The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-05-26
Railway Postal Clerks Want
Protection of Steel Cars.
At Any Rate They Object to Be-
ing Crushed by Them.
HAVE BEEN TESTED.
Rock Island Proves That ALL
Steel Cars Are Safe.
Other Items of General Interest
in Railroad World.

There is a whole lot of sympathy and
encouragement extended to the recent
actions taken by the Railway Postal
Clerks Association of the United States
in their meeting in Kansas City. Their
efforts to influence the railroad to give
them better protection while on duty.
in the way of steel cars, good cinder
guards and Increased switching facili-
ties, are being read by every newspaper
reader-and approved.
There are very few people but who
have stopped many times as train
pulled into a station and wondered
Just how long the mail clerk who was
standing in the half open door of the
mail car would be there in that car.
With the system used by the average
american railroad of pulling a mas
sive Pullman, and steel passenger car
train with a monster locomotive and
placing between them an old timer
wooden flimsy mail car, there is no sur
prise at the figures given out by the
postal clerks neutrality-suspicious. were
1000 accidents meaning death and in
jury to mail clerks last year.
The new steel cars are either the sal
walton or the death and injury of the
railroad mail clerks. If the railroad
companies continue in their practice of
placing steel smokers and chair cars
directly behind the wooden mail cars
the danger to the occupants of the
wooden car is doubled. In practically
every collision it is a noticeable feature
that only the weaker cars broke like
egg shell and caused death. The
stronger cars come out unScratched. AT
a wreck near Topeka not long ago q
car in the middle Of the train broke up
and collapsed when the other cars were
untouched.
Rock Island Steel Cars.
On the other hand If the railroads in
crease their steel car service and make
their mail this material the
mail clerks will have found at last a
safe place to work During the last
few months the Rock Island has placed
on many of their through trains these
steel mail cars. Not only do they pro-
tect the lives of the clerks but they
deaden the shock to the rest of the
train in case of an accident.
In their discussions at Kansas City
the mail clerks have been misled on
one point. They are claiming that the
steel cars are good things even though
they haven't been tested" This is a
bad mistake. The steel cars have been
tested and have proved a valuable
piece of equipment by the Rock Island.
At q wreck near st. Louis not long ago
a. steel chair car ran off the track and
down fifty foot embanI<ment-aud
only the window lights were broken.
No one was badly hurt. There have
been many other accidents during the
last few months where the steel cars
were cutting deep holes into the death
list of the railroads of the United
States.
And then the postal clerks have other
grievances.
When an engine bumps into your
train standing in a railway station it
makes an unpleasant jar, doesn't it ?
But there is one class of passengers
who feel 1t more than you do. In the
last year SO mail clerks have been in
jured in this manner, according to the
report of T. j. Masten, chairman of the
claims committee of the Railway
Postal Clerks Association of the United
States. The mail clerks are usually
standing at work in their car when tho
engine bumps and are liable to be
thrown to the floor. But that is one of
the minor discomforts of being a mail
clerk on wheels. There are 16, 1877 postal
clerks in the United States. Of this
number 1886 belong to the association.
Cinders in Their Eyes, Too.
Claims were paid on 1000 accidents in
the last IL months. Twenty-Five of