Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 162, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1912 — AWFUL TOLL OF RAIL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AWFUL TOLL OF RAIL

NEARLY 3,000 KILLED AND 40AW0 INQUIRED IN QUARTER. Alarming Increase In Number of A©raitments and 550 Miacellaneoua Accidents in Three Months. The Interstate railroad companies duly reported to the interstate iota-

merce commission their last year’s accidents, as the act of congress requires them to do. In “Accident Bulletin No. 38” we get a boildown of the reports, with the commission’s annotations and other interesting * matter. Of

course, being a federal board, the commission has nothing to do with accidents occurring on interstate railroads, and the law excuses the interstate ones from reporting any accident to a man in their employ if he’s fit for work within three days after his injury, In the last quarter of 1910, the number of persons killed on the rights-of-way of the interstate railroads was 2,766, and the number hurt was 40,321. Train accidents were responsible for 248 of the deaths and 3,729 of the injuries. There were 1,834 collisions in the three months, and 1,532 derailments, -andL 550 “miscellaneous” accidents —boiler explosions and such. Ninety-six passengers, postal clerks, express messengers, newsboys, etc., were killed in the accidents —30 or them in the train accidents- —and 3,348 were hurt. Of the unlucky railroad servants, 201 were killed in train accidents, 935 in bridge accidents, etc., 60 while coupling cars, and 107 in “Industrial” accidents; the number hurt in the train accidents was 2,054, and in all the accidents, 34,276. The number of tramps, other trespassers and casual careless citizens killed in the three months was 1,628, and the number hurt was 2,699. Of the quarter’s collisions, 212 were of the “butting” kind, 405 of the “rear end” kind, 102 were caused by train breaking in two, and 1,115 are classed as “miscellaneous” —whatever that means. The report as to the quarter’s derailments is that 15 of them were caused by “malicious” obstructions on the track, 58 by “unforeseen” obstructions, 108 by negligence of trainmen, signalmen, etc., 297 by defects of roadway, etc., and 709 by defects of equipment. Somebody was responsible, of course, for every one of these defects. The report leaves 345 of the derailments unexplained; they were “miscellaneous.” The interstate electric railways reported 70 accidents in the three months, 69 of them train accidents. In these, 42. passengers and 72 other persons lost their lives. 673 passengers and 358 other persons were hurt One of the accidents was a head-on collision of interurban cars, each running at about 35 miles an hour. A motorman forgot his orders in that instance, and the conductor inferred that the orders must (or might) have been changed. “The conductor started toward the front of the car to inquire,” we are told; “he was stopped, however, by a passenger who askedhim a question, and before he had fin> ished talking with the passenger the collision occurred.”