THE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18168, 14 August 1922, Page 6

THE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

The most striking thing about Friday night's railway accident is the exceedingly fortunate circumstance that nobody was hurt. Unmistakably the factors of an ugly disaster were present. Given a heavily laden express train running at high speed, at night, and an obstruction on the line sufficient to deflect the engine from the permanent way, arid the situation is clearly unsafe for human liie. There is reason to be thankful that so little that matters happened, but if we are content to be thankful and take no lesson from the incident it is likely to be duplicated with more serious consequences. The cause of the accident is simplicity itself. Cattle were allowed to stray on to the line. The idea of always having a luggage van in front of the passenger cars may bring sortie comfort to those behind, but it suggests a possibility of accident, and it should be the business of railway management to exclude such possibilities, not to provide a shockreceiver when they come. Moreover, to rely on the buffer car is to ignore the presence of the engine crew, who are entitled to every protection the service can give them. They are certainly entitled, as the passengers are entitled, to be protected from the danger of wandering cattle. On lines that are used only in daylight stray cattle may not matter much, but on lines where night trains travel at great speed the danger has been made very clear, and every possible step should now be taken to see that fences bordering such lines are made cattleproof and that the regulations bearing on the closing of gates are strictly enforced. There is a classic story, as old as the railway locomotive, about a cow on a railway line and the risks involved —to the cow. But Stephenson lived a century ago. His trains did not run in the dark at 45 miles an hour. Nowadays there is very real danger to the train and its freight as well as to the cow.