The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-07
EXPERT DISCUSSES
 RAILROAD WRECKS
2. 2 " ". Summers Has Some Personal Experience
GOES INTO THE CAUSES
Railroad Men Have Long Been Try ing to Decide Why Train Leaves Track on Apparently
 Perfect Stretch
By C. E. STEWART

Washington. November 6-(Specia1)- E. w. Summers. president of the Sum- mers Steel Car company of Pittsburg, thinks he has found a probable solution O. the cause of many railroad wrecks. In a communication to the Railway Age Gazette MT. Summers endeavors to an- swer questions which are asked almost daily by anxious railway officials.
 In many of the train wrecks of the past speeding passenger trains have been wrecked while running on a straight and apparently perfect piece of track with an excellent and firm roadbed. In some of these wrecks the locomotive has remained upon the rails while the tender hass jumped the track and derailed the cars following.
 For years the mechanical departments os the railways have been perplexed to explain these wrecks, which have been all too frequent. In spite of their efforts to eliminate the cause of these derallments study of reports of accidents indicates that the tender is often the first part of the train to leave the track, indicating that the seat of trouble has not been found. MT. Summers theory is that the eonbipation of Q high spot in the track and the compression of the truck springs on the same side of the tender, due to a lurching or swaying movement. will pro- duce hammer blow of such large pro- portions that something must pc distorted or broken.
 Personal Experience
 Mir. Summers own experience in re- cent accident enabled him to make a first hand study of a typical wreck, re- sulting from the derailment of a fast train after the tender had left the track. He had just awakened on a Pullman sleeper when the train was brought to full stop within it's own length, although it had been travelng at 55 miles an hour. The sudden application of the emergency brakes threw the sleeping passengers against the head boards in their berths, but without injuring any one. By the time MT Summers got out of his car he met the engineer of the wrecked train hurrying back to his engine from the place where he had landed when he leaped from his cab. The engineer said that the first warning of trouble came when he felt the tender pumping along over the ties. He applied the brakes. shut off the steam ana Julnpeu Into tile BIdSS. by the uIle he had regained his footing the train was at rest.
 An Investigation showed that the engine was erect and uninjured but that the tender had crossties and earth filled in up to the under frame, with its trucks torn to pieces. It was evident that the track had not been torn up until the en- zine had passed over it.
 .'it is easy enough to know the cause of T wreck when there is collision or a switch is left open, but on a straight track with rails apparently in normal con- dition, the problem is different" says Mr. Summers Mote the phrase, appar- ently in normal. condition After the wreck with the rail and crossties all torn up and the ballast swept away, investiga- tion proves little or nothing. Everything Is so twisted that we cannot tell what happened first. Whether the report is rails spread, or defective rail- or cause unknown fl is all the same--we learn nothing from it. With the track abso- lutely safe and solid, it will not happen, h''' you cannot keep a track in such con dition.
 Allow for Resistance