Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/661



The causes of accident beyond the control of passengers are,— Collision by opposition, Collision by overtaking, Derailment by switches misplaced, Derailment by obstacles on the track, Breakage of machinery, Failure of bridges, Fire, Explosion. Those causes which are aggravated by fast travelling are the first, second, fifth, and sixth. The effects of all are worse at high than at low velocities.

The proportion of accidents due to each of these causes, taken at random from one hundred cases on English roads, (American reports do not detail such information with accuracy,) were,— Collision            56     56 Breakage of machinery 18    18 Failure of road      14     14

Misplaced switches           5 Obstacles on rails           6 Boiler explosions            1 __   ____                        88    100 Eighty-eight per cent. being from those causes which are aggravated by increase of speed; and if we suppose the amount of aggravation to augment as the speed, the danger of travelling is eighty-eight per cent. greater by a fast than by a slow train.

These are the direct evils of high speeds; there are also indirect evils, which are full as bad.

All trains in motion at the same time, within a certain distance of the express, must be kept waiting, with steam up, or driven at extra velocities to keep out of the way.

Where the time-table is so arranged as to call for speed nearly equal to the full capacity of the engine, it is very obvious that the risks of failure in "making time" must be much greater than at reduced rates; and when they do occur, the efforts made to gain the time must be correspondingly greater and uncertain. A single example will be sufficient to show this.

A train, whose prescribed rate of speed is thirty miles per hour, having lost five minutes of time, and being required to gain it in order to meet and pass an opposing train at a station ten miles distant, must necessarily increase its speed to forty miles per hour; and a train, whose prescribed rate of speed is forty miles per hour, under similar circumstances, must increase its speed to sixty miles per hour. In the former case it would probably be accomplished, whilst in the latter it would more probably result in failure,—or, if successful, it would be so at fearful risk of accident.

However true it may be that many of our large roads are well, some of them admirably, managed, it is none the less a fact that the greater portion are directed in a manner far from satisfactory,—many, indeed, being subjected to the combined influence of ignorance and recklessness.

Many people wonder at the bad financial state of the American railroads; the wonder is, to those who understand the way in which they are managed, that they should be worth anything at all. It is useless to disguise the fact, says a writer in one of our railroad-papers, that the great body of our railroad-directors are entirely unfit for their position. They are, personally, a very respectable class of men, (Schuylerisms and Tuckermanisms excepted,) —men who, after having passed through their active business-lives successfully, and after retirement, are, in the minds of some, eminently fitted to adorn a director's chair. Never was there a greater mistake. What is wanted for a railway-director is an active, clear-headed man, who has not outlived his term of activity. We want railway-directors who know how to reduce the operating-expenses per mile, and not men who oppose their bigoted ignorance to everything like change or improvement, who can see no difference b