The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1912-03-25
DEATHS AND MAIMINGS
IN WRECKS DUE LARGELY
TO DEFECTIVE RAILS
Steel Trust Is Blamed Because
Product Is Not ef Stand
ard Quality
INVESTIGATION w WANTED
Commerce Commissioner Would
Have Committee Appointed
For This Purpose
INVESTIGATION WANTED
By Gibson GARDINER

| WASHINGTON, March 25.-Who Is
responsible for the great increase in
railroad accidents due to defective
rains?
Louis d. Brandeis says 1t is the
| Steel Trust. He says monopoly has
bred inefficiency. The absence of
competition as spur has resulted In
careless work and deaths and MAIN
ings are the penalties.
The Steel Trust and the railroads
are owned alike by Morgan, SO the
responsibility goes back TO Morgan.
That much seems TO be settled.
James j. HILL who Is something OF
railroad man, tesdfies that rails
bought by him from the Krupp com.
pany in Germany are In better shape
after % years wear than Morgan Steel
Trust rails after FIVE years OF wear.
The Krupp rails do not break. Ours
do.
Why?
Interstate Commerce Commissioners
Franklin X. Lane favors the appoint
ment of a commission OF three with
power to answer this question. He
would have the commission required
by law to report by Jan. 1, 1913.
That" says Mr.. Lane, would give
congress the basis for legislation at
the beginning OF the next session.
Congress could then make 1t com
pulsory for rails to be made after a
certain prescription"
Testifying before the Stanley com
mittee, James A. Farrell, president
OF the United States Steel corpora
ton, admitted that the railroads have
been prescribing quality OF rail
which has been known for some time
to be brittle, and therefore dangerous
They have been doing so with the
idea that this quality of rail would
wear longer. The roads have insisted
on greater amount OF carbon
though they knew the result was
away from safety.
Commissioners Lane believes that
the government should take from the
railroads the right to save few dol
lars at the expense OF the lives Of
passengers.
Mr. James E. Howard. engineer
physlcist, who made an investigation
for the government into the wreck or
the Lehigh Valley road near Manches
ter, n. Y, Aug. 20, 1911, concluded
his report as follows:
The limit of endurance of iron
= Tails was EtdCHtu lOHS dbO.
Train loads and wheel pressures
soon became too great for iron
rails to stand up under and they
were replaced by steel rails.
There Is undoubtedly limit to
the endurance OF steel rails as
we'll as in the case of iron. II is
important to ascertain whether
the great lesson OF the Manches
: ter disaster does not lie In the
direction of signifying that the
danger zone OF steel rails has
been reached and possibly enter
cd into by current railroad prac-
tees.
While the Manchester rail was
defective in the web the feature
which seems most grave Is the
general SCATTERING Of the in
tegrity OF the rail, apparently
coming from the combination OF
a hard steel and high wheel pres
Complete data are demanded by
this inquiry into the causes
which contribute toward this
destruction OF the structural in
tegrity OF the steel-data on
track conditions. such as the ac-
tual fiber stresses which are
realized under the weights OF
different types of locomo-
times and under the diff
ferent wheel of those different
engines in track in ordinary con.