SPEED RECORDERS ON TRAINS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 72, 21 September 1912, Page 12

SPEED RECORDERS ON TRAINS

A suggestion that the speed of express trains round curves at the end of long gradients should be recorded by instruments or speed recorders placed on the engines, so that drivers could be told when they exceeded the authorised speedy ia made by the British expert, Colonel Druitt, in his report on the Hebden bridge disaster of 21st June. A Lancashire and Yorkshire express left the rails at Charleqtown curve, near Hebden bridge, witl» the result that four passengers -were killed and over sixty, people were injured. Colonel Druitt attributed the disaster to the train being drawn round the curve at too high a speed for the particular type of heavy tank engine employed. Afc this curve, the report states, thefe is a speed restriction of forty-five miles an hour, and Colonel Druitt, remarking that "it is evident that this speed restriction of forty-five miles an hour, ia constantly exceeded," suggests the use of recording instruments, so that drivers can be taught what a speed of forty-five miles an hour and other speeds really are, as it must be difficult for them to discriminate between such speeds as forty-five, fifty, and fifty-five miles an hour, especially on good roads and on steep gradients.