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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 1913)
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, rORTLAyP, OCTOBER 5, 1913- Prf?vorliin(rbcli Z3 -V- -J- a:?5' T ' .v. ' WHAT have the railroads of the country done during the past generation toward promoting the safe transportation of their pas sengers? This, the most vital ques tion of railroading from the viewpoint of the everyday man. has two widely variant answers: First, astoundlngly much Second, astoundlngly little. And yet these two contradictory an swers are both correct. Just as the roads have gone to amus ing lengths in the expenditure of en ergy and money to provide for safety In speed and comfort and special pro tection against derailment, so on the other hand, they hav. woefully neg lected the essential provisions against collisions. For more than " yea" there has been an mple provision against this source of accident ready at hand, through the block system a system that apart from ,nem negligence would have avoided almost every collision accident in the past 40 years, according to the Interstate Com merce Commission experts. There are about a quarter of a mil lion miles of railroad in the UiiUk1 States, yet of this less than one-third is today equipped with th. block sys tem. And this in spite of the fact that Its efficacy against accidents by collision has not only been recognised the leading rauroaa a meal far better than me one usually enjoys. And all this time he has been flying across the United States at the rate of 60 miles an hour! Thus much for luxury. And. also. In providing against that twin menace of collisions, the derailment running off the track, as It's generally called the railroads have been lavish to an extent equally wide-pocketed. No expense has been beyond the purses and pow ers of the management. cvw where the provision in this respect is made for the speed of the trains. For speed, during the last 0 years, has become an indispensable requisite In the fierce competition for the annual one billion passengers of the nation. One is the keeping 01 mem . i Intervals of time; the other Dy inter vals of space. The first factor is me i which the old method of running trains was operated, imi wo. ." -j ------ upon which trains were run m " fancy of railroading, before the asslst- ance or teiegrapn u " other electrlo aids was possible. When railroad trains were first coming In common use In the lornee. still Importuning Congress for a I25.000 appropriation to prove the feasibility of sending a message over a wire by electricity. by men of the country, but tne inwru "'"" Commission as well has tor year trying to hammer it into the "fious managements that an adoption o f the system by all the roads was the only rational and practical remedy for ac cidents by collisions. Before going into the etaUsof the block system as the most admirable means yet devised to guard against all collision accidents, observe first the marvelous advance made In the speea. comfort and safety of P""""1-"; In all other respects except this one great menace of collision; this by way r with the astonishing dis regard and neglect to provide against "fiiliiJ. .. .hown by their failure . .- th hlock svstem. railway travel was lntro- (. th Pullman sleeping car in unties. It was in these 187S. In fact that the Pennsylvania Railroad adopted the block system on some of its New Jer- h. mn that the system is no i-irht fud in snecial railroad cir cles but is as old as the sleeping car nd far older than today's luxurious rarr?h, th. ianlnc: car and the open- ih. wt came demands for luxury and speed. And so, for the last a -. tut asneciallv within the - in 'th railroads have addressed their energies to providing luxurious and rapid methods of travel In a style ii the maglo of the "Arabian Nights." On the same railroad where 40 years ago the traveler Joggled bumpingly along through the sleepless night in a h.OT-imari coach, and roused i t a innii. smoky day ot . .i v,.t m relieved by a hasty 20 minutes for breakfast that guaranteed dyspepsia, he now, after a comfortable night in a boudoir car, may wake to a ,....i. hath followed by a dainty and thorough dolling up at the hands of experts. He strolls leisurely, morn ing paper from the nearest city in v.j mm n nalatlal dining-car to Accordingly, as the railway train It self was the speediest thing, there was no way of anticipating It by signals .h.a1 Therefore, the time-inxervai was adopted as the metnoa oi monH trains. It was, in practical uinuu. about like this: A train was sent out rrom a nnint at a. certain nour ana mumm. The speed ot tne train wm supposed to be known Dy tne rtienatcher. He allowed a certain time sufficient to permit that train to get well out of the way before he dis- .h.j atinthr train over the same v"-1-""" h. track in the same mrecuuu. aL started this second train and, in the old days, trusted to luck that no accl t delav the first one so as to stop It and have tne secona cuu. crashing In upon It. After the Invention of the telegraph, the system of time Interval was much i, yw the communication be- A train dispatcher, .. tM out train xmo. i. waitlna- for. say. 10 minutes and then sending out train No. 2 on Its neeis. would then wait until he had heard t.i.a-ranh from the first station down the line some 10 miles for news .v.. tw.t train. Probably, likewise. he would wait for news of the second train. In his cfflce was a chart on which the position of each train was arrnrafelv represented. dobkuiuo this train position was by pegs pins, sometimes by strings hung i r.i..u in a vertical chart. At all events, the train dispatcher dl- ..a mnvamA-nt of every train reoiou l o ..." by telegraph and by the time they ought to take to run a given distance. irv,rff movement aim uguua was Immediately directed froi But the whole system was based a train taking a certain time to . ..rtnln distance: and therein wo. th. weakness of the system. For, . . train hu started from a sta- tt nr atlV CRU18. It had to StOD, there was always Imminent danger of Provisions were made against this by trict orders that the Instant a train halted from any cause a flagman should be dispatched to a sufficient distance to the rear to enable him to halt an approaching train. But this rendered every accident to a train on the road a menace to every other train within any appreciable proximity. More, It placed tne saieijr of all trains entirely upon the relia bility of the rear flagman. Not only on his reuaDiiity, uui judgment as to how far he should go back to flag approaching trains. Should anything nappen to man. or should his Judgment be In fault, then .disaster followed. That was tne system ' trains were originally run uvyu. railroads. v.iv. And that is the system uuu " ' " more than nro-uuruj ' --- in the United States are oeing run w- r 10 years the Interstate Commerce Com mission 'has been annually vlorne .u- ..iirn.i to abandon as antiquated. uTisatisfactory and dangerous ' one and everytmnR. In order to hold tne -m rails, these rails themselves "fTT boen Increased two and a half times In weight, and on all lines traveled to any extent the former flimsy dirt be ...tl has srlven place to well tamped rock ballast The curves have been shaken out of the track to the maximum and the -...... tn the minimum. Vestlbuled ral use. offer a sta- wia. e( aww o - a . billty to the train wnicn " without a oorre- inrx-oa a in tne uhbi v- -snapping" a car or two of? the rear of a fast-flying train. Ihstead of a lo"- .nnHriaA ml RCIlOn t7L VMO. has become a soiio. JQ -r eszc? Cj7zsy7 &e?seen SVocZe.7z peeper or on n.a npcniii rt c bva.u. " o.. n anma "lerk-Water urn.in-"Di a " . . . . .n the deadly wooden tresno u e" place to steady steel truss or solid con crete bridges, while the ancient hand brake has been replaced, not only by the air brake, but further supple- -a hit a variety of engine brakes. and, on all well conauciou grade that oners tne u! I t a mnawav has been amply pro vided with safety switches which ren th. runaway question a wholly negligible one. i In direct contrast to all these magi- i ju.innniinti and Improvements, ..rn.i to orevent a fast-moving ...in rnm laavlns- the rails, the pro visions against ccUIslon have been i so neglected so side-tracked that less than a third of the total road mileage has in use the only system that has h..n nnroved by the Interstate Com merce Commission and approved as being the only practical system which nan nrnvnil t collisions. m,.. ataal Pr which is occupying a x.oi nf attention lust now be ...... it waa not nresent In the recent n.nn wreck is not a means of 1 ..ii.o arrident. but merely miti gates the results. The results in this respect have been excellent, but the r a atael car la fatal to a wooden car, which Is shattered under the impact of the neavy meuu xr... .,..t it ha thought by the reader that cnllhilona are more a matter of spectacular accident than of real fa lisions rank equally wnn aBrauuwu... as a source of fatal accidents, me tistics of fatalities from both causes, taken for the last 10 years, show that they are about equal, both as to the number of killed and those merely In jured. But of late years collisions have gained an undesirable superiority over derailments in this respect. Thus, in th. r .ndinar June 80. 1911. the last absolutely authentic report lnclud- j tng all cases, there were 93 passengers killed and SHIi injurea in while for the same period there- were only 4S passengers killed and 2884 in jured by derailments. While there were more aiiireu than collisions during max penoa there being 6605 collisions and 6260 derailments It is to be observed that the number of collisions Is rapidly in creasing. And this Increase is not only in the absolute number of collisions, but also as compared to the number of derailments. a w This is a natural Increase, due to the fact that the passenger traffic of the country Is Increasing at an astonishing rate. A dozen years ago the number of passengers carried annually upon the railroads of the country was less than six hundred million. Two years ago 10 years after It was a billion, that is, one thousand million, an in crease in passenger traffic that was almost double that of the former pe riod. This Increase in tne last oc has been vastly disproportionate to the in.oaa in the railroad mileage, which has Increased barely 10 per cent In that These figures mean, therefore, that the railroads of the country are being pomoelled to haul many more pasBou gers than heretoiore over mo tracks. This means a corresponding increase in the number of trains and a corresponding lessening of the In terval between the running of trains which means a corresponding increase . th. Aarxcrnr nf Collision. And this, in turn, means that the danger to the traveling public from collisions Is dally increasing increas ing with the birth of every child, with the arrival of every immigrant who .m fnmiah additional passengers which will compel the already crowded roads to run more trains in cio proximity and hence in a constan Increasing danger, unless TTniaa the svstem of the block adopted by all the roads In the conn try. What. then, ls'the block system? Tn .vnianntton. let It first be remem bered that the only way to keep trains -nulling- la to keep them apart. That sound! silly, in a measure, but it Is the fundamental Idea In all systems that havo to do with tne running ui high-speed trains with safety. New, there are two great factors in thi. niit nf keening trains apart: In contrast to this time-interval sys t.n. la th. hlock signal. Th. hinoir alsmal system is based upon the spaoe Interval that Is, where th.-. la on absolute interval of track h.tw..n trains, it la impossible for thm tn collide. That also sounds al ..t aiiiv it la so natent and yet, evidently it has not been patent to the management of more than two-thirds of the railroads in the United States. TTnnr th hlock system a. railroad is divided up into a number of blocks or sections and the fundamental principle is this that no train shall enter upon is a block which Is occupied by another train. The following is an excellent sketch of Its essential features as given In a report of the Interstate Commerce Commission: "The term 'block system' is used to designate the method or process where by, through the use of the telegraph, telephone or electric bells, or by auto matic annaratus. eacn train ujjuu . railroad is forbidden to pass a certain point (the entrance ot a diock secuuu until the Last preceding train on the same' track has passed beyond a cer tain point farther on tine ena or uuii block section). No train enters a block except and until Its englneman sees on the signal post an -aii rigni bibud... Without the block system, protec tion frnm rear collisions aepenas uu th. maintenance of a time Interval at stations and on elaborate instructions for the use and maintenance of red flags or lanterns), torpedoes, iubbb. etc., which instructions are onou t .nfnrriL Protection irom nutting cui- llRlnns nenends on the exercise, on the n.-t nf ncintiiun and conductors, of . , l, moat intAiiie.nCA ana udcbuiuk vib"- ance in the observance and execution of intricate rules and written orders, and on the utmost care by the train dispatcher. "The block system was the nrst usea in thi. Miintrv. and as now used on thousands of miles of road that is, the telegraph' block system is very im ple. The agent or operator at a given Btatlon sees that a signal indicating ston- nna for trains In each direction ls displayed so as to be seen by the englneman of any train approaching. And this signal ls displayed continu ously until the operator has been In formed from the next station beyond that the last preceding train on that track has arrived at that station and has either passed or been set off on a .iHina- r.inar of the main iraca. in .t.n aie-nai nit be a very simple de vice, so that, with properly Instructed .tatinn nn.rators. the necessary first noat of thai avatem ls very small." That is all there essentially is to the block system the constant - mainte nance of an Interval of track between iraim and the strict orohibition of any train running In upon that Interval. It may occur to the reader that, under tho old system, tne rauroaos oi wo try got along fairly well for a good manir vun nd hence there is no cry ing need for a universal adoption of the block system now. But there are many conditions making it Imperative that did not obtain In the early days of rallrnadlne:. Said a high official of the Interstate Commerce Commission on this point: "The necessity of the block system a-i-owa more lmoerative with the in crease both In the number and weight of trains. Half a century ago, when two TiaMAnrer trains a day was a lively business for a road, the time-interval vatem waa sufficient; furthermore, the nh ane-inaa and cars of those days, together with the low rate of speed at which they ran, permitted them to stop within a Bhort distance. There fore, in case a train halted between .tations. a flagman had only to go ha,. ir a ahort distance in order to ef fectually flag a train. Today, how .tr.r tha rreat hundred-ton locomo- tiv.a followed bv a dozen heavy sleep t, Mm and running at 60 miles an hoT,. on with difficulty come to tnn under a quarter of a mile if the grade Is against them they can not accomplish even this." The block system is operated by two methods the manual and the auto matic ' In the former there are operators stationed at the end of each block which varies in length, according to h. n.naitv nf traffic, from a mile to six miles and these communicate with I each other by teiegrapn. ieioiiinu other electric signaling appliance, whereby they can Inform each other as to the arrival and departure oi ui In the automatic system tne i8n are displayed, as the word ltselt indi cates, by the passage of the trains in and out of a block. For Instance, if a train is running into diock i. mo wheels of the engine and cars, In pass ing the signals, operate an apparatus which at once displays the "stop" sig nal. This signal remains In evidence until the train passes out of the other end of the block, when., by the breaking of an electric circuit, tne "stop signal at the far end of the block is with drawn and the open signal displayed. It will be seen that, as efficient as the system is. there still remains the nrnhahllltv of the default of the oper ator. To cover this possible error there is an Improved system of block signal now in operation on some roads known as the "manual controlled." This Is ha. an nnon the idea that two men will rarely be negligent at the same time. -Under its working the operator at hioov Ha a for instance, cannot move his signals without the co-operation of the operator in block No. t or No. i, as the case may be. In other words, It t.ir.a two nnarators to move a signal. The great advantage of this system is niain fnr neither man would dare to be negligent when he knew the other was watching him. . Involving this same phase of human nature, there has been some criticism of the automatic block system to this effect: That, while an englneman would be very careful not to run by a signal when he knew there was an operator watching him, he might be given to negligence if there was only the automatic system, aim " such case, run by the danger signal. The answer of the roads using the au tomatic system has been that they em ploy such a high class of englnemen that there is no danger of a dereliction in this respect. Whatever minor criticism may be made on the block system by roads too thrifty to adopt it ls fully met in the last report of the block signal and train control board of the Interstate Commerce Commission of June 29, 1912. ""After five years' further observa tions of the board, the desirability of using the block system as the only reasonably safe method of regulating the movement of railway trains, which has already been set forth by the com mission in several reports, was con firmed." The railroad accidents of the coun try are under the strict Inspection of the Interstate Commerce Commission, whose energies In this behalf are em bodied in W. P. Borland, assistant chief of the safety appliance division. Mr. Borland is a tireless Scotch-American who will never sleep comfortably until he has put a stop to all wrecks. a -, . - tha minor lmorovements that ls coming Into use among some of the Western roads ls the substitution of a green light, as a safety signal. Instead of the regulation white light The rea son for this Innovation ls that, from some cause, the red globe of a danger signal may be broken and thus the exposed white light Inadvertently show a safety signal. If a green light is adopted as the safety light, then the white light of the broken danger sig nal would have no significance. The form of signal aoopiea in m- block system, arter passing mr6 several phases, has at last been uni versally accepted as an arm projecting from an upright post. Formerly there were two other forms oi signaia u. One. a metal disk about 10 Inches In diameter on top or an upngni y' about five feet high set to the right of the track. When set at -stop, in. disk was at right angles to mo thus being plain to an approaching englneman. For an open block, it was turned a quarter circle, thus present ing its edge to the englneman. This. known as tne "oanjo o'l"'"'. " found most unsatisfactory by the In terstate Commerce Commission, owing to the fact that it was very small and not directly in the englneman's line of vision; hence. It might easily be over looked by him. In the rattling, roaring whirl of a swiftly passing train. This signal, commonly known as the "banjo" signal, by reason of Its shape, was dependent for Its working upon a tot of ninnk-work mechanism, which brought It into disrepute with both of ficials and employes, it wm "' nal that la alleged by some to be re sponsible for the last wreck at Wal llngford on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. A modification of this was a disk, set in a glass case like the banjo signal, but whicUyln stead of turning Its edge to the engine man, swerved to one side when It in dicated a clear track. This was sub ject t tne same defects as the banjo signal, claim the Commission's ex pertSk The one great method of using the block signal which has been approved by reason and the experience of years a the semaphore. This means of sig naling consists, in tne principal pun ui an arm generally about four feet long and six Inches wide set either on a post near the track or. when there are several tracks and several arms, on an overhead bridge above the tracks. The signals are Indicated by the posi tion of this arm, which is pivoted at one end. , The principal signal of danger, or "stop," ls Indicated by the position of this arm thrust out horizontally across the track. The signal for a clear block ls generally a position of the arm at an angle of 46 degrees below the hori zontal. The main Idea of the horizontal arm Is that almost everything with any In telligence would comprehend that an arm thrust out horizontally across the track meant "stopl" Its advantage in this respect over the small 10-lnch disk of a banjo signal ls too obvious to need discussion. Its supporters claim. There ls also an auxiliary semaphore signal, known as the "distant" signal. The object of this, which is generally placed about 1000 or 2000 feet from the "home" or station signal, ls to indicate to the englneman of a heavy train what the home signal Is likely to be. If the distant Signal onunra he does not stop, but slows up Thus, "stop. (Concluded on Pace S.) UMPIRE another train colliding In th. rear, tallty to tn. traveling . . ; XTX T" C? TT5 f-T ATsJK" Q'D AY TELLS WHY HIS IS MOST THANKLESS JOB 'A . . : T, h. .... h. cam other business; the manager of tl BY HANK O'DAY. IT'S the most thankless position tn the United States, this being an um pire. There are altogether too many people to satisfy, and by the end of the game you're sure to have sev eral .hundred people ready to shoot you. , . The people expect every umpire to make every decision correctly, and It can't be done. A man behind the Bat h. t make at least 200 decisions in a game, and any man who can do that pretty nearly every day for six months without making a mistake Isn't fit to ba an umpire. He Isn't human. Don't think from that that the um pires make a lot of errors. Tney don't I'm willing to bet that there aren't six major league games lost a year on account of the umpire's de cision. But you can't convince people of that Not if you tried all your life. These grandstand audiences think they know it all. when as a matter of fact there's no possibility of their telling Just what happened. They don't even make up their own minds fairly on what they see. They take the lead from the attitude of the players. Lord, it's funny 1 Let a man ha oaiiad out at second on a close deci sion, and let him make a bluff as If he were safe and start to scrap with the umpire, and the crowd will immediately back him up and start hooting th. um- P'lt" a crime to let fellows like that get away with it I know a lot of col lege-bred men in the game, and they're all right; they only lack one thing the Lord be praised and that's aggres siveness. What's aggressiveness 7 Why. aggressiveness is kicking at every thing; always fighting with tho umpire and making a hit with th. audience. That's the way a lot of the fellows keep their Jobs, I think. They get so much notoriety and so many press notices out of their alleged aggressiveness, that It's almost as good as If they were at tractions because they were star ball players. tio t remember any particularly In teresting gameT What do I know about the game? All I am interested in is th. niav and I only care about that because It's up to me to make the de- No and I aon i anow, ohubi, was th. hardest gam. I ever cislon. which umpired. Any man who says ne can call time on the hardest game he ever umpired is wasting- conversation They're air hard. There are umpires and umpires, though. Any man who thinks that he can become a good umpire has another think coming. There have been lots of men that thought they were the whole shooting match while they were talking- about it but when they got out on the field to do real umpiring they hadn't any place to get off. It takes natural ability to be a good one, and I don't exactly know what that natural ability ls. I think it's knowing how to handle the players as much as anything else. You've got to know Just how to take their antics. Just how to handle them Its th. sam. way as in u other business; the manager oi mo team has to drive some oi me men, and so I hav. to drlv. them In Just the right way, too. You've got to have nerve, of course. You've got to hav. that In whatever you do, though. But you don't have to hav. nerves. You can't afford to. I suppose a man new to the umpiring game does get a littl. flustered when the crowd begins to hoot and Jeer him. But after a while he'll find his disposition will become absolutely .teady. The cat-calls and all that sort of thing haven't any effect on me. I'm so used to them that I think I'd miss em if they weren't there. I should worry about their opinions! I'm doing work, and I do It nonewj, " that's all there is to ix. i m no j lng for thanks. 71 0iSV i rti . 7 1 WNZSPl sK' ZC 'Vfll' ,-. ' . V"l X right a hMWA .JsL jmri mmr mm. . tr Iff LH ---' ' M..olllMOTaalwggan. -?ZX.Tn 'JT.'IJ.aft.., .TWaMnro.l.n. "It Takes Natural Ability.' 'Always Fighting; with tho Umpire. The Grandstand Audiences Think They Know It AIL Makes a Bluff as if He Were Safe." Cat-Calls Don't Affect Him.
