The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-05-13
THE WRECK PRoBLEM.

While there appeared to have been
a cessation of disastrous wrecks for a
4 few weeks-such wrecks as were nu-
merous during the early part of the
year-the dreadful calamity in Cali
fornia Saturday afternoon is a remin-
der that wrecks still happen, and the
wreck problem is receiving more atten-
tion than ever before. Theorists are tell
ing what ought to be done, and doubt
less practical railroad men are work.
| ing towards the wreckless railroad.
The studies of the theorists are of
great benefit in this matter-as in all
Others, of course. One writer, who has
made close study of railroad acct
dents, writing in the Reviews of Re-
views, takes a little different view
from some students of this problem.
He says:
ITO discipline an offender by dis
missaI. as is usually the case, does not
remove the cause. If anything, 1t
rather aggravates it. by permitting un-
tried men to take the place OF the
more experienced ones. The liability
of mishap is as great as before. To
overcome this incurable failing of the
mental makeup we must devise some
system that renders its shortcomings
harmless. In a crude way this has
been done in many cases in factories.
The application and extension of the
same principles to railroad operation
must be accomplished before we can
expect materially to diminish the fire.
quency and force of accidents. When
any order out of the regular scheme
is given, provision should be made so
that the attention of more than one
person should be involved when 1t is
executed Moreover, it should be made
an impossibility. for one mans obliv-
iousness to occasion disaster.
"a second potent cause of railroad
wrecks is primarily due to operative
methods that are antiquated. The
glaring defect is that things are done
backward: the several steps of action
are a reversal of the natural and logf-
cal sequence. In the infancy of rail-
reading, when conditions were simple,
1t made little difference. AS the entire
fabric grew rapidly the method first
adopted finally broke down from over
weight. 1t is perfectly fruitless to try
to make the old way do. We do many
things Backward but most of us do
not notice it, because either it is of
small consequence. or we know of no
industry, as railroading is today, the
case is different, and adequate and |
logical method is of prime import.
Instead of the existing methods of
operating trains. it is necessary to
have something entirely new, some
system in which the underlying prin-
ciples are just the reverse of those now
in force At the present time when
anything goes wrong, when one train
gets into the same block with the one
ahead, when orders overlap, when
signals fail, or when an employe makes
a mistake, there is Immediately poten-
tial accident. Hundreds of mistakes
and mishaps occur on the railways ev
cry day, although the public hears
nothing of them. It is only when dire
disaster takes place, in which lives are
lost, that a. thrill of horror awakens us
to the gravity of the situation. OF
course, somebody is disciplined but
this in no way lessons the danger or
removes the cause. The case is iden-
teal with that of the football; no mat
ter what happens to it or how fierce
the contests over it have been, it re-
mains as good an object for scrim-
mage as before.
when anything goes wrong in the
operation of railway trains the very
fact itself should make it impossible
for the trains affected to proceed.
They should be brought to a standstiH
There should be no possible
means, for example. by which two
trains could enter the same block.
lone thing is certain: Mistakes OF
any kind whatsoever. instead of in
Titing catastrophe, should themselves
make accident absolutely impossible"