Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1914 — TRAGEDIES ALONG THE LINE [ARTICLE]

TRAGEDIES ALONG THE LINE

Seems to Be • Hard Thing to Educate the Public to Avoid Railroad Dangers.

The generation that remembers the beginning of the railroad has nearly passed away, but a younger one easily recalls the time when the railroad was a fascinating plaything as well as a means of transportation. To those |n the country, and to many in the city it was a convenient highway, a short cut “to the depot*’ or betwen points. The inhabitants used to gather at it to see the trains go by. The children used hut their crossed pins on the rails arid wait till a train went by to get their' “scissors.’’ They used to flatten cents by letting the trains go over them. They used the railroad in scores of ways as a plaything. Then the tramp found this convenient highway; indeed, it is even suspected that the railroad had much to do with making the tramp. He tramped its ties by day, he camped by its side at night. These are a few of the side ways in which the railroad was used. That it was not thus used in safety, even in its early days, hundreds of tragedies along the lines have testified. But the danger has constantly increased. Doubled and quadrupled tracks, more frequent and swifter trains whose speed made it unsafe even to stand by the side of the tracks when they went by, have steadily intensified danger. Grade crossings haye been replaced by bridges, ties have been raised from the ground and filled between with ballast of rough crushed stone, everything possible has been done to discourage walking on the tracks, and still the killings of trespassers on the rail are annually far in excess of the number killed in train accidents.