Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1913-12-05
IMPOSSIBLE TO AVOID
ACCIDENTS ON RAILROADS WILL
ALWAYS BE.
When One Considers What the Oper-
alton of the Vast Network of
Lines Means That Fact Win
Be Understood.


Ten thousand, one hundred and
eighty-five persons were killed in &C
cidents involving train operations up
on steam railroads in the United
States in the year ending June 80,
1912. Seventy-se1en thousand one
hundred and seVenty-five were in
jured.
Place railroad map of the United
States before you; trace the black
lines that represent the 200 and odd
million miles of railroads, as they
move from state to state. across
mighty rivers, over mountain ranges,
skirting the shores Of great lakes,
criss-crossing, weaving together link
ing in one vast chain the cities from
coast to coast. Imagine this great net
work Of tracks peopled by an army of
100000 employees, engaged in the OPP
GRAFTON of trains; imagine the equip
ment that the s16,000,00O0 invest
ment represents; picture the 100000
of passengers and the 1,500,000,0OO
tons of freight carried annually by
the railroads. If you are able to grasp
the picture of what these figures
mean, you may realize the proper
tions that the railroad business has
assumed.
Never in their widest fancy could
the early projectors have surmised
the railroad business of today. Great
feats Of engineering have accomplish
ed the seemingly impossible, and
through arid deserts, across towering
steel rails have been laid, now cling
ing to the rock-hewn side of a noun
tain, now tunneling through its base,
spanning bridges Of steel. or deep
down, through tubes. going beneath
the water.
1t was in the early SOS that the
great activity in railroad building be-
gan. Ground for the Central Pacific
had been broken In 1863 and the
Union Pacific was pushing on from
Omaha, to form, when their tracks
should meet, the great gateway to the
Pacific coast.
1t was these achievements which
gave the impetus to the building Of
new lines. With the increasing track
age, equipment and business came the
necessity for some sort of training or
discipline to increase efficiency and
take the place of the loose methods
then IN force.
The telegraph which had come into
use upon the Erie in 1851 for the dis
patching Of trains, brought with it
many new rules and conditions. Pro
motions in all grades were greatly the
matter of favoritism. An engineer of
1870 confessed that he knew no more
than child how the steam got in or
out of the cylinder; it seemed to push
mighty hard; that's all he knew about
it."
1t was these conditions that the
early managers had to face and it has
been only in the last Is or 20 years
that the training of the railroad man
has reached anywhere near perfec-
ton.
To Judge what the result of this
training has been, we are obliged to
resort to the figures compiled of acct
| dents resulting from collisions and de-
railments during the year ending June
80, 1912. The interstate commerce
commission report gives these as 49,,
SOS; of this number 3,847 accidents
were due to defect of equipment and
1877 due to defect of roadway, leaving
1874 accidents unclassified. 1t is to be
presumed that these were due to err
ror of employees, and from them a
more correct idea of the railroad
mans efficiency can be obtained than
from regarding the number of casual
ties, which represent the results Of
error or defect, only. In fact, the to-
tails of the list are in a great measure
pure luck, mitigated somewhat by the
introduction of modern equipment
Pennsylvania Grit.