HE T& ,67 ROAD ACCIDENTS HAW Prevention of Railroad Accidents OR Safety in Railroading A HEART TO HEART TALK WITH EMPLOYES Dealing with Facts Not Theories and Show- ing the Men in the Ranks, from Every day Experience, How Accidents Occur and How They May Avoid Them. An Address (with Considerable New Matter) Delivered at Various Division Headquarters to Employes or the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad By GEO. BRADSHAW ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS New York The Norman ^V\ Henley Publishing Co. 132 Nassau Street 1912 COPYRIGHTED 1912 NORMAN W. HENLEY PUBLISHING CO. Composition, Electrotypine and Pressworic By MACGOWAN A SLIPPER, New York INTRODUCTION The author of this little work has no grievance against anyone. He yields to none in his loyalty as a ''rail- road man. " Years of association with them have caused him to know and to appreciate, at their true worth, the sturdy character and integrity of purpose of rail- road men as a class. Therefore, what is said in these pages cannot justly be attributed to a spirit of fault finding. For ten years (until recently) he has been constantly engaged in the investigation and settlement of claims for personal injuries and death resulting from railway accidents. This direct and intimate experience, it is believed, should be sufficient to relieve him of the charge of being a parlor theorist. For these many years he has been face to face with suffering and sorrow, death and distress in a thousand different forms, and after the manner prescribed by the law of the land, has endeavored to compensate for life and limb. But we cannot compensate for this kind of loss. We visit the widow and the orphan, and the only consola- tion we can offer is a bank note to wipe away their tears. We use the scales made by legislators and judges to weigh money against misery. The scales won't balance, and sincerity is never satisfied with the bargain. 5 241273 6 INTRODUCTION There is a better way. Our " stock in trade" has been the "pound of cure." Let's try the "ounce of preven- tion." It must, of course, be expected that we shall always have some accidents in railroading as in other lines of business where machinery and the human element enter. But it must be admitted that we have had, and are continuing to have, entirely too many accidents. A study of reports shows that the great majority of preventable accidents are due to the human element. This work, being addressed to employes, naturally is confined to that class of accidents, which are within the power of employes, by their own personal efforts, to prevent. It does not profess to be an exhaustive treatise covering the whole range of accident preven- tion. How the number of railway acidents can be reduced to the minimum is a problem which the management, the employe, and the public are trying to solve. To aid in the solution of this problem is the motive that inspired these pages. GEORGE BRADSHAW. New York, N. Y., January, 1912. Injure an EXPERIENCED MAN, a NEW MAN must take his place. A new man is always an experiment. The new man to whom you extend the hand of fellowship to=day may run a car over you to-morrow. PREVENTION OF RAILROAD ACCIDENTS. Perhaps the most important material problem that has engaged the attention of man has been that of transportation. It is the one problem solved by every age, and yet, by every age, to be solved. From the time the foundation stone was laid in the first pyramid of Egypt, around whose base have now gathered the sands of more than forty centuries, to the completion of yesterday's skyscraper, transportation, in one form or another, has been the one absolutely essential agent of material progress and achievement. The slaves of old who carried on their backs the material to build the palaces of kings; the caravans slowly and patiently exchanging ths simple products of early nations; the canoe, the sail boat, the wagon train, the stage coach, have each served the purpose of the age, and at the same time paved the way for our great railway systems where travel is a delight and distance a delusion. We railroad men may, therefore, congratulate ourselves on being engaged in an occupation, consecrated and per- fected by so many centuries of human endeavor, and con- tributing in ways, so varied and vital, to the necessities, the comforts, and the luxuries of all mankind. 10 PREVENTION OF The progress of our railways is at once the wonder and the admiration of this wonder-accustomed age. No other field of effort has produced greater or more impressive evidence of material success. But, has not this progress, to some extent, been in a circle? Has not society gained and lost? While the merchants of old patiently awaited Railway Progress the toiling caravans from the Its Cost. East, who occasionally left the bodies of a camel and its rider to bleach in the sun of the desert; our merchants in their fever haste to meet the requirements of a frenzied and exacting public, demand that their commodities be shifted over the earth's surface with lightning-like rapidity, and the railroads the caravans of the twen- tieth century impelled by motives of pride and profit, are taxing every energy and straining every nerve to meet these rigid, exacting and ever-increasing demands. That they have succeeded, no one questions. But success has its price, and a part of the price of this success has been scrap iron and kindling wood of costly equipment, hopeless cripples of strong and promising manhood and graves without number. We meet the demands, but we break and maim and kill and pay. The public gets the benefit, but railroad employes (and a part of the public) pay the price in the coin of their blood. As railroad men soldiers of commerce wo would not stay the hands on the dial of progress nor shrink RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 11 from meeting any reasonable and just demand naturally and necessarily imposed Prevention Must Be Rea- by the complex condition sonable and Practical. of modern society. The operation of railroads will always be attended with some accidents resulting in injury and death. We may as well recognize that fact in the beginning. Railroad managers work under great tension, which will continue to increase as the demands of society multiply. These demands must be met with reasonable exactness, and railroad employes are justly called upon to assume the danger inherent in the nature of the business when properly conducted. Neither the employe nor the public has the right to demand that railroad managers shall expend huge sums of the stockholders' money solely from a humani- tarian consideration. The rule of reason should apply here as elsewhere. Let me illustrate. It is necessary to install a switch stand between two tracks in a large congested freight yard. The distance between the tracks is such that the stand cannot be made to clear a man on the side of a car. At any time, especially during the night, a man riding on the side of a car may strike the stand and be thrown under the wheels. The danger can be eliminated by increasing the distance between the two tracks, but this would require the removal of perhaps fifty other tracks at a cost of many hundreds or thousands of dollars. No railroad manager should be asked to go to this expense, nor is he morally responsible if, at some time, an employe is injured or killed by reason of the position of this stand. If the 12 PREVENTION OF switch stand is as low as permissible and provided with light at night, all reasonable provisions for safety have been made. We should not expect perfection in rail- roading any more than in government. But we may reasonably expect a great improvement. We shall be better prepared to work together for this improvement if we first get a definite and clear under- standing of the conditions which we confront. I, there- fore, ask your patience for a few minutes while I show you the personal injury record written by the railroads of the United Sates. During the year ending June 30th, 1911, 10,396 persons were killed and 150, 159 injured on Extent of Personal the railroads of the United States. Injuries in U. S. Of these, 3,602 of the killed and 126,039 of the injured were em- ployes not passengers, travelers on highways, trespass- ers or others, but you shopmen, trackmen, and trainmen. According to this report for 1911, one out of every 13 of all employes, and one out of every 8 of all train- men (enginemen, firemen, conductors, and brakemen) were injured. And bear in mind that these figures, great as they are, do not include employes disabled by their injuries for only three days or less, of whom no report is made. In other words, of the 126,039 employes injured during the year 1911, every one received more than a trivial injury. As a matter of fact, many were seriously, many permanently, injured and many died from their injuries. Nor does this appalling number of persons reported injured by any means represent the number of individual accidents. A great proportion RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 13 of accidents resulting in a disability of three days or less might, except for good fortune, have resulted in serious injury or even death. It is the accident and not the injury which is material. Every Every Accident accident is a forcible reminder that Serious. something may be wrong, either in physical conditions or in methods of operation, and whether anyone was injured at all, or whether the injury was slight or serious, is of no conse- quence in determining cause and prevention. The serious feature of the matter is that, as to you employes, this injury record has been growing constantly worse. More employes are being injured every year. I do not mean more simply in numbers, but more in proportion to the number employed. Records of the Interstate Commerce Commission show, as disclosed in the table below: Year Number of employes for one Number of trainmen for one Killed Injured Killed Injured 1901 400 26 136 13 1902 401 24 135 10 1903 364 22 123 10 1904 357 19 120 9 1905 411 21 133 9 1906 387 20 124 8 1907 369 19 125 8 1908 422 17 150 8 1909 576 20 205 9 1910 502 24 172 8 1911 458 13 194 8 14 PREVENTION 0* In 1890 (see report of Interstate Commerce Commis- sion) taking all classes of employes, one out of 33 was injured. Year by year the rate Injuries to Employes has gradually increased till in Increasing. 1911 one out of 13 was injured. In 1890 one out of 12 train- men (enginemen, firemen, conductors, and brakemen) was injured. Year by year the ratio has increased till in 1911, one out of 8 trainmen was injured. Some one may object to this comparison, and say that prior to 1901, the reports to the Interstate Commerce Commission were not so complete and accurate as they have been since that date. It is true that prior to 1901, the number of injured was ascertained chiefly by the Commission from the annual reports of the various roads. In 1901 Congress passed a law requiring all railroads, doing an interstate business, to make to the Commission a monthly report of all deaths and injuries to passengers and employes (except where the disability is three days or less) and prescribing a penalty for violation. Surely then there can be no objection against a com- parison of the records for 1901 and subsequent years. What do these records reveal? In 1901, of all employes, one out of 26 was injured. Year by year the ratio has increased, till in 1911 one out of 13 was injured. In 1901, one out of 13 trainmen (including enginemen and firemen) was injured. Year by year the ratio has increased, till in 1911, one out of 8 trainmen was injured. RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 15 Table showing the number of trainmen, yardmen, switch tenders, crossing tenders, and watchmen, trackmen, and bridgemen, and total employes in service, and number employed for one killed and for one injured during the year ending June 30, 1911. Number employed. 1 5 Injured. Number employed for one killed. Number employed for one injured, Trainmen 235,841 91,694 30,231 470,556 1,648,033 1,218 490 106 724 3,602 29,306 11,702 439 19,906 126,039 194 187 285 650 458 8.0 7.8 68.9 23.6 13.1 Yardmen Switch tenders, cross- ing tenders, and watchmen Trackmen and bridge- men Total employes in ser- vice. . A large number of railway employes are not sub- jected, by virtue of their duties, to any greater danger than the average man in ordinary business and profes- sional pursuits. This is espe- High Ratio cially true in case of railway Injured to Employed, officials, clerks, and stenog- raphers, and to a great ex- tent with station agents and operators. The number of persons in these branches of the service injured in the discharge of their duties is so small as to be hardly worthy of consideration. Yet, in arriving at the per- centage of injured to the whole number employed, a herein given, this large class of employes is included. There is no doubt that the ratio of employes injureo 16 PREVENTION OF to the class of employes liable to injury, by reason of their employment, is greater than represented in the report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. We can perhaps get a better impression of the extent of railway casualties by comparison. During our great civil war, when we exercised all Railway Casualties our ingenuity to slay each other Compared. in the most approved wholesale fashion, we succeeded in killing on both sides an average of only about 44,000 per year. In the peaceful pursuit of railroading, during the five years ending June, 1911 the railroads of the United States averaged over 10,000 per year killed, or almost one- fourth the number killed in that great and bloody war. Considering the fact that we have been trained in war for four thousand years and in railroading for less than eighty years, railroads have no cause to complain that they have not had their fair share of this, as well as the more enviable classes of business. If we keep on in the way we have been going, in a few years we may expect the Krupp Gun Works to be turning out rail- way equipment exclusively, and the jobs of you rail- road men may be filled by soldiers of the United States Army working for $16 per month to get practical mili- tary training. The following charts* show the relative rate of mor- tality among railway employes. * Reproduced by courtesy of Dr. Frederic L. Hoffman, statistician of the Prudential Insurance Company, Newark, N. J. EAILROAD ACCIDENTS 17 18 PREVENTION OF ^ <0 ||-~- -~ S^ J s? 1 s ILUMHS. 1 00 r* : ^ s 01 C M ' s |"Se w 2 5 5 J 1 1 ~ J < J "Sg ^0 2-JI wS ^ 02 > iSllllllilllllll! p s 1 ^ "i s | 31 s N |_^ II M '- s I 1 HI ^tj o o n ra " * 1 -IM-j I H L| LI [i g SI r j | co **~ - ~~ . - _* - -^ a ^ lonjii] " ~ ~ ~ ~ T' rrn S 3 S s ifiilllUniiiiS RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 19 From 1897 to 1906, inclusive, the Prudential Insurance Company had 908 deaths among railroad brakemen of the United States, of which 68.7 per cent, or more than two out of three, was due to railroad accidents; 207 deaths among railroad firemen, of which 53.6 per cent, or more than one out of two, was due to railroad accidents; 142 deaths of railroad enginemen, and 204 deaths of railroad conductors, of which 29,6 per cent and 29.2 per cent respectively were caused by railroad accidents. These figures show conditions on all the roads of the United States. Perhaps no one road is much better or worse than another. But in order to get a more accurate conception of local conditions, Personal Injury let's refer particularly to the Record in New York railroads of the State of New State. York. During the year ending June 30th, 1910 (the date of the last annual report) the steam railroads of New York killed 986 persons, of whom 286 were employes. This number does not in fact represent all who were killed, but only those who were either killed instantly or died from their injuries within twenty-four hours of the time the injury was received. As a matter of fact, many died from their injuries after a lapse of twenty-four hours. These were reported as injured. During the year ending September 30th, 1910, 327 employes were killed in all the factories of all industries, in all quarries, and in all tunnel construction in the entire State of New York.* This record is bad enough, but * Report of Commissioner of Labor. 20 PREVENTION OP the railroads, employing in the Empire State about 80,000 persons (exclusive of officers and clerks) actually killed as many employes (lacking only 41) as were killed during the same time and in the same territory in all factories, quarries and tunnels, employing over 1,000,000 persons. In other words, with 12 1 /^ per cent of the number of persons employed, the railroads of New York killed, among their employes, 87 per cent of the number of persons killed in all the commercial industries of the State. It may be said that the work of railway employes is very different from that of employes in commercial industries. This is true so far as Railway Service trainmen and trackmen are con- Not Naturally cerned, but a considerable percent- Hazardous, age of railway employes are en- gaged in shops, repair yards, engine houses, and freight depots, where their duties are very similar to those of industrial employes, and should riot naturally be attended with any higher rate of injury. Yet, in tunnel construction inherently more hazardous that any branch of railway service the ratio of in- jured to employed in New York State for 1910 is slightly below one for every ten, while for trainmen (including passenger service where the hazard is not great) the rate is one for every eight. There is no reason in the nature of the employment why there should be this unfavorable comparison on the part of the railroads. Railroad service is not naturally hazardous. Our personal injury and deatli rate has been high because we have not given sufficient RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 21 consideration, in a systematic and persistent way, to matters pertaining to safety. These plain figures are given in order that you may understand conditions as they actually exist. It is a bad record, gentlemen. It is a record of misery, sorrow, and suffering. It is a record of fathers and mothers and wives from whom the star of hope that shone so brightly in their sky has been The Record, eternally blotted from view by the smoke that arose from the funeral pyre. It is a record of children's tears and broken hearts. It is a record of disappointment and distress, pain and poverty. It is a record written in the ink of human blood. And that record, gentlemen, is in our handwriting. We can't deny it; we can't evade it. And the pity, the shame, is, that every year, for twenty years, we have been writing a longer and a bloodier record. Now, don't you think, in view of this record, it is high time you employes you men who work in the shops, you who maintain the Personal Interest track and equipment, you who of move the trains, you who are by Employes. far the greatest sufferers from these conditions don't you think it is high time you men were waking up and taking a live, active, personal, and persistent interest in the prevention of accidents? Don't you think it is time for every one of you to bring this subject directly and personally home, and consider it in its relation 22 PREVENTION OP to your own safety and the welfare of those dependent upon you? Don't you think so? Just remember, one out of thirteen of all of you and one out of eight of you trainmen are injured in one year. The first step toward reformation is information. So let's ask ourselves the question, What are the causes producing this long record of accidents? Causes of (Of course, you will bear in mind, reference Accidents is made only to preventable accidents.) Broadly speaking, every preventable rail- road accident is due to one of three causes, or a com- bination of three causes: (1) Defective or improper condition of way, structures, equipment, machinery, tools or appliances. (2) Improper methods of work or operation. (3) Failure of one or more men to use necessary care and diligence. In other words, every preventable accident is due to some failure or insufficiency of Material, Method or Man. You employes are not responsible for the first of the two causes enumerated. But you are respon- sible for the third. In other words, Material and Method are subjects for official consideration; but Man the human element is almost wholly within your control. You see, then, that this vital problem the preven- tion of accidents depends, for its complete and final solution, upon both officials and employes. It cannot RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 23 be solved by one without the other, and the first step in the solution is absolute sincerity. Cooperation Let the official not forget that he was an Necessary. employe yesterday, and the employe reflect that he may be charged with the official's duties to-morrow, and let each accept his full share of responsibility to-day. You have now seen the conditions which exist and the causes therefor. Remedies. What are the remedies? That's the vital question for you employes. For- tunately, the remedies are not difficult to discover. In fact, the mere statement of the causes implies the remedies, which, like the causes, are threefold: (1) Improve and make safe defective or improper condition of way, structures, equipment, machinery, tools, or appliances. (2) Correct improper methods of work or operation. (3) Educate and train employes in all branches of the ser- vice to use necessary care in the discharge of their duties. These three remedies, pursued intelligently and persistently, cannot fail to result in a material de- crease in preventable accidents, because railroad opera- tion is not in itself naturally dangerous. It can be and should be made one of the safest employments. The trouble with our efforts in the past to reduce acci- dents has been, not that we have given too much atten- tion to Material and Method, which are important, Your efforts to correct unsafe conditions and prevent carelessness will make it safer for you and your fellow workmen. 24 PREVENTION OF but too little attention to Man the human element which is more important. Let me explain by recalling a few facts well known to you. For a great many years railroad officials, applying the first of the three remedies above men- tioned, have been installing safety devices and appli- ances on their tracks, trains, Safety Appliances, structures, and equipment, and they are continuing to install them in greater numbers every year. Many of these appliances have been prescribed by law. Many more have been introduced voluntarily. As a result of this legal direction and voluntary effort, we now have, and have had for several years, a highly perfected machine of transportation. Inventive genius has found a most varied and extensive field of expression in rail- road mechanics. The forces of nature, with nature's certainty and precision, do the work of hundreds of men, and do it a hundred times better than men. Cars are coupled by impact. Air is collected and compressed without thought or human effort, and the engineman applies the air on ninety-five cars and holds in check thousands of tons of freight by the expenditure of no more effort than required to grasp the hand of a friend. Bells on engines and at highway crossings are sounded automatically. While from one end of the line to the other, extends a system of electric signals which, if they do not have human intelligence, have far more than human reliability. They work year in and year out, day and night, during sunshine and storm, without going on a strike, taking a vacation or a layoff. RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 25 Yet with all this mechanical perfection, more of you employes, in proportion to the number employed, are being injured every year. Don't forget the record I called your attention to. On this subject, the Block Signal and Train Control Board of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in its annual report for 1910, says: "Nowhere in the world have appliances for safeguarding railway transportation been so highly developed as in this country, notwithstanding which nowhere in the world is there a greater proportionate number of accidents of the kind which such advance in the art should prevent. What is most needed is automatic performance of one's duties rather than automatic mechanical devices " In Germany, where there are various museums of safety, supported by the Government, designed to foster the invention and introduction of Result in safety appliances, and where as a result Germany, of such stimulant and encouragement, these appliances are more ingeniously contrived and more generally and extensively used than in this country, it is still found, from reliable statistics, that forty-eight per cent of their accidents are preventable. We have had the principal safety appliances on Ameri- can railroads for years, and if it were chiefly a question of safety appliances, it would naturally and inevitably follow that with the introduction of these appliances, the accident record would show a decrease in the ratio of injured to employed. But the record shows just the reverse. 26 PREVENTION OF Of course, no one will say that safety appliances do not prevent injuries. They do prevent a great manj^ injuries. Their use should be, and doubt- Safe Men. less will be encouraged and extended, but in themselves they do not go far enough. What we need is safe men to operate the appliances. Automatic couplers have superseded links and pins, and thereby saved many fingers and hands; yet I know of no device more readily adapted to make sausage of a trainman's foot than the automatic coupler, if he gets his foot caught while kicking a drawbar, as cars approach, to make a coupling. That is done by some of you men, and injuries reported from this source are not infrequent. An experienced conductor made himself a permanent cripple a few weeks ago doing this very thing. Over 99 per cent of the engines and cars in service are equipped with automatic couplers, yet the report of the Interstate Commerce Commission for the year ending June 30, 1911, shows that 209 employes were killed and 2,966 were injured in coupling and uncoupling cars. Eliminating from this report, cases due to causes purely accidental, defective equipment, and to those con- ditions for which employes are not personally responsi- ble, we find that 86 of these deaths and 1,266 of these injuries were unquestionably due to the manner in which employes operated this automatic equipment, as the following table, taken from this report, shows: Safety Appliances are all right, but what we need is Safe Men to operate them. RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 27 Some of the causes of accidents to employes in coupling and uncoupling cars, year ending June 30, 1911. CAUSES Trainmen Trainmen in Yards y Trai swi eft 1 ird nmen ching ws) 1 c h- 1 Other Em- ploye* Total I 1 o M a o 3 1 p 3 1 i Injured JH 3 1 c? M Adjusting coupler with foot 68 20 11 29 92 19 21 11 3 2 44 6 5 15 42 14 17 13 46 27 229 1 15 6 9 2 r\ L r 138 23 17 40 117 35 48 21 86 93 i 3 1 1 7 2 5 2 8 2 1 3 E ) r 3 3 22 10 19 3 a *, 17 257 51 38 86 259 70 87 48 211 159 Careless manipulation of uncoupling lever Coupling or uncoupling safety chains 1 4 4 8 Uncoupling without us- ing lever (unnecessary) Opening or closing knuck- le when cars were near together, miscalculated speed Opening knuckle, lost footing Riding on car to uncou- ple slipped off Caught by unexpected movement of car, due to mistake or misun- derstanding in giving hand signals Caught by unexpected movement of car, due to slack running in. . Went between cars un- necessarily and con- trary to rule 3 9 74 34 3 3 Total.. 2937911 40 618 6 4C 86 1266 28 PREVENTION OF You have grab irons on the front and rear of switch engines, but what good do they do the man who stands between the rails and attempts to get upon the ' foot- board of an engine as it comes toward him, if he happens to slip and fall? Only a few days ago, a brakeman in Buffalo was ground to pieces in this way. You know brakemen and conductors are doing this every day in every yard on the line. I have in mind now an experienced brakeman who was injured in this way less than a year ago. In the course of the investigation, I called his attention both to the absolute uselessness of such an act and to the great danger attending it. He admitted that he could just as well have stood outside the rails and gotten upon the end of the footboard, or that in many instances he could as well get upon the footboard at the other end of the engine. Yet within three months he was injured again, in the same way, this time more seriously. Now, no safety appliance will help that kind of man. The only thing to do is to get him out of the service before he kills himself or somebody else. The point is just this: No safety appliance is safe in the hands of an unsafe man. For twenty years or more, public sentiment has been keenly awakened to the importance of preventing railway accidents. This sentiment has Safety By crystallized into carloads of Federal, State, Statute. and municipal statutes, ordinances, and A factory inspector chained to every machine in the shop wouldn't keep some men from getting hurt. RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 29 regulations, until to-day a serious problem in railroad operation is to find a means of conducting traffic, with any profit, through the tortuous labyrinth of legislative enactment and judicial construction where, at every turn of the narrow way, is reverberating from forty- nine sources, "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not." The basic thought producing this legislation seems to have been that railroading is a material thing, natur- ally and inherently dangerous, like guncotton or dyna- mite, and that all that is necessary to curb its natural destructive tendency is to prescribe and regulate the physical conditions of its maintenance and operation. Our legislators (whose honest purpose in the main I do not question) have apparently proceeded entirely upon the theory that the corporation is the only agent to be considered and dealt with. We have scores of laws regulating the hours and con- ditions of employment and prescribing certain experience which men must have to hold certain positions. Many of these laws are highly meritorious. Yet the personal injury record, as to employes, has been constantly growing worse. The reason for this is that we have not given due consideration to the human element. We can pass laws and make rules, but the employe must be educated and trained to obey and comply with them. Necessary and beneficial as some of our railroad laws are, Congress and State legislatures may enact laws until their combined Safety Laws tonnage would block traffic; Not Entirely Effective, officials may go on issuing 30 PREVENTION OP rules, bulletins, and notices until every caboose looks like a circulating library ; and you may keep a factory inspector in every shop, and we will go on with this string of preventable accidents, until you men, as you stand before the machine in the shops, as you repair equipment in the yards, as you work upon the track, as you run your engines and handle the cars, begin to think earnestly how you can make this move and do this work in the safe and proper way. Until you become convinced, and with a firm determination act upon the conviction, that you can and you will do your work without these accidents. Gentlemen I say it in all good will the greater part of this personal injury record is Responsibility, in your handwriting. You have made, and are making, this record in many ways every day. You make this record when you neglect the little things in connection with the discharge of your duties. A very small part indeed of this injury record is made up of collisions, derailments, and the great acci- dents which furnish large headlines for the newspapers. Every accident is a NOTICE that something may be wrong with Methods, Material, or Man, and should be investigated at once by the man in charge to ascertain cause and apply remedy. Whether the in= jury received is slight or serious is not material. RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 31 But the neglect of little things just little things not thought worthy of careful attention, is what pro- duces the bulk of preventable accidents. A Few Trackmen take up old planks and leave Examples, them beside the tracks with the spikes turned upward. A trainman runs one of these rusty spikes through his foot, and is laid up for weeks or blood poison results, and perhaps he dies. Only a few days ago, I found about a dozen planks with rusty spikes four inches long projecting upward, within three feet of the track, at the end of the platform of a small station, where passengers had to pass day and night. And they had been right there for a week. The section men put them there, the station agent and his helper had been walking around them and over them every day and night, and the supervisor of track had, or should have, seen them. If they had not been removed, some one, sooner or later, would have been injured. Fifteen of you employes were injured in this way last month. A frog, switch, or guard rail is left unblocked till some one gets his foot caught and is run over. The pieces are picked up and sent to the hospital or under- taker, the section foreman supplies the necessary block- ing, and the supervisor of track works his clerk over- time for the next week writing letters to explain why that particular piece of blocking was not put in before the accident. Long explanations are necessary because the orders are to keep this blocking supplied (and it is supplied generally), but some one has thought it a little matter and failed to comply with positive instruc- 32 PREVENTION OF tions. You can't place a supervisor of track at every switch. In the meantime, perhaps the foreman on the next section passes over an unblocked frog, switch, or guard rail on his section every day, and says and does nothing. Car repairers either place or leave drawbars, brake shoes, air hose, knuckles, or springs lying through- out the yard in order to have them handy for making repairs, instead of keeping them collected in various handy places through the yard, and trackmen allow them to remain where they are left. Trainmen are continually stumbling and falling over them. They are either hurt in falling, in which case the injury is usually slight, or they are run over, and the result is serious injury or death. A station platform is allowed to remain poorly lighted. The agent knows that, but he leaves pieces of freight, express, cleats, gang planks, a hand truck, or the tongue of a baggage truck lying about where passengers are compelled to walk. Some one stumbles, falls, is injured, and trouble begins for everybody. The agent is the first fellow in trouble. He says he hasn't help enough and is overworked. Yet, as a rule, after the accident, when he has put on a pair of heavy gloves as a precau- tion in opening a personal letter from the superinten- dent, and read the gentle comments of that official, that platform is kept as free from obstructions as a billiard table. It's easier to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong. RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 33 An overhead trolley supporting an air hoist weigh- ing several hundred pounds is allowed to remain without a block or other appliance at the end of the trolley to prevent the hoist from running off and falling. Instruc- tions required such a block. Yet the men who put the trolley up knew they left it without a stop block, the men who had been operating it for months should have known it had no block. One day it ran off, fell, and killed a man working beneath it. Just a little block. In a few minutes it could have been supplied, but neglect to supply it cost a life. Can there be any excuse for a thing like that? When plain instructions are issued to intelligent men, should it be necessary to stand beside them No Excuse, with a club to see that the instructions are complied with? The men who put up that trolley and left it without the block, and the man, or men, operating it, knowing there was no block, built and sprung the trap which plunged an innocent man into eternity. Those men were not vicious, but simply indifferent and inc^n- siderate. An engineman was due to take his yard engine from the house at six o'clock in the morning. He was five minutes late. The fireman, who had never qualified as an engineman, without any authority from anyone, starts out running the engine. It was dark, but would soon be daylight, and it was too much trouble for this fireman to light the headlight. A collision results, thousands of dollars worth of property is destroyed, and one life lost. All to save two minutes time and a 34 PREVENTION OF little trouble to light a headlight. No rule or regula- tion would or could have prevented a thing of that kind. The trouble was in the man. One summer morning a pile of railroad ties was placed on the right of way opposite and within a few feet of valuable buildings. It was the intention to put those ties into service the following day, and for that reason the grass was not dug up around the ties so as to form a fire guard. In the afternoon, fire from a passing engine started in the grass on the right of way, spread to the ties before it was discovered, and by that time, fed by the dry ties, the fire was beyond control and soon spread to the buildings. It would have cost about five cents to take this precaution. It cost over five thousand dollars not to take it. Now, this should be a lesson, and it cost enough to be a valuable one. It should teach you track foremen to pile ties and other material a safe distance away from valuable buildings, or if as is not very often the case it is necessary to place them opposite buildings, orchards, or other valuable property, to see that there is a fire guard around the material, which can be made at practically no expense. A few months ago, a crew in taking coal at a certain terminal damaged the coal chute. A few minutes later, Edward Preston was coaling his engine at the same chute, and in trying to shove the chute back into posi- tion, owing to its defective condition, he lost his balance, A minute of judgment is sometimes worth a day of energy. RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 35 fell from his engine, and was killed. On investigation the man who damaged the chute admitted that he knew he damaged it, but said he made no report of the matter as he could and should have done, to the coal heaver or the engine-house foreman. He said he sup- posed they knew he damaged the chute. He might as well have supposed that the president of the road knew it. And because he supposed when he should have known, Edward Preston is moldering in his grave. If he had simply walked a few yards and noti- fied the engine-house foreman that he had damaged this chute and that it was not in condition for use, Edward Preston, in all probability, would be alive to-day, his wife would not be a widow, and his children would not be fatherless. Just little things. Just little things. I might go on and on giving examples, but what is the use? You know as well as I do, and better, that every day you are neglecting just such things. Either you don't think at all, or if you do think, you say, "Oh, well, what's the use?" Isn't that true? Let's be plain and honest in this discussion. Why don't you stop it? Don't you see that there is not enough to be gained to justify the risk? Don't say you are overworked and haven't time. Some of you are protected against overwork by law. Besides, everybody knows that the careful, considerate man has more time than anybody else, because he is syste- matic and makes the most of his time. The great danger in the neglect of these little things exists, because no general manager, no superintendent, 36 PREVENTION OF or trainmaster can foresee and guard against them. In New York city there is a museum of natural history where are collected and propagated, for scientific study, the various disease germs of tetanus, tuberculosis, anthrax, typhoid, small-pox, and cancer. From this museum, a half dozen glass tubes, so small you could place them in your vest pocket, the contents of which you could see only with a powerful microscope, contain more death-dealing force, if communicated to that city's inhabitants, and would be infinitely more to be feared, than the shot and shells from the combined navies of the world assembled in New York harbor. Again, gentlemen, you are writing this awful record every day when you take chances. By taking chances, I mean doing a thing in a way which you know to be unsafe when you coukl do it in another way known to be safe. Perhaps Taking the safe way is positively prescribed by Chances, rule, or if there is no rule covering the matter, the safe and unsafe ways may be perfectly apparent to a man of any judgment. A great undertaking of the railroad undertaker is to clean up after the railroad chancetaker. The following are a few examples of what it costs to take chances. You can doubtless think of many more. The engineman of one of the finest and fastest trains on the road, having right of way over all other trains, has found a certain signal sot properly for him hundreds of times. He knows well enough that it is liable to beset against him at any time, but he gets to thinking that it will RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 37 always be set for him, and gets to taking chances in not properly observing this signal. One night the signal is against him. A wreck. Death, injuries, destruction of pro- perty. He took a chance. Won several times, but lost once. The crew of an inferior train want "to get the train over the road." They are in a hurry to get home. To save a fifteen minutes wait on a siding, they start out, without an order, to make the next station "right in the teeth " of a superior train. If that train is a minute or two late, they win. The dispatcher knows just what they did, and if he is the right kind of a man, he sees that there is plenty of trouble for that crew as soon as they get in. If he is not the right kind of a man, he says nothing. The next day they take another chance and lose. You know very well I am not drawing on my imagination. I don't mean to say, gentlemen, that all of you are doing these things. I know the majority of you are not, but many of you are, and you are the ones who are making this accident record. A water glass breaks. The engineman tells his fireman to run the engine while he replaces the glass. The view is obstructed on the engineman's side, and the fire- man shoves the rear car over a bumping post and injures several men. A passenger train is to take water at a station while passengers are being handled. After the train comes to a full stop and passengers begin to alight, the engine- man, in order to spot the engine, suddenly moves the You are responsible for the safety of others as well as yourself. 38 PREVENTION OF train. He knows very well the danger of doing so with- out first sounding a signal, so the crew can protect passengers, but to do so would require a few seconds of precious time and he takes a chance, the passenger takes the injury and the company takes the blame. Not only are railroad men ready to take chances when other persons may pay the price, but they are equally ready when their own lives are in the .balance. An engineman told me that his train came very nearly striking a section foreman. He said the foreman saw the train at a safe distance, but deliberately stood so near the track that the engine brushed his clothing. The engineman, a few days afterward, asked the fore- man what he meant by standing in that position. You couldn't guess the foreman's answer in a year. He said he wanted to get a fresh breeze from the motion of the train. Think of a man of intelligence .risking his life to get a fresh breeze mixed with sand and cinders. Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, and for hundreds of years has furnished the world with a most impressive example of a bad bargain; but you railroad men have no right to cast any slurs upon the memory of the late Mr. Esau. You are making just as bad, just as foolish bargains every day when you stake your lives on these unnecessary chances. When a railroad man takes chances, the lives and limbs of human beings are the stakes. ; Every man who gambles loses sometimes generally many times but you can't afford to lose once. RAILKOAD ACCIDENTS 39 In every shop there are positive instructions to stop certain machines before attempting to oil or adjust them. Yet some man perhaps a piece worker who wants to save every second is continually taking chances and often getting chopped to pieces. There are many men in shops who will deliberately remove safety guards from the machines they are operating. Men employed in shops, yards, and depots are regu- larly getting injured or killed jumping on or off moving cars or engines to ride to and from .their work. Now, your duties do not require you to take these chances. Can you afford to take them? It's a risky thing even for trainmen who are accustomed to it, to jump on or off moving cars or engines. No insurance company will take a risk without getting pay for it. Yet you put your life in the balance and take these risks for nothing. To consider it merely as a business proposi- tion, don't you think it is poor judgment? One evening a few months ago, a car ferry operat- ing across Lake Michigan left its eastern port with a crew of several men and a cargo of many loaded freight cars. The boat had just been completely overhauled and pronounced entirely seaworthy by private and government inspectors. There was no very rough sea encountered, and yet, on that trip, the boat sank with all its cargo and more than a score of men. At first the cause of this calamity seemed to be a mystery, but in the investigation which followed, it developed that one of the watchmen, who was strictly charged by the rules with the duty of making an examination every hour of that part of the hull of the boat under 40 PREVENTION OF the open portholes, had failed to comply with the rules. These holes were in the side of the boat just above the water line, and were left open for ventilation or some other necessary purpose. He had made these examinations hundreds of times on former trips and found everything all right. On this trip the wind happened to be just right to carry the water into these holes in small quantities. Being unobserved, the weight of the water, as it gradually accumulated inside, lowered the boat, so that after a time some of these holes were at the water's edge. The trouble, by this time, was discovered, but the water was then rushing in so fast the pumps could not meet the demands. Cars were shoved into the lake to lighten the load, but to no avail. All because a watchman, who was paid and depended upon to do what he was told to do, failed to do it. He took a chance. Won many times, but lost once. My mind reverts a few years, to a dreary win- ter night in the mountains of Colorado, where, as the result of a chance taken by a telegraph operator at a wayside station, I can see now as plainly as I see your faces before me, and hear as distinctly as I can hear the blasts of a hundred steam whistles, thirty-four men, women, and children burning to a crisp as they struggled frantically to extri- cate themselves from the wreckage of a car from which, by the grace of God, I escaped. I can hear their ago- nized cries for help, but the man who took the chance left them no chance. Let every railroad man read above their nameless graves the epitaph, "Died by Chance." RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 41 You are taking chances every day. Perhaps so far you have been winning, and nothing is known