The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1923-07-26
Crossing Railroad by
Autoists Is Dangerous
Juries and Judges Beginning to See
That Responsibility Rests on
Travellers

An automobile load of motorists
try to get across the crossing ahead
of a train that is coming. The train
and the automobile arrive at the eros
sing at the same time. AS soon as
the funerals of the motorists have
been held the chances are that the
railroad company will be sued for
thousands of dollars for having that
train reach that crossing at the same
time that the occupants of the car
reached it.
According to most accidents at
grade crossings it is thought by the
relatives of the killed and injured,
that an engineer, when he approaches
crossing, should stop his train, look
for oncoming automobiles, ring his
bell three or four minutes, and then
proceed to cross.
But juries and judges are begin
ming to see that the moral response
bility for most accidents rests square
ly upon the highway travellers who,
warned by road signs, danger signals,
whistles from the engineer, etc., are
either in too much of hurry, have
too much hooch under their belts, or
are too careless to exercise just good
common sence when about to drive
across railroad tracks.
But forgetting about who is to
blame, and who must pay, it usually
is the passengers of the car the driver
is driving that get killed or wounded
instead of the passengers that the
engineer is hauling. All the money
in the world will not bring back a
human life that is lost. The driver of
the car should remember this. He
should think of the responsibility that
is upon his shoulders. In fact in
most grade crossing accidents it is
the driver of the car that should be
sued, instead of the railroad company
who employees the engineer.
The first through passenger SER
vice from Chicago to North Coast
cities was in 1891. Northern Pacific
trains were proud to handle this pio-
neer travel in from IS to 80 hours.
When a schedule of ~ hours was
finally reached it was felt that the
demands of modern time were fully
met. But this fast operation now
will become even faster, made pos
sible by advancing transportation
facilities equipment and road bed
and the operating leadership to take
advantage of these factors.
And faster transcontinental sche-
dule will be safe! The Northern
Pacific Railway, for example, is COM
pleting this year the protection of all
of it's main line between St. Paul and
Minneapolis and Seattle through the
installation of electric automatic
block signals. Two short stretches of
track only are excepted in this instl-
lation, the short mileage between
Little Falls, Minnesota and Staples,
Minnesota and another stretch be-
tween Tacoma, Washington and Ten
ion, Washington. Altogether the
Northern Pacific has more than 1900
miles of right-of-way safeguarded by
automatic block signals. The cost
has been more than five million dol
lars. The steel trains have made
travel much safer than heretofore
and it is interesting to note that in
the last seven years the Northern
Pacific has carried sixty million
people safely without single fatal
accident among its passengers.
The new schedule of the North
Coast Limited between eastern and
western terminals beginning July 20,
provides for a departure from Chi
cago, westbound, at 1885 A. NJ, and
from St. Paul at 1855 p. M, and
from Minneapolis at 1925 P. M, On
the eastbound schedule the North
Coast Limited will leave Portland,
Tacoma and Seattle at the same hour
$50 A. NJ, and Spokane at 1880
P. NJ, The schedule in both direc-
tons will be 10 hours Of running
time.