Page:A voice from the signal-box.djvu/9

5 block system, the interlocking apparatus, or any other signalling arrangement calculated to ensure safety, is worse than useless in the hands of untrained men, and not unfrequently becomes, in fact, under those circumstances, an instrument of destruction. The writer remarks that the superintendent or inspector who examines signalmen previous to their taking charge of a box, is seldom practically acquainted with the manipulation of signals, and in a difficulty an officer of this class will occasionally appeal to the signalmen to know “what is the usual practice in such cases!” He recommends that experienced signal-workers be appointed to superintend the training of all new hands.

He points out that at present there is no means of preventing engine-drivers, who have been standing with their trains in branches or sidings, from running on to the main line while the signals are against them, to the destruction of some passing train, and states that by introducing into all such sidings and branches, safety points interlocked with the signals, so as to turn away, on to a separate line, with a dead stop-block at the end, any train which attempted a movement of this kind, accidents from the cause named could be entirely done away with. A serious collision of this nature, it may be remarked, occurred a short time ago on the Great Northern Railway at Boston.