Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1890 — A LITTLE RIM OF BTEEL. [ARTICLE]

A LITTLE RIM OF BTEEL.

(All There Is Between a Railroad Passenger and JEterntty. if '+ ~ Tsnsss City Star. I “i’ll tell you what it is," remarked ; j#B old railroad man to-day. * ‘it used to jbe that they couldn’t turn a wheel any too fast for me, bul it’s different now. The way these fellows run nowadays 'makes my hair stand on end. We ;used to think that twenty-five orthirtv •miles an hour was fast running. People were just as well satisfied, if not 'more so, than now, and there weren’t so many accidents. Those days when Jiman got on the ground there was some chance of his getting away alive, but when you touch ground on one of these fast trains now you’re mighty liable to stay there. People are getting to look on a mile a minute as a ieommon thing, afid are just howling fmad at a road that doesn’t make it. (They never Btop to think of the dnniger. All they think about is getting to their destination, “Why, when I stop and think of •being whirled across the country fifty ior sixty miles an hour, down hills and. mround curves, with only an inch and a half of iron between me and eternity, jl get sb scared I swear never to get on •a coach again. W'hat do I mean by an •inch and a half of iron? Well, you •know what a passenger coach is, don’t you? You know how they are built. A coach is a pretty solid thing nowadays, and to look at one a person would think they were pretty safe, but that’s because you don’t know anything about it. The coach itself is allright as far as it goes, but it’s the wheels. Did you ever look at the wheels? Ilf you did you may have noticed how ■they’re made. A. good size, and ibroad enough and heavy enough, and with a tire of the finest kind of steel. •But on the inside of the tire you see a sort of rim or flange. That flange is about an inch and a half thick and about the same depth. It doesn’t look •as if it amounted to much, that little piece of steel, but that’s just what the |lives of all the passengers depend upion. That flange keeps the wheel to tthe rail and keeps the coach from running of the track. r “Well, now, when the train is going •fifty miles an hour around a curve you Beehow much depends upon that flange. The whole weight and speed of the train are against that flange on one wide, the outside curve, and it is all 'that keeps the coach from whirling •from the track. Suppose the flange broke, or as is often the case, was worn down and been missed by the car inspector. The chances are ten to one that the flange couldn’t hold, but would climb the rail and there’d be another accident. The reporters •would be told the rails spread or something of that kind, and no one but the •company would know what caused the .accident. “There are a good many accidents that happen that way, but it doesn’t •appear to be any of the public’s business. As a general rule a coach wheel is watched mighty closely, and the minute a flange begins to wear •new ones are put on, but many a time an inspector will miss a wheel, and then the chances are big that there’ll be an accident. ’’