Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/144

122 manager is to promote efficiency, but laws of this description ignore the usual and constituted authority and divert the attention of the employees to their unions and to the national government. But now we will take up this matter of personality and the human equation from a vastly more important point of view.

A very serious and somewhat remarkable accident took place quite recently—an engine attached to a passenger train ran into an open draw and dropped thirty feet, leaving the tender and four coaches, containing seventy-five passengers, on the brink. The following day, in a report of this accident, the Boston “Transcript” quoted President Tuttle of the Boston & Maine Railroad, as follows:—

“You can’t open that draw, you can’t pull the bolts that block it, until all signals are set for danger, and they remain at danger while the draw is open. They do not disappear until the draw is closed and the signals for a clear track are set. The engineman knew these signals were there, and he knew what they meant. A railroad may supply every safety device known to modern science for precaution, it may put in the perfection of safety appliances for the safety of its passengers and its stock, but you can’t get by the human equation. You ’ve got to stop right there. You can