ARBORICULTURE. 



273 



In twelve years this will produce 20,- 

 000,000 ties, almost enough at one cut- 

 ting to tie this entire railway system. 



John P. Brown. 



STEEL TIE'S DOOM IN FLYER 

 WRECK. 



DERAILMENT OF 18-HOUR TRAIN BEUEVED 

 TO HAVE SETTLED ITS ADAPTABILITY — 

 TWISTED LIKE STRAWS — PENNSYL- 

 VANIA ORDERS WOOD USED IN REPAIR- 

 ING THE TORN-UP TRACK. 



(The Chicago Tribune, Monday, Feb. 25, 1907.) 

 Although the Pennsylvania Railroad 

 continues to insist, in its statements for 

 the public, that the wreck of the 

 eightecn-hour flyer near Johnstown, on 

 Friday night, was caused by a broken 

 brake hanger, the opinion is almost 

 firmly fixed in railroad circles that the 

 steel ties were to blame. 



Railroad men who examined the dam- 

 age to the roadbed assert this. So does 

 the conductor of the flyer. And that the 

 company itself leans to the same view is 

 shown by the fact that it has demanded 

 that the Carnegie Company make good 

 on its claims for the new tie. 



Still another indicatioii that the Penn- 

 sylvania ofificials, far from believing the 

 wreck was an act of Providence, as they 

 profess in public, privately blame the 

 ties is the fact that Conductor M. W. 

 Forbes of the flyer yesterday reported 

 the cause as follows : 



"Cause of wreck, spreading rails." 

 This message was wired to Pittsburg 

 and Philadelphia headquarters from a 

 little signal tower on the mountainside, 

 near the scene of the crash. It was in- 

 advertently allowed to become public. 



SEE FINISH OF STEEL TIE. 

 It is believed that the wreck of the 



flyer signals the passing of the steel tie, 

 yet only in the experimental stage. Its 

 use by the Pennsylvania was at the so- 

 licitation of the makers. The company 

 consented to try the ties on some of its 

 heavy mountain grades. Mineral Point 

 Curve, known as the most dangerous on 

 the mountain, was one of those so 

 equipped. But the bolts by which the 

 heavy rails were attached to the ties 

 would not hold the heavy flyer at its 

 speed of perhaps a mile a minute. 



That the railroad people are more 

 than satisfied that the steel ties were re- 

 sponsible for the wreck was shown by 

 orders which came as soon as repairs be- 

 gan on the track to use wood ties wher- 

 ever they could be gotten — this in spite 

 of the fact that there was piled on the 

 mountain grade, within easy reach oi the 

 workmen, enough steel ties to have fitted 

 up the track again. 



The Carnegie Steel Company, which 

 furnished the ties, sent men tO' the scene 

 to see what could be done. It is under- 

 stood that a hard fight will be made to 

 have the blame placed on something else 

 than the tie. 



The story given out by the railroad 

 people that a rod on the engine broke 

 and snapped a rail, or that a brake beam 

 broke, does not seem to hold good, as 

 neither the engine nor the car on which 

 it is said the accident occurred left the 

 rails. 



TIES BENT LIKE STRAWS. 



A glance at the wreck, this evening, 

 more than forty hours after it occurred, 

 shows that the damage wrought by the 

 steel ties was beyond computation. Most 

 of them were bent and twisted like 

 straws, many of them still holding the 

 iron clamp from which the lOO-pound 

 rail had been torn. 



The wav in which the ties and rails 



