Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-09-07
Representative Farr Would
Give |. c. c. Power to
Revise Schedules.
new HAVEN DISASTER
CITED AS AN EXAMPLE
Declares Signals Would Not Have
Averted Crash, Even Had There
Been No Fog.

AS long as railroad trains fly along
recklessly at top speed within few
minutes OF one another, there will al
ways be accidents. no matter how many
safety appliances and patent signals are
used on railroads. according to Represent
alive Farr of Pennsylvania. who spoke
his mind on the subject yesterday while
the House was debating the successful
Mann amendment to the deficiency bill to
give the Interstate commerce commits
sion $1,000 to investigate safety devices.
M. Farr believes that the one real way
to prevent train wrecks is to give the
interstate commerce commission power to
control the running of trains. and he
asked the House to consider that point.
His speech was listened to with attention.
Real Cause Of Accident.
We are losing sight of the real,
cause of the accident the other day.
said Mr.. Farr. You may install ali
the safety appliances you. can and vel
you will not eliminate accidents re-
sulting from the high speed at which
these trains were going. The engineer
said they were going SO fast that al
though he saw the signal he could not
stop his train in time to prevent the
accident.
That train could not have been
stopped even with the emergency
! brakes on, within fifteen hundred feet
Even il he had seen the. signal at Il
prevent that accident except by les
SEEMING the speed Of his train and he
was going at that speed under orders.
The dispatcher gave no Instructions
about slowing down these trains ruE-
ming so closely together in foggy
weather and said he had no instruc-
lions from the head Office as to their
regulation and he acted on his own
| Judgment
"The way to stop accidents on a road
like that is to give the interstate com
merce commission the power TO reguiate
train operations. particularly WneIe
| wooden cars are used. Steel cars on tne
New Haven train would have saved some
lives, undoubtedly. but would not have
eliminated the possibility of fatalities
Safety Devices Numerous.
| Mr. Farr said that the commission
needs additional power to regulate the
train movement of roads whose equip
ment is bad and whose roadbeds are
bad He quoted from report OF the
| block signal and train control board,
saying that nowhere in the world have
appliances for safeguarding railway
| transportation been so highly developed
the interstate commerce commission re-
port declaring that excessive speed
necessary to maintain train schedules
has been an important factor in many
train accidents. and that conditions of
safe operation are often ignored in an
effort to bring fast trains In on time.
| Concluding, Mr.. Farr said: IF you
| want to stop these accidents, give the inter-
/. state commerce commission some power
relative to the operation OF trains. Rail-
| road men with whom ! come in contact
are in state of nervous apprehension.
!, The railroads are anxious to compete
with other roads. with the result that
freight trains today are being run as
! fast as passenger trains were fifteen
| or twenty years ago.