RAILWAY ACCIDENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 



1. All travelling attended with danger. 2. Awful disasters incidental to 

 railway travelling. 3. Is railway travelling, however, really more 

 dangerous? 4. Not practically so considered. 5. The real amount 

 of danger may be calculated. 6. Utility of such a calculation. 

 7. Imperfections of official reports. 8. Necessary to compare acci- 

 dents with total amount of travelling. 9. Example illustrating this. 

 10. Necessary data given in official reports. 11. Reports of 1847-8 

 and 1850-1. 12. Total mileage of passengers in these intervals. 13. 

 Computation of the risk to life and limb in a journey of given length. 

 14. Tabular statement. 15. Analysis of its results. 16. Classifi- 

 cation of accidents in relation to their causes. 17. The greatest 

 disasters arise from imprudence. 18. Accidents to railway servants. 

 19. No progress observable in railway safety. 20. Accidents on 

 foreign railways Risk on Belgian lines. 21. Accidents on French 

 railways. 22. Contrasted with accidents by stage coaches in and near 

 Paris. 23. Frequent departures, great expedition, and numerous 

 stoppages create danger of collision. 24. Liability to collision with 

 express trains. 25. Accidents by escaping rails. 26. Neglect of 

 points and switches. 27. Analytical table of proportion of causes of 

 accident in 100 cases. 28. Number of brakes. 29. Greater number 

 of brakes necessary with fast trains. 30. Danger of bringing trains 

 to rest too suddenly. 31. Danger of reversing action of engine. 

 32. Fog signals. 33. Consequences of collision aggravated by manner 

 of connecting vehicles. 34. Derailment of carriages. 



1. WHATEVER maybe the agency by which personal locomotion 

 is produced, it has always been attended wWi more or less 

 danger to life and limb. If one age or country be compared 

 LARDNER'S MUSEUM OF SCIENCE. M 161 



No. 9 



