314 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



RECENT RAILROAD DISASTERS. 



By LAFAYETTE C. LOOMIS. 



THE frequency and the frightful fatality of recent railroad 

 disasters have come to be most appalling. Among the more 

 prominent causes put forth in explanation or in extenuation is 

 that of the overtaxed and exhausted condition of the trainmen. 

 This excuse, while reluctantly accepted in part by the public, is 

 little better, however, than none at all, as, so far as it is valid, 

 it simply transfers the responsibility from the trainmen to the 

 officers, and substitutes criminal mismanagement for criminal 

 carelessness. 



But this statement by no means meets the case. 



Among some of the most sanguinary that come to my mind 

 at this moment the calamity of the Wabash, the Chester Bridge, 

 the two on Long Island, and not long since at Yonkers, at Ger- 

 mantown, and near Dedham with none of these had fatigue 

 anything whatever to do. The men responsible for these calami- 

 ties were comparatively or altogether fresh. 



That the men forgot, or were careless, or inattentive, or neg- 

 lectful, is true ; but that in these and in many other cases, the 

 men were overtaxed and exhausted is not true. Some other and 

 more comprehensive cause of these oft-recurring calamities must 

 be sought. 



The science of railroad transportation, to whatever extent it 

 has advanced, has been almost wholly the result of experiment 

 rather than of theory. From first to last the theories, for the 

 most part, have proved very wide of the actual results. Nor is 

 this a matter of surprise when we consider what a revolution the 

 locomotive wrought among mankind. 



As the successor of the stagecoach, steam travel was inaugu- 

 rated upon the general principles which that earlier mode of 

 travel had evolved from long years of experience. The steam 

 road in all its multitudinous appendages was cast to meet certain 

 supposed requirements as to speed and volume of traffic. The 

 roadbed, ties, rails, engines, and cars had all been calculated to 

 meet a certain assumed pressure, strain, wear and tear. Such, how- 

 ever, was the almost immediate demand for larger facilities, that 

 hardly had the various appliances of the road become adjusted to 

 each other and their new conditions, before the extension and en- 

 largement of the road in all its capacities had become imperative. 



It was not difficult to construct an engine with greater steam 

 capacity, and hence greater power and speed ; but what a series 

 of calamities followed! The roadbed, the ties, the rails, the 

 wheels, were all disproportionate and inadequate. 



