Year: 1872

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The Long Island Railroad "AccideaAt."
1t would seem that our American railroads
intend having every step in the way of guard
ing against the slaughter of the travelling
public written only in letters of blood
Our railroad companies, with very few excep-
tions, are achieving the reputation of being
the worst managed and most reckless
of any in the world. Accidents, as they are
termed, occur in other countries on railroad
lines, and lives are sacrificed to the stoker-
demon abroad as well as at home But our
fatal superiority is undoubted. not only in
wholesale collisions where scores are killed, but
scarce day passes that some smash-up is not
reported, wherein if human lives be not taken
those OF cattle are and other property in large
amounts is destroyed The blame is shifted
from one official to another and, after it has
gone the round, the public is informed that
nobody is in fault. It is high time
that the loosely-drawn, little-respected
rules which govern traffic on our
lines should be exchanged for something more
Ineligible, and the tremendous responsibility
entrusted to more intelligent heads and careful
hands. The collision near Hibbard's Head,
on the South Side Railroad, exposes
number of the faults of our slipshod
system. To begin with, it is an instance
of the ever-present danger which hangs
over the line which is in whole or part COM
posed Of 'tsingle track" The conductor, en-
gineer and passengers can never be certain that
train coming along at twenty or thirty miles
an hour is not approaching them. Certain reg
ulations are made which have no absoluteness,
to men who have ceased to reflect upon per-
sonal danger. In this instance the incoming
train, after waiting the allotted period, moved
off the double track on to the single track
The outgoing train, knowing that it was be-
hindhand, believed it could catch up the lost
seconds and SO save necessary delay. The
result was that the latter train ran into the
first which had come to standstill, and two
lives have been already sacrificed thereby


Now, we find on examining the running reg
ulations that trains in certain direction are
obliged to wait certain time for other trains
that, if the other train does not then arrive, it
may go ahead, and the curious clause is intro
duced that it then becomes the duty of the
other train to "get out of the way"
How this cannot occasionally be done on a
single track the late accident painfully shows.
Conductor Lynch had waited his full time,
and Conductor Rathburn thought he would
''get out Of the way" by running past
Conductor Lynch. The folly and alb
surdity of such thing, being
matter of everyday occurrence, is some
thing startling. Conductors may not all be SO
reckless as Rathburn, but the fact that lives
depend absolutely and habitually on the
capricious judgment of such man is some
thing to startle the reader Here are two
great stupidities of our want of system
made apparent-the large use of
single track and the dependence for o
safety from casualty on such things as
conductors and their variable watches The
single track SHOULD not be allowed to exist
while leais..aation can compel the construction
of double one In any case the rule for the
passage of trains should be abso!pts--that is,
in no '-e case should one train leave the side
switch until the train due has actually arrived.
The present catastrophe points the danger of
the haphazard slime allowance"


There are railroad accidents, of course
purely such, which, it might be said, are i'm
possible to foresee; but the majority of cases
prove criminal negligence or want of common
foresight as the cause. Bridges are left open
and the unwarned train plunges to destruction
into a river; freight train is left
standing on the line and an express train
runs into it. But there are other de-
fects in the system which demand q remedy
The passage of express trains at full speed
through the centre of towns and villages is q
constant source of danger and death. There
is no fencing, no gate, no watchman, to warn
the citizens of the approaching monster The
bell, to be sure, is rung, and the whistle
sounded, but at twenty-five miles an
hour the warning comes but little ahead
of the danger. Our companies need more
carefulness and skill in their running
of trains, which might be made an exact
science, but is at present headless conglome-
rate Of old stupidities, rash calculations and
general makeshift. The excuse of Conductor
Rathburn for his fatal rashness will point this
charge: A new set of rules for the Fourth of
July had been issued, and he had no time to
read them


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