Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1916 — Wind-Swept Railroad. [ARTICLE]

Wind-Swept Railroad.

Early in June a windstorm of such extraordinaryviolenceswept-over eon* tral Illinois that it blew the ChicagoSt. Louis Midnight special—five cars and a locomotive —off the track. The derailment of trains on’standard-gauge tracks by winds is most unusual, although it is not uncommon in the case of light, narrow-gauge roads. Symons’ Meteorological Magazine tells of a railroad that runs for 36 miles along the Atlantic coast of Ireland, and that is a part of the West Glare railroad system. Probably nd other railroad in the British Isles is exposed to such tremendous Prior to 1909 as many as five trains had been blown oft the tracks and demolished, although fortunately without loss of life. ' In 1909 the line was equipped With a pressure tube anemometer, or wind gauge, with an electrical attachment that gives two warnings in the station master’s house at Qullty: the first when the velocity of the wind reaches 65 miles an hour, the second when it reaches 85 miles an hour. At the first warning. 2.400 pounds of movable ballast, kept for the purpose at every station, is placed on each vehicle of every train. When the second signal comes, all trains are stopped until the storm abates. Since the apparatus was Installed, in December, IftX). there has been only one derailment by the wind, and that was caused by some one’s deliberately disregarding iSie signals.—Youth’s Companion.