and places
it in the hands of various subordin-
ates to work out the details.
This general manager invariably
has received his knowledge from
book larnin" and not from practice
and is placed at the head of corpora
ton to get the greatest amount of
revenue from the least amount OF
outlay" and on his ability TO do this
rests his job. He designates the
number of trains to be run over his
lire and the speed required of each,
which is based upon the demands OF
the public. He demands the reduc-
ton of expense wherever he may
suggest, be it practical or not. He
demands an engineer to make the
scheduled time of his train and has
him up ION the carpet" through fail
ure.
The responsibility of passenger
train and all its passengers is abso-
lutely in the hands of an engineer
and demands the cooperation of all
employed from the section hand up,
if he meets with success; yet the
head of the system, the actual man
behind the gun" fails to provide
proper safeguards for the lives of the
passengers as well as the engineer.
A few years ago twenty-four hours
from Chicago to New York was
fast" and ought to satisfy the most
exacting but now the business man is
demanding a fifteen hour train to
take the place of our present Is hour
schedule train. This Is hour train
will be run over the line under the
same conditions as was the "A hour
train but surrounded by scores of ad-
ditional obstacles of danger.
The engineer has time card by
which his train must arrive and de-
part from each station and 1t is the
duty of the train dispatcher ito see
that it is kept on time" however, il
becomes late and the engineer is
striving hard to get on time and the
train dispatcher is helping him and
issues orders at various times desig-
mating where and when to meet and
pass other trains etc.
Now this train dispatcher is sitting
in cozy Office with heat, light, etc,
while the engineer is out in the dark
snow, rain or sleet, and has to watch.
not only the engine and fireman, but
must look out for any obstruction,
persons, vehicles, cattle and all
switches, crossings and signals
Steaming along at so miles an hour
| in dense fog, trying to make up
time, his attention is called TO the
water glass of his engine, just at a
critical moment, for there, on high
post is red light, hardly discern
able, through the fog, but he fails to
see it and on he goes, only to meet a
havy freight train standing on the
same track one fourth mile further.
What is the result? The loss of fifty
souls, as was the case on the Big
Four at Fowler, Ind, last month.
would ask, in fixing this response
bility, if the dispatchers under any
circumstances had right morally or
legally, to stop freight train on
the same track in front of a passeng-
er train and wait until they get with
| in few hundred yards of each other
before any attempt is made to stop
the passenger train, trusting then
only to a small red light high up on
tower with heavy 'og hiding it,
The wrecking of the passenger
train at Woodville near Laporte, on
the B. & O. Ry., where upwards OF
one hundred innocent souls, strangers
TO our country, were ushered into
eternity, was caused by lack OF prop
err safeguards. Here again the man
agement' trusted to green light dis
played on an engine to serve as
very important order. But business
got good on the road and the man
agement sent out two sections of this
train Gust as they did twenty years
ago) and trusted to a green light
and signal from the engine.
Mo- the management should have
issued an order to each train, stipu-
lating that first and second section
of train no rs will meet and pass Elk
No. AZ at Woodville' Well the green
light blew out, the loss of life was
larpalling and the engineer indicted
for er-why-because in the dis
charge of his duty modern methods
of railroading were not afforded him
and he alone shall suffer And so it
goes through all the casualties.
To appease the wrath of the public
the management of the Lake Shore
railroad is out in statement, that as
a test at Conneaut. o., this week,
twenty-five trains including two pas
senger trains, went by a danger sig
nal, thereby throwing the response
biIity OF wrecks upon the engineer
Well, does 1t stand to reason that to
nick out % men as engineers and
who, as such we'll know the meaning
of danger signal, and start them
down the road, that all but one will
miss this danger signal? 1t is pos