Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/53

Rh sighted, is running thirty or forty miles an hour, it calls for a positive and not a theoretical reduction in speed. The cautionary signal is not merely a piece of information to be stowed away in the brain of the enginemen, to be utilized when a rear end or a broken rail is sighted.

Although for a number of years the inflexible enforcement of the rules relating to these cautionary signals has been advocated, yet to-day train after train will run past these semaphores and green lights without any reduction in speed, provided the track ahead of them is seen to be clear.

Here we tackle the very heart of the matter, for in so far as the rules and common sense are concerned, it should not make a particle of difference to the engineman whether the track ahead is or is not known to be clear of trains; his instructions call for cautious running, and by no possible interpretation or juggling with words can cautious running, or running under control, be taken to mean running at full speed. Yet in the way I have indicated the cancer of a very dangerous habit has been allowed to grow into the American system of managing trains. This wrong interpretation of the word caution by enginemen and others has without a shadow of doubt during the past few years cost the corporations thousands upon thousands of dollars and multitudes of human lives. For if railroad