3i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In general terms, the brain force in our modern rapid transit, 

 seems incommensurate with the demands laid upon it. 



A fast Atlantic steamer has ordinarily, for fair weather, three 

 or more men on watch, and two officers on the bridge ; and in 

 thick weather often not less than ten or twelve, whose sole busi- 

 ness it is to guard the ship against outside contingencies. 



We start out an express at four times the speed in equally 

 thick weather, under the care and direction of a single man in a 

 few cases, perhaps, with an assistant. 



Let us note the ordinary duties of this man with hundreds of 

 lives in his keeping, plunging into the darkness, storm, snow, and 

 fog at a speed of sixty to ninety miles an hour. 



He is supposed to stand with his hand upon the throttle, look- 

 ing to scan every rod of his fast-flying track, to note every cross- 

 ing, every approaching vehicle, every straying animal, to observe 

 every signal and every switch, while there are beside him in his 

 cab from fifty to seventy-five levers, valves, cocks, gauges, handles, 

 and what not, which he is expected to apply instantly as the 

 exigency may arise, as danger may spring into view, or calamity 

 confront. 



It is said that Wellington, at a critical moment of Waterloo, 

 when a message was brought to him that a certain battalion was 

 without ammunition, failed to respond to the call. Afterward, 

 referring to his failure and to the disaster which resulted to the 

 battalion, he said : " It is true ; but no man can think of every- 

 thing." 



In the heat and stress of battle a man may be pardoned an 

 inability to recollect, even at the cost of human life ; but a system 

 of business that, every hour of the day and night, intrusts the 

 lives and safety of the public to the care and protection of a brain 

 overburdened and distracted, like that of a locomotive engineer, 

 is open to the gravest criticism. 



Nor is it in the duties of the engineer only that this peril 

 abides. The Yonkers disaster, and one of those on Long Island, 

 were from the rear ; the Wabash and the Germantown from the 

 siding. It thus appears that the demands of the modern train are 

 insufficiently met by the intellectual guiding force at all points 

 front, rear, and on the sides. 



The New York World in a recent article approached this ques- 

 tion under the title of "A Psychological Puzzle." Referring to 

 the Wabash switchman, the article says : " What made that brake- 

 man turn the switch and let the express train plunge into the 

 waiting freight ? The accounts all agree that Thompson was a 

 man of experience, a trusted man, and of more than ordinary in- 

 telligence. He had frequently stopped at the same siding to let 

 the same train go by. . . . Why did he do it ? Not to wreck the 



