Notes on Railroad Accidents

Originally the locking bar was worked through the direct action of certain locks, as they were called, between which the levers when moved played to and fro. These locks were mere bars or plates of iron, some with inclined sides, and others with sides indented or notched. At one end they were secured on a pivot to a fixed bar opposite to and parallel with the movable locking bar, while their other ends were made fast to the locking bar; whence it necessarily followed that, as certain of the levers were pushed to and fro between them, the action of these levers on the inclined sides of the locks could by a skilful combination be made to throw other levers into the notches and indentations of other locks, thus securing them in certain positions, and making it impossible for them to be in any other positions.

The apparatus which has been described, though a great improvement on anything which had preceded it, was still but a clumsy affair, and naturally the friction of the levers on the locks was so great that they soon became worn, and when worn they could not be relied upon to move the switch-points with the necessary accuracy. The new appliance of safety had, therefore, as is often the case, introduced a new and very considerable danger of its own. The signals and switches, it was true, could no longer disagree, but the points themselves were sometimes not properly set, or, owing to the great exertion required to work it, the interlocking gear was strained. This difficulty resulted in the next and last improvement, which was a genuine triumph of mechanical ingenuity. To insure the proper length of stroke being made in moving the lever – that is to make it certain in each case that the switch points were brought into exactly the proper position – two notches were provided in the slot, or quadrant, as it is called, in which the lever moved, and, when it was thrown squarely home, and not until then, a spring catch caught in one or other of these notches. This spring was worked by a clasp at the handle of the lever, and the whole was called the spring catch-rod. By a singularly ingenious contrivance, the process of interlocking was transferred from the action of the levers and the keys to these spring catch-rods, which were made to work upon each other, and thus to become the medium through which the whole process is effected. The result of this improvement was that, as the switchman cannot move any lever until the spring-catch rod is fastened, except for a particular movement, he cannot, do what he will, even begin any other movement than that one, as the levers cannot be started. On the other hand, it may be said that, by means of this improvement, the mere "intention of the signal-man to move any lever, expressed by his grasping the lever and so raising the spring catch-rod, independently of his putting his intention in force, actuates all the necessary locking.19"

In spite of any theoretical or fanciful objections which may be urged against it, this appliance will be found an indispensable adjunct to any really heavy junction or terminal train movement. For the elevated railroads of New York, for instance, its early adoption proved a necessity. As for questions of temperature, climate, etc., as affecting the long connecting rods and wires which are an essential part of the system, objections based upon them are purely imaginary. Difficulties from this source were long since met and overcome by very simple compensating arrangements, and in practice occasion no inconvenience. That rods may break, and that wires are at all times liable to get out of gear, every one knows; and yet this fact is urged as a novel objection to each new mechanical improvement. That a broken or disordered apparatus will always occasion a serious disturbance to any heavy train movement, may also be admitted. The fact none the less remains that in practice, and daily subjected through long periods of time to incomparably the heaviest train movement known to railroad experience, the rods of the interlocking apparatus do not break, nor do its wires get out of gear; while by means of it, and of it alone, this train movement goes unceasingly on never knowing any serious disturbance.20

It is not, however, alone in connection with terminal stations and junctions that the interlocking apparatus is of value. It is also the scientific substitute for the law or regulation compelling trains to stop as a measure of precaution when they approach grade-crossings or draw-bridges. It is difficult indeed to pass from the consideration of this fine result of science and to speak with patience of the existing American substitute for it. If the former is a feature in the block system, the latter is a signal example of the block-head system. As a device to avoid danger it is a standing disgrace to American ingenuity; and, fortunately, as stopping is compatible only with a very light traffic, so soon as the passage of trains becomes incessant a substitute for it has got to be devised. In this country, as in England, that substitute will be found in the interlocking apparatus. By means of it the draw-bridge, for instance, can be so connected with the danger signals – which may, if desired, be gates closing across the railroad tracks – that the one cannot be opened except by closing the other. This is the method adopted in Great Britain not only at draws in bridges, but frequently also in the case of gates at level road crossings. It has already been noticed that in Great Britain accidents at draws in bridges seem to be unknown. Certainly not one has been reported during the last nine years. The security afforded in this case by interlocking would, indeed, seem to be absolute; as, if the apparatus is out of order, either the gates or the bridge would be closed, and could not be opened until it was repaired. So also as respects the grade-crossing of one railroad by another. Bringing all trains to a complete stop when approaching these crossings is a precaution quite generally observed in America, either as a matter of statute law or running regulation; and yet during the six years 1873-8 no less than 104 collisions were reported at these crossings. In Great Britain during the nine years 1870-8 but nine cases of accidents of this description were reported, and in both the years 1877 and 1878 under the head of "Accidents or Collisions on Level Crossings of Railways," the chief inspector of the Board of Trade tersely stated that, – "No accident was inquired into under this head.21" The interlocking system there affords the most perfect protection which can be devised against a most dangerous practice in railroad construction to which Americans are almost recklessly addicted. It is, also, matter of daily experience that the interlocking system does afford a perfect practical safeguard in this case. Every junction of a branch with a double track road involves a grade-crossing, and a grade-crossing of the most dangerous character. On the Metropolitan Elevated railroad of New York, at 53d street, there is one of these junctions, where, all day long, trains are crossing at grade at the rate of some twenty miles an hour. These trains never stop, except when signalled so to do. The interlocking apparatus, however, makes it impossible that one track should be open except when the other is closed. An accident, therefore, can happen only through the wilful carelessness of the engineer in charge of a train; – and in the face of wilful carelessness laws are of no more avail than signals. If a man in control of a locomotive wishes to bring on a collision he can always do it. Unless he wishes to, however, the interlocking apparatus not only can prevent him from so doing, but as a matter of fact always does. The same rule which holds good at junctions would hold good at level crossings. There is no essential difference between the two. By means of the interlocking apparatus the crossing can be so blocked at any desired distance from it in such a way that when one track is open the other must be closed; – unless, indeed, the apparatus is out of order, and then both would be closed. The precaution in this case, also, is absolute. Unlike the rule as to stopping, it does not depend on the caution or judgment of individuals; – there are the signals and the obstructions, and if they are not displayed on one road they are on the other. So superior is this apparatus in every respect – as regards safety as well as convenience – to the precaution of coming to a stop, that, as an inducement to introduce an almost perfect scientific appliance, it would be very desirable that states like Massachusetts and Connecticut compelling the stop, should except from the operation of the law all draw-bridges or grade-crossings at which suitable interlocking apparatus is provided. Surely it is not unreasonable that in this case science should have a chance to assert itself.

In any event, however, the general introduction of the interlocking apparatus into the American railroad system may be regarded as a mere question of the value of land and concentration of traffic. So long as every road terminating in our larger cities indulges, at whatever unnecessary cost to its stockholders, in independent station buildings far removed from business centres, the train movement can most economically be conducted as it now is. The expense of the interlocking apparatus is avoided by the very simple process of incurring the many fold heavier expense of several station buildings and vast disconnected station grounds. If, however, in the city of Boston, for instance, the time should come when the financial and engineering audacity of the great English companies shall be imitated, – when some leading railroad company shall fix its central passenger station on Tremont street opposite the head of Court street, just as in London the South Eastern established itself on Cannon street, and then this company carrying its road from Pemberton Square by a tunnel under Beacon Hill and the State-house should at the crossing of the Charles radiate out so as to afford all other roads an access for their trains to the same terminal point, thus concentrating there the whole daily movement of that busy population which makes of Boston its daily counting-room and market-place, – then, when this is attempted, the time will have come for utilizing to its utmost capacity every available inch of space to render possible the incessant passage of trains. Then also will it at last be realized that it is far cheaper to use a costly and intricate apparatus which enables two companies to be run into one convenient station, than it is to build a separate station, even at an inconvenient point, to accommodate each company.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE WESTINGHOUSE BRAKE

In March, 1825, there appeared in the pages of the Quarterly Review an article in which the writer discussed that railway system, the first vague anticipation of which was then just beginning to make the world restless. He did this, too, in a very intelligent and progressive spirit, but unfortunately secured for his article a permanence of interest he little expected by the use of one striking illustration. He was peculiarly anxious to draw a distinct line of demarcation between his own very rational anticipations and the visionary dreams of those enthusiasts who were boring the world to death over the impossibilities which they claimed that the new invention was to work. Among these he referred to the proposition that passengers would be "whirled at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles an hour by means of a high pressure engine," and then contemptuously added, – "We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate; their property perhaps they may trust."

Under the circumstances, the criticism was a perfectly reasonable one. The danger involved in going at such a rate of speed and the impossibility of stopping in time to avoid a sudden danger, would naturally suggest themselves to any one as insuperable objections to the new system for any practical use. Some means of preserving a sudden and powerful control over a movement of such unheard of rapidity would almost as a matter of course be looked upon as a condition precedent. Yet it is a most noticeable fact in the history of railroad development that the improvement in appliances for controlling speed by no means kept pace with the increased rate of speed attained. Indeed, so far as the possibility of rapid motion is concerned, there is no reason to suppose that the Rocket could not have held its own very respectably by the side of a passenger locomotive of the present day. It will be remembered that on the occasion of the Manchester & Liverpool opening, Mr. Huskisson after receiving his fatal injury was carried seventeen miles in twenty-five minutes. Since then the details of locomotive construction have been simplified and improved upon, but no great change has been or probably will be effected in the matter of velocity; – as respects that the maximum was practically reached at once. Yet down to the year 1870 the brake system remained very much what it was in 1830. Improvements in detail were effected, but the essential principles were the same. In case of any sudden emergency, the men in charge of the locomotive had no direct control over the vehicles in the train; they communicated with them by the whistle, and when the signal was heard the brakes were applied as soon as might be. When a train is moving at the rate of forty miles an hour, by no means a great speed for it while in full motion, it passes over fifty-eight feet each second; – at sixty miles an hour it passes over eighty-eight feet. Under these circumstances, supposing an engine driver to become suddenly aware of an obstruction on the track, as was the case at Revere, or of something wrong in the train behind him, as at Shipton, he had first himself to signal danger, and to this signal the brakemen throughout the train had to respond. Each operation required time, and every second of time represented many feet of space. It was small matter for surprise, therefore, that when in 1875 they experimented scientifically in England, it was ascertained that a train of a locomotive and thirteen cars moving at a speed of forty-five miles an hour could not be brought to a stand in less than one minute, or before it had traversed a distance of half a mile. The same result it will be remembered was arrived at by practical experience in America, where both at Angola and at Port Jervis,22 it was found impossible to stop the trains in less than half-a-mile, though in each case two derailed cars were dragging and plunging along at the end of them.

The need of a continuous train-brake, operated from the locomotive and under the immediate control of the engine-driver, had been emphasized through years by the almost regular recurrence of accidents of the most appalling character. In answer to this need almost innumerable appliances had been patented and experimented with both in Europe and in America. Prior to 1869, however, these had been almost exclusively what are known as emergency brakes; – that is, although the trains were equipped with them and they were operated from the locomotives, they were not relied upon for ordinary use, but were held in reserve, as it were, against special exigencies. The Hudson River railroad train at the Hamburg accident was thus equipped. Practically, appliances which in the operation of railroads are reserved for emergencies are usually found of little value when the emergency occurs. Accordingly no continuous brake had, prior to the development of Westinghouse's invention, worked its way into general use. Patent brakes had become a proverb as well as a terror among railroad mechanics, and they had ceased to believe that any really desirable thing of the sort would ever be perfected. Westinghouse, therefore, had a most unbelieving audience to encounter, and his invention had to fight hard for all the favor it won; nor did his experience with master mechanics differ, probably, much from Miller's. His first patents were taken out in 1869, and he early secured the powerful aid of the Pennsylvania road for his invention. The Pullman Car Company, also, always anxious to avail themselves of every appliance of safety as well as of comfort, speedily saw the merits of the new brake and adopted it; but, as they merely furnished cars and had nothing to do with the locomotives that pulled them, their support was not so effective as that of the great railroad company. Naturally enough, also, great hesitation was felt in adopting so complicated an appliance. It added yet another whole apparatus to a thing which was already overburdened with machinery. There was, also, something in the delicacy and precision of the parts of this new contrivance, – in its air-pump and reservoirs and long connecting tubes with their numerous valves, – which was peculiarly distasteful to the average practical railroad mechanic. It was true that the idea of transmitting power by means of compressed air was by no means new, – that thousands of drills were being daily driven by it wherever tunnelling was going on or miners were at work, – yet the application of this familiar power to the wheels of a railroad train seemed no less novel than it was bold. It was, in the first place, evident that the new apparatus would not stand the banging and hammering to which the old-fashioned hand-brake might safely be subjected; not indeed without deranging that simple appliance, but without incurring any very heavy bill for repairs in so doing. Accordingly the new brake was at first carelessly examined and patronizingly pushed aside as a pretty toy, – nice in theory no doubt, but wholly unfitted for rough, every-day use. As it was tersely expressed during a discussion before the Society of Arts in London, as recently as May, 1877, – "It was no use bringing out a brake which could not be managed by ordinary officials, – which was so wonderfully clever that those who had to use it could not understand it." A line of argument by the way, which, as has been already pointed out, may with far greater force be applied to the locomotive itself; and, indeed, unquestionably was so applied about half a century ago by men of the same calibre who apply it now, to the intense weariness and discouragement no doubt of the late George Stephenson. Whether sound or otherwise, however, few more effective arguments against an appliance can be advanced; and against the Westinghouse brake it was advanced so effectively, that even as late as 1871, although largely in use on western roads, it had found its way into Massachusetts only as an ingenious device of doubtful merit. It was in August, 1871, that the Revere disaster occurred, and the Revere disaster, as has been seen, would unquestionably have been averted had the colliding train been provided with proper brake power. This at last called serious attention there to the new appliance. Even then, however, the mere suggestion of something better being in existence than the venerable hand-brakes in familiar use did not pass without a vigorous protest; and at the meeting of railroad officials, which has already been referred to as having been called by the state commissioners after the accident, one prominent gentleman, when asked if the road under his charge was equipped with the most approved brake, indignantly replied that it was, – that it was equipped with the good, old-fashioned hand-brake; – and he then proceeded to vehemently stake his professional reputation on the absolute superiority of that ancient but somewhat crude appliance over anything else of the sort in existence. Nevertheless, on this occasion also, the great dynamic force which is ever latent in first-class railroad accidents again asserted itself. Even the most opinionated of professional railroad men, emphatically as he might in public deny it, quietly yielded as soon as might be. In a surprisingly short time after the exhibition of ignorance which has been referred to, the railroads in Massachusetts, as it has already been shown, were all equipped with train-brakes.23

In its present improved shape it is safe to say that in all those requisites which the highest authorities known on the subject have laid down as essential to a model train brake, the Westinghouse stands easily first among the many inventions of the kind. It is now a much more perfect appliance than it was in 1871, for it was then simply atmospheric and continuous in its action, whereas it has since been made automatic and self-regulating. So far as its fundamental principle is concerned, that is too generally understood to call for explanation. By means of an air-pump, attached to the boiler of the locomotive and controlled by the engine-driver, an atmospheric force is brought to bear, through tubes running under the cars, upon the break blocks, pressing them against the wheels. The hand of the engine-driver is in fact on every wheel in the train. This application of power, though unquestionably ingenious and, like all good things, most simple and obvious when once pointed out, was originally open to one great objection, which was persistently and with great force urged against it. The parts of the apparatus were all delicate, and some injury or derangement of them was always possible, and sometimes inevitable. The chief advantage claimed for the brake was, however, that complete dependence could be placed upon it in the regular movement of trains. It was obvious, therefore, that if such dependence was placed upon it and any derangement did occur, the first intimation those in charge of the train would have that something was wrong might well come in the shape of a failure of the brake to act, and a subsequent disaster. Both in Massachusetts and in Connecticut, at the crossing of one railroad by another at the same level in the former state and in the approach to draws in bridges in the latter, a number of cases of this failure of the original Westinghouse non-automatic brake to act did in point of fact occur. Fortunately they, none of them, resulted in disaster. This, however, was mere good luck, as was illustrated in the case of the accident of November 11, 1876, at the Communipaw Ferry on the New Jersey Central. The train was there equipped with the ordinary train brake. It reached Jersey City on time shortly after 4 P.M., but, instead of slacking up, it ran directly through the station and freight offices, carrying away the walls and supports, and the locomotive then plunged into the river beyond. The baggage and smoking car followed but fortunately lodged on the locomotive, thus blocking the remainder of the train. Fortunately no one was killed, and no passengers were seriously injured.

Again, on the Metropolitan Elevated railroad in New York city, on the evening of June 23, 1879, one of the trains was delayed for a few moments at the Franklin street station. Meanwhile the next train came along, and, though the engine-driver of this following train saw the danger signals and endeavored to stop in time, he found his brake out of order, and a collision ensued resulting in the injury of one employé and the severe shattering of a passenger coach and locomotive. It was only a piece of good fortune that the first of these accidents did not result in a repetition of the Norwalk disaster and the second in that of Revere.

It so chanced that it was the Smith vacuum brake which failed to work at Communipaw, and the Eames vacuum which failed to work at Franklin street. This, however, was wholly immaterial. It might just as well have been the original Westinghouse. The difficulty lay, not in the maker's name, but in the imperfect action of the brake; and such significant intimations are not to be disregarded. The chances are naturally large that the failure of the continuous brake to act will not at once occur under just those circumstances which will entail a serious disaster and heavy loss of life; that, however, if such intimations as these are disregarded, it will sooner or later so occur does not admit of doubt.

But the possibility that upon some given occasion it might fail to work was not the only defect in the original Westinghouse; it might well be in perfect order and in full action even, and then suddenly, as the result of derailment or separation of parts, the apparatus might be broken, and at once the shoes would drop from the wheels, and the vehicles of the disabled train would either press forward, or, on an incline, stop and run backwards until their unchecked momentum was exhausted. This appears to have been the case at Wollaston, and contributed some of its most disastrous features to that accident.