BLOCK SIGNALLING ON RAILWAYS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13433, 27 March 1907, Page 3

BLOCK SIGNALLING ON RAILWAYS.

ALARMING REVELATIONS IN

AMERICA.

NEW YORK, Jan. 12. Heretofore block signalling has been regarded as the one effective means of preventing the appalling catastrophes which occur with such alarming freouency in this country. Every big accident has been followed by an outcry for legislation making the" installation or block signals cdrnpulsory, • and, indeed, a number of the companies now have these signals over-, all or part of their lines. But the recent smash ax, Terra Cotta, near Washington,- in vhich 53 persons were killed, followed as it has been by some very disconcerting revelations about the careless way in which the signals are operated, has cast a very serious doubt over the infallibility of the block system as it is worked. The system itself is all right, but the rules under which it is supposed to be operated appear to be so flagrantly violated in the endeavour to make the railroads earn big dividends that il has become altogether ineffective. A sensational' statement by James J. Hill, r resident of tbe Northern Pacific RailToa.a\ and one of the two or three greatest figures in the railway industry of* America, served to focus public attention upon this unpleasant feature of the situation. . - "Every tirno I undertake a railroad journey nowadays I wonder whether it is to be my last," said Mr Hill. "The thing has grown to £p uncertain. It i* a fact of knowledge to every railroad man that from two to three trains enter at times into, every block of every system in the country. There is danger in it." .

That statement coming from such a source is alarming, to say the least of it. Presidents of other railway companies deny the truth of Mr Hill's assertion, but one of them admitted that "when engineers upon our liries find themselves confronted with a block stop signal they are permitted, after coming to a, full stop, to proceed 'under control,' as it is termed." The InterState Commerce Commission is making a comprehensive investigation of the working of the block signal system. The smash at Terra Cotta, which precipitated t*his inquiry, was one of the worst in the history of American railroading. In a dark, foggy evening* a train crowded with holiday excursionists was just beginning to start out of the station, when a train of empty cars came dashing down an incline from the rear at the rate of 6£> miles an hour, and smashed into tbe almost stationary passenger train. The latter comprised two large carriages so packed that many people were standing. Both carriages were completely wrecked, the colliding train ploughing clean through the standing and sitting passengers, and carrying some of the wreckage three-quarters of a mile along tbe track, strewing dead bodies and injured men and women along both sides for about half that distance. The butchery of the passengers was frightful. Some were cut in many pieces, and a number were quite unrecognisable. In the inquiry the signalman swore the signal was set against the driver of the train of the empties; the driver swears ho saw no such signal. Botli have been held for trial. One of tho features brought out in the inquiry was the fact that the driver had had but eight i hours' sleep in the previous 57 hours.