The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-30
THE FAIRFIELD WRECK

Coroner Wilson's finding relative to the Fairfield wreck, in which four freight trains were piled up and five persons killed, cannot be called a satisfying document The story of the tragedy, as described by the coroner, can be briefly sketched. At 11:16 on the night of June 6 an east bound train passed the Fairfield tow CT. At 11:31 another train, going east on the same track, passed the Fairfield tower and one minute later collided with the first train, Extra SSS, at a point three-ffths of mile beyond. Elliott F. Beach was en- eineer of the train that passed at 11:31.
 The coroner finds that Beach ran by a cautionary signal showing vel low light; by a stop signal, which should have shown a red light, but did not: by a red and a white light, waved from the windows of the Far field tower by the operators; by two torpedoes. placed by brakeman, sent hack from Extra 33S. and by fusee, dropped by the same brakeman as Extra S3S started again, after having made stop. The torpedoes are found to have been set 1,400 feet be- hind Extra 33S at the point where the train stopped. >
 -CereneT--IVilsen said Beach ran by all the afore mention ed signals without needing them in the slightest degree and crashed into the rear of Extra 33S while still pulling"
 The cofoner then finds Beach crim- inally negligent in causing the wreck and the deaths that followed.
 Plainly, here is a remarkable situa- ton. Here was "a normal, healthy engineer who had been in the em- ploy of his company for many years" and who had not been overworked." running by five signals, each demand ing caution or declaring danger, with out paying the slightest heed to any of them.
 As the matter is presented by the coroner, but one conclusion with re- spect to Beach would present itself; that he must have been asleep, or way rendered incapable of perform ing his duty. But this conclusion cannot be so readily accepted be- cause there were two other men in the cab with Beach; Gates, the fire man, and Harris, the head brake man, both of whom were killed.
 Were all of these men asleep, or dead. or otherwise in such condition that they were giving no heed to matters which spell life and death :n railroading?
 The evidence furnishes no clue, so far as the coroner has permitted it to become public.
 But is 1t necessary to conclude that these three men, the engineer, the head brakeman and the fireman, were as needless as the coroner seems to believe?
 May not, the proximate cause of the catastrophe be found in the fact that the red light, the danger signal, was unlighted.
 Again the coroner passes lightly over a most important circumstance. He asserts that it was the duty of tho Soctiop forap,op to bavo tho dan ger signal lighted, and in the evil dence it appears that one towerman said to the other that the light was out, and that the other replied, "I know it'' But the coroner does not find negligence in this, nor the name of the persons guilty of the negli- gence. yet negligence of the grossest it was.
 True the yellow cautionary light is said to have been burning; but there is nothing to show the condition nf the weather, as to fog or mist at the moment. But it is the red light that gives the warning. Is it not probably true that if the red light had been burning and in it's place Beach would have seen it and stopped his train?
 Failing, apparently to perceive that this unlighted danger signal is the vital spot, and. that it represents an emission that beyond almost any other should be selected for censure, the coroner falls back upon a rule which provides tfnat engineers must know" where signals are and stop eff the, light is out"
 But how sffadowy is such a protec- tion especially compared with the signal set at danger and the lamp burning red.
 The amount of protection in the other signals, the lanterns waved from the tower window, the tor pedoes set upon the. track, and the fusee, burning red four minutes and white seven minutes, may have been as shadowy, for aught the facts ad- ducsd ny the coroner with certainty show, as the engineers duty to re- cognize the location of an uniighted CUT OUT THIS ADVERTI
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