The Morning News

Railroad Accidents.

In the last six or eight months the number of railroad accidents has been unusually large. Many of them have been of a very serious character, and one of them, that near Chatsworth, involved a loss of life almost without precedent in this country. Many of these accidents have, no doubt, been caused by poor condition of tracks or rolling stock, and some from the carelessness of employees. The loss to the railroad companies has been enormous, and the public has been so impressed that it is not at all improbable that in some States laws will be passed intended to constrain the companies to make certain changes in their cars and roadbeds which will lessen the danger of a sudden and horrible death to travelers.

Startled by the terrible catastrophes at White River Junction, Vt., and Tipton, O., the New York Legislature has already passed a law compelling railroads after this winter to adopt some means of heating their cars other than by stoves. Two of the Long Island roads will have a system of steam heating in operation this winter, and if it prove successful it will probably be adopted by all the other roads of the State.

But the danger from fire, though the most horrible to contemplate, is not that which most constantly threatens. To judge from recent accidents, the greatest danger is from weak or improperly constructed bridges, and this is a subject with which the law can deal effectively. Only a day or two since a passenger train fell through a trestle on the Mobile and Ohio road and thirty people were injured, while all newspaper readers remember the accidents at White River Junction, Bussey's Bridge and Chatsworth. All of these were caused by bridges being of defective construction or built of improper material, and by them perhaps 400 people were killed or wounded. The possibility of such accidents could be reduced to almost nothing by a proper system of inspection and a law compelling the use of indestructible materials in the building of all bridges. The enforcement of such a law might for a time strain the resources of the poorer roads, but in the end it would be a good thing for them, as well as for the traveling public.

In this connection, it may be said that one reason why railroads are not improved faster and made safe, is to be found in the fact that the men who control them are in many cases not practical railroad men, but mere speculators in their stocks. In a recent article in the Chicago Journal Rev. David Swing refers to this fact, and his remarks upon it are so forcible that they are here appended:

'The educational power of the railway is kept back by the pitiable truth that many of its officials are not students of a great art, but are only speculators in land or stocks, when not absolute thieves. Quack railroad men are more numerous than quack doctors. Good men are discharged to make room for favorites, and thus fortunes and life are placed at the mercy of untrained minds.

'The railway service is no doubt suffering much from the presence of officials who know more about money and luxury than they know about bridges and roadbeds. Under the rule of these captains the receipts from all traffic flow toward New York, and soon the bank account is large and the road worn out and dangerous. The income is the main thing, the art nothing.

'Some roads are managed by railway art. The President himself could run a locomotive, or construct a bridge, or keep awake at a switch. These roads are under the control of the railway intellect, and not of the champagne and private car genius. May the time soon come when so tremendous a thing as the railway shall be managed by the new kind of intellectual force called railway brain.'