The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1922-07-08
THE WINSLOW WRECK.

ing the wreck of the midnight Read
ing flyer from Camden to Atlantic
City last Sunday night. The purpose
of the investigation is TO fix respon-
sibility for the accident that shifted
out the lives of some eight people and
crippled and manned several score
more, some of whom will die. The
general tendency to place responsible
ity on the dead was at first followed
in this incident. The engineer who
lost his life as his train left its proper
tracks and swung into the Cape May
Division switch, and death, apparently
The towerman, believing the express
had safely passed, had flashed a clear
signal for a freight to cross to the
Cape May Division tracks, but what
he had thought was the express
proved to be a string of empty
coaches sent through to Atlantic City
for the return trip of the thousands
of excursionists then at the seashore.
The towerman has contended that he
had no notification of the extra train
of coaches, which had gone through
at about the time the express was
due; the flyer was, according to re-
ports, about five minutes late. Wheth-
er or not these are the facts, there
are circumstances surrounding this
particular accident which should be
given the utmost consideration in any
investigation. The engineer of the
flyer (while it is admitted that it was
i~nexeusable for him to pass signals
set against him), it must be remem-
bered, was driving his train at a
terrific speed through a binding cleo
trical storm over a track that is prac-
express-the last train down for the
night. The towerman, too, may have
been somewhat negligent in not know
ing that the train which had safely
passed at the time the flyer was due
was an extra train of empties, but he
reasonably and naturally believed this
train to be the Inflated n that a
minute later plunged into the open
switch and down a forty-foot embank-
ment to its doom. Whether or not he
was notified of the sending Il from
Camden of the string of empties mat
ters little so far as the moral respon-
sibility, at least, for this accident is
concerned. As before stated, all this
was out of the usual routine of the
towerman's daily duties. 1t was I'M
usual for the main track to be block
ed against the dead engineer. 1t was
therefore out of the ordinary to send
out a special train at about the same
time as this express was due to leave.
The dispatcher of that train of emp
ties could have just as easily, and the
natural supposition is that he should
have. waited until the midnight flyer
had passed safely on her journey to
the s%eashore, before dispatching any
extra trains over her right-of-way. 1t
is hard to conceive why it should
have been urgent to send over those
tracks so close to the time the last
south-bound train to Atlantic City was
due a string of empty coaches that
could not possibly have been used un-
til the neX morning at the earliest.
The empties should have followed
rather than preceded the flyer. The
engineer of a special is naturally
more on the alert for his signals than
one driving a regular train that ans
800 days in the year over a clear
track. Had the extra been dispatched
after the regular flyer, in all human
possibility, the accident would have
been averted. and, in our Judgment, it
was this lack of foresight that is re-
sponsible for the Winslow wreck.