WOODEX CARS KEMAINED OX TOE TRACK WHILE STEEI. CARS W EXT OFF 



, f 



The wreck shown in this picture occurred at Warriors Ridge. Ta.. Feb. 16. 1912. The only wooden coaches in the train stuck to the 

 track, while nine steel cars went into the ditch, costing five lives and the injur.r of many persons. The element o£ "greater safety" in the steel car 

 is not apparent in this situation. ' 



Builders do not speeiall.v provide for that emergency — when the acci- 

 dent comes the car must take care of itself. Here is where it might 

 be supposed the steel car has all the advantage over wood — for some 

 people suppose that steel will stand almost anything. So it will, if 

 enough steel is used, but that is exactly the weak point in a metal 

 car. Under blow, twist, strain and concussion metal may fail where 

 wood will stand. Steel is nine or ten times as heavy as wood, and the 

 car is onl.y about twenty per cent heavier. Therefore, the steel shell, 

 bars and beams of which the ear is made are only about one-eighth or 

 one-ninth as thick as eorrespoiiding parts in the wooden car, and 

 when the impact comes ^e Bi«al may fail sooner than the wood. 

 Experience in wrecks shows that such is often the ease. Woodet' cars 

 have stood where steel has crumpled. 



This experience is not confined to cars. Frames of aeroplanes are 

 always of wood, because, weight for weight, wood is stronger than 

 steel, particularly when wood's elasticity is taken into account. The 

 same is' tune in making some types of folding canvas boats. .'The 

 frames are of wood, because, weight for weight, it will stand more than 

 steel. Shuttles used by weavers prove the same thing. The world is 

 being searched for shuttlewoods. wliile steel is cheap and plentiful. 

 Steel has been tried, but if thin enough to bring it within the requis^e 

 weight limit, it buckles under the blows of the pickersticks; but 

 wood stands. It is the same with cars. Enough steel could be put m 

 the construction of cars to make them strong enough to stand wrecks,-. 

 but they would be too heavy to haul. As it is now, a serious complaint 

 against them is their weight. They are now too heavy and yet.ljave 

 not enough metal in their construction to make them as strong as 

 wood in resisting shocks and twists. 



A study of some of the accompanying illustrations will clearly bring 

 out the point that steel. cars, under certain kinds of impact, will not 

 resist like Vfood, Most of these illustrations have apjieared in Hard- 

 wood Eecord before. They were clinchers in a series of articles 

 which appeared in these columns last year and the year before, when 

 the steel car interests were attacking the wooden car. Now that the 

 same attack is on again, and the steel car is being pushed forward, 

 to a position which it has not yet qualified to fill, the same pictures 

 strike straight to the point, and fitly illustrate additional evidence that 

 the metal car must serve on probation a while longer before it can 

 take the place of the tried and proved wooden car. 



Increased safety is the most persistent claim made for the metal car. 

 It has been shown that greater safety has not been demonstrated for 

 it in the ordinary wreck when it leaves the -track, and goes over an 

 embankment. There is another kind of accident, and most dreaded 

 of all; it is the collision when two trains meet on the same track, or 

 one train runs into the rear of another. It is then that the deadly 

 telescoping occurs. The impact drives one car into and through an- 

 other. The most appalling fatalities occur in accidents of that 

 character. 



It is to the point to inquire into the behavior of the steel car in 

 such an accident. It has been shown again and again that it is as 

 liable to be telescoped as the wooden ear. It is no safer, and some 

 believe that it is not as safe. 



ONE STEEL CAR TELESCOPED AXOTHER 



This picture is another view of the wreck at Odessa,. Minn. A sleeping 

 car tore one-third ot the way through a diner, and eleven persons were 

 killed. 



— 2<l — 



