Notes on Railroad Accidents

Taken as a whole, however, and under the most favorable showing, it would seem to be a matter of fair inference that the dangers incident to railroad traveling are materially greater in the United States than in any country of Europe. How much greater is a question wholly impossible to answer. So that when a statistical writer undertakes to show, as one eminent European authority has done, that in a given year on the American roads one passenger in every 286,179 was killed, and one in every 90,737 was injured, it is charitable to suppose that in regard to America only is he indebted to his imagination for his figures.

Neither is it possible to analyze with any satisfactory degree of precision the nature of the accidents in the two countries, with a view to drawing inferences from them. Without attempting to do so it maybe said that the English Board of Trade reports for the last five years, 1874-8, include inquiries into 755 out of 11,585 accidents, the total number of every description reported as having taken place. Meanwhile the Railroad Gazette contains mention of 4,846 reported train accidents which occurred in America during the same five years. Of these accidents, 1,310 in America and 81 in Great Britain were due to causes which were either unexplained or of a miscellaneous character, or are not common to the systems of the two countries. In so far as the remainder admitted of classification, it was somewhat as follows: —

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The above record, though almost valueless for any purpose of exact comparison, reveals, it will be noticed, one salient fact. Out of 755 English accidents, no less than 406 came under the head of collisions – whether head collisions, rear collisions, or collisions on sidings or at junctions. In other words, to collisions of some sort between trains were due considerably more than half (54 per cent.) of the accidents which took place in Great Britain, while only 88, or less than 13 per cent. of the whole, were due to derailments from all causes. In America on the other hand, while of the 3,763 accidents recorded, 1,324, or but one-third part (35 per cent.) were due to collisions, no less than 586, or 24 per cent., were classed under the head of derailments, due to defects in the permanent way. During the the six years 1873-8 there were in all 1698 cases of collision of every description between trains reported as occurring in America to 1495 in the United Kingdom; but while in America the derailments amounted to no less than 4016, or more than twice the collisions, in the United Kingdom they were but 817, or a little more than half their number. It has already been noticed that the most disastrous accidents in America are apt to occur on bridges, and Ashtabula and Tariffville at once suggest themselves. This is not the case in Great Britain. Under the heading of "Failures of Tunnels, Bridges, Viaducts or Culverts," there were returned in that country during the six years 1873-8 only 29 accidents in all; while during the same time in America, under the heads of broken bridges or tressels and open draws, the Gazette recorded no less than 165. These figures curiously illustrate the different manner in which the railroads of the two countries have been constructed, and the different circumstances under which they are operated. The English collisions are distinctly traceable to constant overcrowding; the American derailments and bridge accidents to inferior construction of our road-beds.

Finally, what of late years has been done to diminish the dangers of the rail? – What more can be done? – Few persons realize what a tremendous pressure in this respect is constantly bearing down upon those whose business it is to operate railroads. A great accident is not only a terrible blow to the pride and prestige of a corporation, not only does it practically ruin the unfortunate officials involved in it, but it entails also portentous financial consequences. Juries proverbially have little mercy for railroad corporations, and, when a disaster comes, these have practically no choice but to follow the scriptural injunction to settle with their adversaries quickly. The Revere catastrophe, for instance, cost the railroad company liable on account of it over half a million of dollars; the Ashtabula accident over $600,000; the Wollaston over $300,000. A few years ago in England a jury awarded a sum of $65,000 for damages sustained through the death of a single individual. During the five years, 1867-71, the railroad corporations of Great Britain paid out over $11,000,000 in compensation for damages occasioned by accidents. In view, merely, of such money consequences of disaster, it would be most unnatural did not each new accident lead to the adoption of better appliances to prevent its recurrence.30

To return, however, to the subject of railroad accidents, and the final conclusion to be drawn from the statistics which have been presented. That conclusion briefly stated is that the charges of recklessness and indifference so generally and so widely advanced against those managing the railroads cannot for an instant be sustained. After all, as was said in the beginning of the present volume, it is not the danger but the safety of the railroad which should excite our special wonder. If any one doubts this, it is very easy to satisfy himself of the fact, – that is, if by nature he is gifted with the slightest spark of imagination. It is but necessary to stand once on the platform of a way-station and to look at an express train dashing by. There are few sights finer; few better calculated to quicken the pulse. It is most striking at night. The glare of the head-light, the rush and throb of the locomotive, – the connecting rod and driving-wheels of which seem instinct with nervous life, – the flashing lamps in the cars, and the final whirl of dust in which the red tail-lights vanish almost as soon as they are seen, – all this is well calculated to excite our admiration; but the special and unending cause for wonder is how, in case of accident, anything whatever is left of the train. As it plunges into the darkness it would seem to be inevitable that something must happen, and that, whatever happens, it must necessarily involve both the train and every one in it in utter and irremediable destruction. Here is a body weighing in the neighborhood of two hundred tons, moving over the face of the earth at a speed of sixty feet a second and held to its course only by two slender lines of iron rails; – and yet it is safe! – We have seen how when, half a century ago, the possibility of something remotely like this was first discussed, a writer in the British Quarterly earned for himself a lasting fame by using the expression that "We should as soon expect people to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as to trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate;" – while Lord Brougham exclaimed that "the folly of seven hundred people going fifteen miles an hour, in six trains, exceeds belief." At the time they wrote, the chances were ninety-nine in a hundred that both reviewer and correspondent were right; and yet, because reality, not for the first nor the last time, saw fit to outstrip the wildest flights of imagination, the former at least blundered, by being prudent, into an immortality of ridicule. The thing, however, is still none the less a miracle because it is with us matter of daily observation. That, indeed, is the most miraculous part of it. At all hours of the day and of the night, during every season of the year, this movement is going on. It never wholly stops. It depends for its even action on every conceivable contingency, from the disciplined vigilance of thousands of employés to the condition of the atmosphere, the heat of an axle, or the strength of a nail. The vast machine is in constant motion, and the derangement of a single one of a myriad of conditions may at any moment occasion one of those inequalities of movement which are known as accidents. Yet at the end of the year, of the hundreds of millions of passengers fewer have lost their lives through these accidents than have been murdered in cold blood. Not without reason, therefore, has it been asserted that, viewing at once the speed, the certainty, and the safety with which the intricate movement of modern life is carried on, there is no more creditable monument to human care, human skill, and human foresight than the statistics of railroad accidents.

1

The bell-cord in America, notwithstanding the theoretical objections which have been urged to its adoption in other countries, has proved such a simple and perfect protection against dangers from inability to communicate between portions of trains that accidents from this cause do not enter into the consideration of American railroad managers. Yet they do, now and again, occur. For instance, on February 28, 1874, a passenger coach in a west-bound accommodation train of the Great Western railroad of Canada took fire from the falling of a lamp in the closet at its forward end. The bell-cord was for some reason not connected with the locomotive, and the train ran two miles before it could be stopped. The coach in question was entirely destroyed and eight passengers were either burned or suffocated, while no less than thirteen others sustained injuries in jumping from the train.

2

"Deodand. By this is meant whatever personal chattel is the immediate occasion of the death of any reasonable creature: which is forfeited to the king, to be applied to pious uses, and distributed in alms by his high almoner; though formerly destined to a more superstitious purpose. * * * Wherever the thing is in motion, not only that part which immediately gives the wounds (as the wheel which runs over his body,) but all things which move with it and help to make the wound more dangerous, (as the cart and loading, which increase the pressure of the wheel) are forfeited." —Blackstone, Book I, Chap. 8, XVI.

3

Ante pp. 18-19.

4

Railroads: their Origin and Problems, p. 49.

5

A collision very similar to that at Camphill occurred upon the Erie railway at a point about 20 miles west of Port Jervis on the afternoon of July 15, 1864. The train in this case consisted of eighteen cars, in which were some 85 °Confederate soldiers on their way under guard to the prisoner's camp at Elmira. A coal train consisting of 50 loaded cars from the hanch took the main line at Lackawaxen. The telegraph operator there informed its conductor that the track was clear, and, while rounding a sharp reversed curve, the two trains came together, the one going at about twelve and the other at some twenty miles an hour. Some 60 of the soldiers, besides a number of train hands were killed on the spot, and 120 more were seriously injured, some of them fatally.

This disaster occurred in the midst of some of the most important operations of the Rebellion and excited at the time hardly any notice. There was a suggestive military promptness in the subsequent proceedings. "T. J. Ridgeway, Esq., Associate Judge of Pike County, was soon on the spot, and, after consultation with Mr. Riddle [the superintendent of the Erie road] and the officer in command of the men, a jury was impanneled and an inquest held; after which a large trench was dug by the soldiers and the railway employés, 76 feet long, 8 feet wide and 6 feet deep, in which the bodies were at once interred in boxes, hastily constructed – one being allotted to four rebels, and one to each Union soldier." There were sixteen of the latter killed.

6

Chapter XIV, XVI.

7

Chapters XVII and XVIII.

8

The Angola was probably the most impressively horrible of the many "stove accidents." That which occurred near Prospect, N. Y., upon the Buffalo, Corry & Pittsburgh road, on December 24, 1872, should not, however, be forgotten. In this case a trestle bridge gave way precipitating a passenger train some thirty feet to the bottom of a ravine, where the cars caught fire from the stoves. Nineteen lives were lost, mostly by burning. The Richmond Switch disaster of April 19, 1873, on the New York, Providence & Boston road was of the same character. Three passengers only were there burned to death, but after the disaster the flames rushed "through the car as quickly as if the wood had been a lot of hay," and, after those who were endeavoring to release the wounded and imprisoned men were driven away, their cries were for some time heard through the smoke and flame.

9

Of the same general character with the Tariffville and Ashtabula accidents were those which occurred on November 1, 1855, upon the Pacific railroad of Missouri at the bridge over the Gasconade, and on July 27, 1875, upon the Northern Pacific at the bridge over the Mississippi near Brainerd. In the first of these accidents the bridge gave way under an excursion train, in honor of the opening of the road, and its chief engineer was among the killed. The train fell some thirty feet, and 22 persons lost their lives while over 50 suffered serious injuries.

At Brainerd the train, – a "mixed" one, – went down nearly 80 feet into the river. The locomotive and several cars had passed the span which fell, in safety, but were pulled back and went down on top of the train. There were but few passengers in it, of whom three were killed. In falling the caboose car at the rear of the train, in which most of the passengers were, struck on a pier and broke in two, leaving several passengers in it. In the case of the Gasconade, the disaster was due to the weakness of the bridge, which fell under the weight of the train. There is some question as to the Brainerd accident, whether it was occasioned by weakness of the bridge or the derailment upon it of a freight car.

10

"The objectionable and dangerous practice also employed on some railways of assisting trains up inclines by means of pilot engines in the rear instead of in front, has led to several accidents in the past year and should be discontinued." —General Report to the Board of Trade upon the Accidents on the Railways of Great Britain in 1878, p. 15.

11

In the nine years 1870-8, besides those which occurred and were not deemed of sufficient importance to demand special inquiry, 86 cases of accidents of this description were investigated by the inspecting officers of the English Board of Trade and reported upon in detail. In America, 732 cases were reported as occurring during the six years 1874-8, and 138 cases in 1878 alone.

12

Chapter XVII.

13

An excellent popular description of this system will be found in Barry's Railway Appliances, Chapter V.

14

Reports; 1872, page 23, and 1873, page 39.

15

"It has been estimated that an average of 50,000 persons were, in 1869, daily brought into Boston and carried from it, on three hundred and eighty-five trains, while the South Eastern railway of London received and despatched in 1870, on an average, six hundred and fifty trains a day, between 6 A.M. and 12 P.M. carrying from 35,000 to 40,000 persons, and this too without the occurrence of a single train accident during the year. On one single exceptional day eleven hundred and eleven trains, carrying 145,000 persons, are said to have entered and left this station in the space of eighteen hours." —Third Annual Report, [1872] of Massachusetts Railroad Commissioners, p. 141.

The passenger movement over the roads terminating in Boston was probably as heavy on June 17, 1875, as during any twenty-four hours in their history. It was returned at 280,000 persons carried in 641 trains. About twice the passenger movement of the "exceptional day" referred to, carried in something more than half the number of trains, entering and leaving eight stations instead of one.

16

The Grand Central Depot on 42d Street in New York City, has nearly twice the amount of track room under cover of the Cannon street station. The daily train movement of the latter would be precisely paralleled in New York, though not equalled in amount, if the 42d street station were at Trinity church, and, in addition to the trains which now enter and leave it, all the city trains of the Elevated road were also provided for there.

17

Railway Appliances, p. 113.

18

A sufficiently popular description of this apparatus also, illustrated by cuts, will be found in Barry's excellent little treatise on Railway Appliances, already referred to, published by Longmans & Co. as one of their series of text-books of science.

19

In regard to the interlocking system as then in use in England, Captain Tyler in his report as head of the railway inspecting department of the Board of Trade, used the following language in his report on the accidents during 1870. "When the apparatus is properly constructed and efficiently maintained, the signalman cannot make a mistake in the working of his points and signals which shall lead to accident or collision, except only by first lowering his signal and switching his train forward, then putting up his signal again as it approaches, and altering the points as the driver comes up to, or while he is passing over them. Such a mistake was actually made in one of the cases above quoted. It is, of course, impossible to provide completely for cases of this description; but the locking apparatus, as now applied, is already of enormous value in preventing accidents; and it will have a still greater effect on the general safety of railway travelling as it becomes more extensively applied on the older lines. Without it, a signalman in constantly working points and signals is almost certain sooner or later to make a mistake, and to cause an accident of a more or less serious character; and it is inexcusable in any railway company to allow its mail or express trains to run at high speed through facing points which are not interlocked efficiently with the signals, by which alone the engine-drivers in approaching them can be guided. There is however, very much yet to be effected in different parts of the country in this respect. And it is worth while to record here, in illustration of the difficulties that are sometimes met with by the inspecting officers, that the Midland Railway Company formally protested in June, 1866, against being compelled to apply such apparatus before receiving sanction for the opening of new lines of railway. They stated that in complying with the requirements in this respect of the Board of Trade, they 'were acting in direct opposition to their own convictions, and they must, so far as lay in their power, decline the responsibility of the locking system.'"

To still further perfect the appliance a simple mechanism has since 1870 been attached to the rod actuating the switch-bolt, which prevents the signal-man from shifting the switch under a passing train in the manner suggested by Captain Tyler in the above extract. In fact it is no exaggeration to say that the interlocking system has now been so studied, and every possible contingency so thoroughly provided for, that in using it accidents can only occur through a wilful intention to bring them about.

20

"As an instance of the possibility of preventing the mistakes so often made by signal men with conflicting signals or with facing points I have shown the traffic for a single day, and at certain hours of that day, at the Cannon Street station of the South Eastern Railway, already referred to as one of the no-accident lines of the year. The traffic of that station, with trains continually crossing one another, by daylight and in darkness, in fog or in sunshine, amounts to more than 130 trains in three hours in the morning, and a similar number in the evening; and, altogether, to 652 trains, conveying more than 35,000 passengers in the day as a winter, or 40,000 passengers a day as a summer average. It is probably not too much to say, that without the signal and point arrangements which have there been supplied, and the system of interlocking which has there been so carefully carried out, the signalmen could not carry on their duties for one hour without accident." Captain Tyler's report on accidents for 1870, p. 35.

21

"As affecting the safe working of railways, the level crossing of one railway by another is a matter of very serious import. Even when signalled on the most approved principles, they are a source of danger, and, if possible, should always be avoided. At junctions of branch or other railways the practice has been adopted by some companies in special cases, to carry the off line under or over the main line by a bridge. This course should generally be adopted in the case of railways on which the traffic is large, and more expressly where express and fast trains are run." Report on Accidents on Railways of the United Kingdom during 1877, p. 35.

22

Ante, pp. 15, 119.

23

Page 157.

24

Speaking of the modifications introduced into his brake by Westinghouse since 1874, Mr. Thomas E. Harrison, civil engineer of the North Eastern Railway Company in a communication to the directors of that company of April 24, 1879, recommending the adoption by it of the Westinghouse, and subsequently ordered to be printed for the use of Parliament, thus referred to the triple valve: "As the most important [of these modifications] I will particularly draw your attention to the "triple-valve" which has been made a regular bugbear by the opponents of the system, and has been called complicated, delicate, and liable to get out of order, etc. * * * It is, in fact, as simple a piece of mechanism as well can be imagined, certain in its action, of durable materials, easily accessible to an ordinary workman for examination or cleaning, and there is nothing about it that can justify the term complication; on the contrary, it is a model of ingenuity and simplicity."

25

During the six months ending June 30, 1879, some 300 stops due to some derangement of the apparatus of the Westinghouse brake were reported by ten companies in runs aggregating about two million miles. Being one stop to 6,600 miles run. Very many of these stops were obviously due to the want of familiarity of the employés with an apparatus new to them, but as a rule the delays occasioned did not exceed a very few minutes; of 82 stoppages, for instance, reported on the London, Brighton & South Coast road, the two longest were ten minutes each and the remainder averaged some three or four minutes.

26

In Massachusetts, for instance, where no official pressure in favor of any particular brake was brought to bear, out of 473 locomotives equipped with train-brakes 361 have the Westinghouse, which is also applied to 1,363 out of 1,669 cars. Of these, however, 79 locomotives and 358 cars are equipped with both the atmospheric and the vacuum brakes.

27

This period did not include the Wollaston disaster, as the Massachusetts railroad year closes on the last day of September. The Wollaston disaster occurred on the 8th of October, 1878, and was accordingly included in the next railroad year.

28

General Report to the Board of Trade upon the accidents which have occurred on the Railways of the United Kingdom during the year 1877, p. 37.

29

During these five years there were in Great Britain four cases of collision between locomotives or trains at level crossings of one railroad by another; in America there were 79. The probable cause of this discrepancy has already been referred to (ante pp. 194-7).

30

The other side of this proposition has been argued with much force by Mr. William Galt in his report as one of the Royal Commission of 1874 on Railway Accidents. Mr. Galt's individual report bears date February 5, 1877, and in it he asserts that, as a matter of actual experience, the principle of self-interest on the part of the railway companies has proved a wholly insufficient safeguard against accidents. However it may be in theory, he contends that, taking into consideration the great cost of the appliances necessary to insure safety to the public on the one side, and the amount of damages incident to a certain degree of risk on the other side, the possible saving in expenditure to the companies by assuming the risk far exceeds the loss incurred by an occasional accident. The companies become, in a word, insurers of their passengers, – the premium being found in the economies effected by not adopting improved appliances of recognized value, and the losses being the damages incurred in case of accident. He treats the whole subject at great length and with much knowledge and ability. His report is a most valuable compendium for those who are in favor of a closer government supervision over railroads as a means of securing an increased safety from accident.