Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-09-21
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FEW WOODEN CARS
ARE DOING SERVICE
Trainmen Are Taking Pictures of
Old-time Freight Equip
ment as Relics

Trainmen in the local wards are
| having photographs taken of wooden
cars when any turn up. For the past
month wooden cars have been a
scarce article in the Pennsylvania
Railroad yards in this city and at
Enola. By wooden cars the trainmen,
of course, mean the old-timers, as
cars with steel underframes and steel
bumpers are still in service.
Lately there has also been a notable
decrease in the number of wooden
passenger cars. Railway statistics
show that only little over per cent.
of the passenger cars built during the
year 1913 were of wooden construc-
ton. All railroads must be equipped
with steel postal cars by 1915 and in
few years the wooden coach will be
seen on few, If any, roads On jan
uary l. 1909, there were only 629 steel
passenger cars in service. On Jan
uary l. 1918, the number had in
creased to 7,271. On the same date
1926 steel underframe cars were in
service as compared with 673 an Jan
uary l, 1909.
The substitution of steel for wood
in the construction of passenger
coaches is very costly to railroads.
Steel cars cost something like $13, 900
a car. They last longer, however, and
are less susceptible to injury. They
also inspire confidence in the travel
ing public.
Shippers to Protest. - The Inter-
State Commerce Commission has been
advised that shippers all over the
even greater resistance to attempts
by the railroads to get increases in
rates than was made when the five
per cent. case was originally on hear
ing.
The Middle Western States. under
the leadership of Clifford Thorne, of
the Iowa Railroad Commission, Is be-
the commissioners of Middle Western
States join in resisting the move
ment as they did the first one.
The protest of the shippers will lie
based on the assertion that the con-
dition of their business is no better
than that of the railroads, and that
until the latter have tried the rene
dies suggested by the commission in
its decision of July 2S, they should
not be heard to ask for relief on ac-
count of the condition brought about
by the European war which, they will
claim, a1eCtS them as much as it
does the carriers.
Steel Cars Save Passengers. A
dispatch from Philadelphia says: The
value of steel in the construction of
the modern railway coach was demon
strated in the wreck on the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, west of Woodlyn,
Pa, near Chester, on Saturday night.
when no one was killed, despite the
fact that six cars Of an express, speed
ing at more than ty miles an hour.
were derailed The only passenger
seriously injured was Mrs. Julia Wi
men, of Roanoke. Va, who is in the
Grocer Hospital, in Chester. A thrill
ing escape from death was that OF
six passengers in sleeper that
plunged into a deep ravine. All got
out through the windows. unhurt.
Officials of the railroad said last night
in Baltimore that the chief element of
safety to passengers was in the solid
steel equipment while the fact that
the train was reducing speed added
to the general Favorable conditions" "
The train had been inspected i'm
Jersey City and again in Philadelphia.
but the defect which caused the jour
inal to break, the roads officers said.
could not he discernble.