The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-09-01
Europe Far Behind America in
Safety Methods.
Automatic COuplers Are Con-
sidered Too Expensive.
CARS ARE OWNED PRIVATELY
France and England Dodge
This Improvement.
Other Items of Interest in the
Traffic World.

Twenty years after automatic coup
1ings were required by law on railroad
equipment in the United States the
governments of England and France
have come to the conclusion that
their adoption on railroads of those
countries is a financial impossibility,
says the bureau of railway news and
statistics. Thus European railroads,
often held up as example for United
States carriers to follow, are trailing
many years behind American in the
adoption of a railway safety appliance
long considered Indispensable on this
side of the Atlantic.
Since 1900 railroads of the United
States may be considered to have been
equipped with the automatic coupler,
for in that year the interstate com
merce comm iSSion discontinued de-
tailed statistics regarding their appH-
cation to locomotives and cars, say
ing that the law requiring their adop-
ton had been compiled with in
fairly satisfactory manner The law
was passed more than twenty years
ago, March 2, 1893.
In response to agitation for auto
matte couplers, removing the necessity
of sending men between cars for coup
ling, the British board of trade ap
pointed a committee Ito examine, and
where necessary, 10 test appliances
designed to diminish danger to men
employed in railway service"
According to the Bureau of Rail-
way News and Statistics, the report
of this committee, recently submitted,
expressed the opinion that the issues
involved and the difficulties connected
with the proposal to render the intro
duction of automatic couplers COM
pulsory in England are almost insup-
cradle. The business of the railways
in that country, it is pointed out, is
carried on very largely by means of
automatic couplers could be attached
to these cars (the majority of which
are of only ten tons capacity, the
expense of application would be so
unable to meet it. Privately owned
cars in England number about 900
out of total of about 1. 100000.
In a similar investigation, the
French government has been holding
a mpetition for inventors of auto
matte coupling, and appointed COM
mittee to find, if possible, some sys
tenn which could be proposed for adop-
ton by French railways and to make
a thorough investigation of the ques-
ton of automatic couplings. Similar
competitions. it is striking to note,
were held in America some thirty years
ago.
Like the English board of trade,
this French committee has come to
the conclusion that the financial diff
ficulties are too great. This commit
tee in its findings gives the reason why
a safety device, now indispensable in
America, never has been adopted IN
Europe.
European cars, instead of center
buffers or bumpers, such as are used
on American cars, employ side buffers,
one approximately over each rail. The
committee found that there is no auto
matte coupling compatible with the use
of these side buffers, which has given
sufficiently good results to make its
use possible.
1.-THE American SYSTEM it says,
~. tNIxr
is not compatible with the retention
of side buffers and makes it necessary
to strengthen the underframe of the
cars. Consequently, before coming to
any decision about its use, it is indis-
pensable that the railway admin
istrations should be asked to examine
the question from the technical and
financial points of view