20 Railway Accidents. (January, 
The means of safety which the accidents occurring last 
year show to be required, are thus given in the last General 
Report to the Board of Trade :— 
1. The judicious sele¢tion, training, and supervision of 
officers and servants, and the preservation of good dis- 
cipline. 
2. Maintenance in high condition of the permanent way. 
3. Good design, construction, and material of axles. 
4. The application of tyre fastenings which will prevent 
the tyres from flying off the wheels in the event of fracture. 
5. Improved coupling of vehicles in trains. 
6. Signal and point arrangements with modern improve- 
ments, including concentration and interlocking of the signal 
and point levers, and locking-bolts and locking-bars for 
facing points. 
7. Safety points to goods or siding connections with pas- 
senger lines. 
8. Increased use of the telegraph, with block-telegraph 
systems for securing intervals of space instead of illusory 
intervals of time only between trains. 
g. Sufficient siding accommodation for the collection, 
distribution, and working of goods traffic, so that goods 
trains may be shunted and marshalled independently, and 
kept out of the way of passenger trains, and may not en- 
cumber and endanger the traffic on the main lines. 
10. Continuous breaks, to be worked by the engine-drivers 
as well as the guards, as occasion may require. 
We propose to consider these several means for providing 
increased security to railway traffic under the following 
headings, viz.—1. Efficiency of Staff. 2. Maintenance of 
Permanent Way. 3. Maintenance of Rolling Stock. 
4. Signals and Points. 5. Telegraph, and the Block 
System. 6. Siding Accommodation. 7. Break Power. 
1. Efficiency of Staff.—It will be readily understood that, 
all mechanical appliances for ensuring safety being perfect, 
the efficiency, both as regards strength of establishment 
and individual intelligence, on the part of the railway staff 
is yet necessary in order to secure freedom from accident 
and danger. Even under the most perfect organisation, 
however, the fallibility of human nature must ever be a bar 
to the attainment of absolute security, but the risk may be 
lessened to the last practical limit by the maintenance of a 
fully efficient staff, and the stri€t enforcement of all regu- 
lations laid down for their guidance. In a paper on “ Rail- 
way Accidents” read before the Institution of Civil Engineers 
as far back as April, 1862, Mr. James Brunlees, the author, 
