The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-24
RADICAL CHANCE
 IN SIGNALING Green Light Will SuppIant White on Railroads MUCH PERIL IN COL0RS Orange Light wifi Take the Place of Green for cautlon-satisfactory Yellow Glass Cannot Be
 Obtained.
MUCH PERIL IN COLoRS

Washington, August 2s.-(special.) )-The board of experts appointed to investigate the signal system of the railroads of the United States will be confronted at the outset with tne fact that here has been a complete and more or less startling rev olution in block signal practice during re- cent years. This is nothing less than changing the universal and time-honored white light from safety to a danger sig nal.
 Ever since block signaling went into ef- feet on American railways, and even be- fore that time, the white light at night has been the notice of safety to the men on the head end" It still is so on the majority of the lines but the general man. agers throughout the country have de- cided almost without exception that the best signal practice discards the white light as a sign of ''clear ahead" and trans forms its meaning to "something wrong. Stop immediately" The revised language has become such because of the fact that it has been discarded from the signal lex icon by the best authorities and by many of the largest railway systems in the United States
 White Lights New Meaning.
 On the lines where the white light no longer has place, its appearance denotes that something has gone wrong with the regular signal and therefore the engine crew are unable to say whether there is safety ahead or ruin and disaster IT they proceed. Accordingly there is only one thing to do and that is to stop until the doubt can be removed. The greatest value, therefore, in discarding the white light lies in the fact that it appears al- ways when there has been a broken sig nal glass and 1t denotes the further im- portant fact that no signal is being shown.
 In the old signal lexicon, there were three colors for the road which used the 'permissive" block signal system-that Is the system that permitted an engineer to enter a 'block' of from half a mile to seven miles in length with caution and with his train under control and running at no higher rate of speed than thirty miles and hour, thus being pre- pared to find the "block' ahead occupied and to stop immediately.
 The three lights formerly in universal use were, red for danger green for eau tion and white for safety. Now the most approved signal code calls for red for danger; yellow, or preferably orange, for caution, and green for safety. W. D. Chamberlain, formerly a general man ager for the New York, New Haven and Hartford road, was the originator of this code and it is said to have been suggested y an interesting fact. At certain point on that road a house was located at such an agle to the railroad track that the light from window used to strike the engineers line of vision at the same tr1aa hat ha antn fn dfctft itch the light of the block signal he was ap- preaching. Several times the white light from the house was mistaken for the clear" signal and disaster narrowly was averted. This possibility soon became known to all engineers and all accord ingly slowed their trains on approach ing this 'block" until they became cer- tain of their ground. The house after ward was bought by the railroad com pany and torn down.
 White Lights Peril Seen.
 The engineers trouble caused MT. Chamberlain to ask why, if a white light thus easily could become source of danger, the safety signal of the railroad also could not become such. Then it oc- cured to him that whenever glass in a danger or caution signal lamp should be broken a red or green light would at once be transformed into white de-
 
 Haven discarded the white light in 1901, and this set all the railroad magnates in the country to thinking over the acci- dents that had been caused by the breaking of signal lamps.
 The use of green for safety Is not alto gether devoid of liability to failure In stances have been recorded where an accident occurred through engineers running by a danger signal and then swearing that he had seen a green light. In one case which happened on the Rock Island and was investigated thoroughly by the management, the engineer was proved to have been right. On the night in question there was a heavy fog and the lamp was shown to have smoked.
 Red Turns to Green.
 A noted scientist was called into the case, as President B. l.. Winchell was anxious to learn whether the engineer was right. The scientist demonstrated that the engineer really had seen a green light, despite the fact that the red signal had been exposed by the tower man. It was explained that It takes a comb ination of red, white and black to produce green. The red was furnished by the danger signal, the