Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 244, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1913 — MATTER RESTS WITH PUBLIC [ARTICLE]

MATTER RESTS WITH PUBLIC

8o Long as Fast Travel Is Insist'd on. Just 8o Long Will Train Speed Be Maintained. The public safety commission of the United States some time ago took up. the question of train speed afid brake efficiency and showed that at every mile of speed above fifty the difficulty of stopping increased rapidly. Now, Mr. George Westinghouse, inventor of the Westinghouse brake, says that at 60 miles a train can be stopped at 1,100 feet; but “when emergency brakes are set upon a train running 80 miles an hour, ,that train is still running at 60 miles 1,100 feet from the point of application.” The Stamford wreck showed how faulty brakes may complicate matters. In the coroner’s test run a train going 60 miles an hour could not be stopped for 2,296 feet; and the coroner’s report recommended that all distant signals should be at least 2,500 feet from the home signal. The mere demand for steel cars obscures the chief point at issue. “All engineers,” said the Stamford engineer, “try to go as fast as they can when they are making up time.” If the public wish to make traveling by rail safer than It is at the present time, some limitation of the maximum speed of trains should be insisted upon. But it must be admitted that it would be a matter o# great difficulty to fix any rate of speed to suitall travelers, living as we do In the age of speed, when everybody is willing to take risks to "get there.” —Montreal Herald.