The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-11-16
RAILROAD MEN
 HOLD PRESENT
 SPEEDS SAFE
BY ROBERT SERLING United Press Staff CorreSnondenI

Cleveland (UP)-America's war japmed railroads ,son't be made safer by decreasing train spec is railroad officials declared today in answer to demands that the roads slow down all passenger trains.
 A United Press surrey disclosed that railroad men are unanimous in declaring that present speeds are entirely safe, pointing out thst when engineers try to make up lost time they still cannot travel above certain speed limits established in the interests of safety.
 Tracks are speed-zoned accord ing to the condition of the roadbed, '' one official explained. "In some zones it's just as safe to travel 75 miles per hour as 30-and, natu- rally, we don't have 75 m. p. h. zones at intersections, importa: switch ings or in yards"
 The survey was prompted by widespread newspaper editorial de- mands which followed the Dela- ware and LackaWanna Limited wreck and the derailing of the Pennsylvania crack Congressional Limited this summer. Many news papers suggested that lailroadT slow down the trains and lengthen schedules for the duration.
 Almost every road has length eled Its schedules" New York Central executive pointed out, but safety wasn't the factor. It's just impossible to maintain schedules under wartime conc itions and it's common sense to revise them so you have a chance of r,eeting them. An Erie official asserted that speed has seldom been major fac tor nj railroad accidents.
 That hot box which wrecked the Congressional Limited could happen on train going 40 miles al hour as well as 70 and with just as disastrous effects on passengers he said.
 "The thing that usually causes accident in any form of transpor- tation isn't mechanical failure but human" he declared, "and until we have infallible robots operating our trains we can't be foolproof."
 Majority of the officials inter- viewed agreed that inability to re- place worn -out equipment and the lack of maintenance men due to the draft were the chief factors in- volved in a potential threat to safety records, but they insisted this threat was only potential and not alarming at the present time.
 "Our engines and cars aren't in such bad shape that we sit around crossing our fingers every time a train pulls out of station," one of them laughed. And while we're having the same troubles with man. power as any war industry, the sit- uation isn't too serious"
 Officials also pointed out another cause of accidents violation of safety rules by railroad operating personnel.
 "Take that Lack wanna wreck, for example," one spokesman said. There's rule which requires a track to be cleared at least 10 min utes ahead of c mainline paSsen- ger train. On this one occasion an engineer was just 8 little slow in getting his train on the sidng and the Limited came along"
 we've lso got to admit there are some engineers who violate speed limits just as there are dri- vers who violate speed laws,' he continued, "even though this does not happen often enough to worry about"
 It was the frank opin:'n of the railroaders that with all lines car rying out the biggest transportation job in the history of the country, some black marks on the proud peacetime safety records must be expected.
 As one official put 1t: Were do- ing a bigger job than we ever did in peace me and we're doing our utmost to get 1t done safely, but with ten times as many chances for accidents under wartime condi- tions, we've got to expect some trouble"