Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 703», sayfa 5

'Where are we going?' asked the girl by-and-by, as Angus struck into a road leading to the town. 'It iss nefer into Inversnow we are going like this together!'

'And are ye ashamed to be seen walking with me, Maggie Cameron?'

'Ashamed? No! But it iss not well to be having folk talking idle gossip apoot us in the daytime, when maybe I ought to be at home working.' Maggie was made the more jealous of her reputation as a good housekeeper by receiving a surprised nod at that moment from Mr M'Alister the grocer, who stood lazily on the door-step of his shop.

'Nefer mind what folk say, Maggie. This iss the way;' and Angus turned off the main street to the pier.

'Eh, Angus, what a pretty little poat – what a fery pretty poat!' said Maggie as they reached the end of the pier and looked down on a tiny boat resting placidly on the loch.

'And ye think her a pretty poat now, do ye, Maggie?' looking proudly from his achievement to his companion's interested face.

'I nefer saw anything prettier. She sits on the water like a sea-gull,' replied the girl warmly.

'And you can read her name on the stern now, can't you, Maggie – eh?'

The maid looked down fixedly and, as she looked, changed colour. Angus was watching her with beaming eyes. Painted in distinct blue letters on an oak ground were the words, 'Maggie Cameron – Inversnow.'

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS

The fact that during last year (1876) no fewer than 1245 persons were killed and 4724 injured upon the various railways of Great Britain, is sufficiently startling; for these numbers, we need hardly remind our readers, exceed those of the killed and wounded in many a great battle. The average number killed per annum during the last five years has been 1295, and of those injured 4333. Fortunately, however, for the peace of mind of the average British passenger, these numbers are not quite so alarming as they at first sight appear. That this is so, we shall shew by an analysis of the causes which led last year to the above-mentioned losses. Of those killed, no fewer than 305 were trespassers upon railway lines; and between thirty and forty of these were trespassers with the deliberate intention of committing suicide. Again, more than one half of the total number of persons killed were railway servants; and the same class furnished no fewer than 2600 of the 4724 cases of injury recorded in the returns. From their own misconduct or want of caution, 101 passengers lost their lives, and 604 sustained injuries. Level crossings are each year a very fertile cause of accidents, and to them no fewer than fifty-nine of the deaths of 1876 must be apportioned. We come now, however, to that which is undoubtedly a fact of the utmost gravity, namely, that thirty-eight passengers were killed and 1279 injured from causes over which they had no control, upon the railways of Great Britain.

In 1874, a Royal Commission was issued at the request of parliament to inquire into the causes and cure of railway accidents in Great Britain. For two years and a half the Commissioners pursued their labours; and their Report now lies before us. From it we gather that the Commissioners examined several hundreds of witnesses, including officers of the Board of Trade, general managers of railway companies, traffic managers, superintendents and assistant-superintendents of railways, inspectors and sub-inspectors of various classes, foremen of shunters, station-masters, engine-drivers, guards, brakemen, shunters, plate-layers, signalmen, pointsmen, boilersmiths, porters, and clerks. The Commissioners likewise arranged for a most valuable series of practical experiments upon the merits of the various systems of applying brake-power to trains, to be performed before them upon a portion of the Midland Company's railway near Newark. Of the important results disclosed by the elaborate system of experiments thus performed we shall have something to say presently. In addition to all this, the Commissioners personally inspected railway premises and works in various places throughout the kingdom, and investigated upon their own behalf certain 'typical cases' of railway accidents. Whatever conclusions, therefore, they may have arrived at claim at least the respectful consideration of all interested – and who is not? – in the prevention of railway accidents.

Regret has, we observe, been freely expressed in certain quarters that the Commissioners have not seen fit to advise the establishment of a government department which should exercise a general control over the practical administration of British railways. To have done so would, however, the Commissioners say, not have been in their opinion 'either prudent or desirable.' A government authority placed in such a position would, they remark, 'be exposed to the danger either of appearing indirectly to guarantee work, appliances, and arrangements which might practically prove faulty or insufficient, or else of interfering with railway management to an extent which would soon alienate from it public sympathy and confidence, and thus destroy its moral influence, and with it its capacity for usefulness.' Whilst, however, the Commissioners are thus strongly of opinion that any change which would relieve the railway companies from the responsibility which now rests upon them to provide for the safety of their traffic would be undesirable, they are nevertheless disposed to believe that legislation – by which the adoption of certain recognised improvements, and the construction of certain necessary works for the greater safety of the traffic, should be made compulsory upon the railway companies – would be a public gain. Amongst these improvements and necessary works are included by the Commissioners the compulsory adoption of the block and interlocking systems. The object of the block-system, we may here remark, is to preserve an arbitrary interval of space between all trains which are moving in the same direction upon the same line of rails. This is accomplished by dividing the line into sections; and not until a telegraphic message has been received announcing that a train has passed out of one section, is another permitted to enter that section. If properly carried out, this would prevent the possibility of one train running into another from behind, which as we all know has been a frequent cause of accidents.

We are not quite certain whether the Commissioners have done well in advising that 'increased facilities be afforded to the public to obtain redress by cheap and summary process when trains are late.' In the first place the Commissioners have not attempted to define when a train shall be held to be unpunctual; that is, whether one or five or fifteen or fifty minutes is to be held to constitute unpunctuality; and also whether the distance which the train has run is, or is not, to be taken into account. If every passenger by the Flying Scotchman from Edinburgh to London is to have a right to an action against the railway companies, in the event of that train being, say five minutes late upon its long journey of four hundred miles, the prospect of litigation thereby opened is sufficient to appal the hearts of shareholders in the North British, North-Eastern, and Great Northern Railways, and to make glad those of lawyers. Moreover, the Commissioners do not attempt to define what they mean by 'a cheap and summary process' being afforded to passengers of bringing actions against railway companies. At present such actions are occasionally brought in the County Courts, and it would be difficult, we think, to imagine 'a cheaper or more summary process' than they already afford.

At present, as most of our readers are aware, every passenger train which runs a distance of twenty miles without stopping is bound to carry with it some means whereby passengers can communicate with the guard or engine-driver of the train. The Royal Commissioners, however, have resolved to recommend that every train which runs for even eight miles without stopping is to be provided with a means of communication between the passengers and the servants of the company. Why this limit of eight miles has been arbitrarily fixed upon can only be left to conjecture. If some simple method could be devised whereby a passenger could instantaneously communicate with the servants of the train, an important benefit would be secured; but so long as the railway companies continue to call a small cord hidden away somewhere or other outside of the carriages, 'a means of communication between passengers and the servants of the company,' we confess that we do not attach much practical importance to this last recommendation of the Royal Commissioners.

We have already mentioned that the Royal Commissioners caused an extensive series of experiments to be performed in their presence upon a portion of the Midland Company's system near Newark, in order to test the various methods which have been invented for applying continuous brake-power to trains. Before, however, the trials of the various continuous 'brakes' were made, trials of the amount of brake-power usually supplied to the trains of some of the chief railway companies in Great Britain were made. From these experiments it appeared that with the amount of hand brake-power usually supplied, a train going at between forty-five and fifty miles an hour could not as a rule be brought to a full stop in much less than half a mile. During the trials at Newark, the merits of eight different kinds of 'continuous brakes' were tried; and 'amply proved the necessity for some greater control over fast passenger-trains than that hitherto provided in this country.' Speaking approximately indeed, it was shewn conclusively at these trials that a good continuous brake will reduce the stopping distances of fast trains to one-third of the distance within which they can be stopped by the present ordinary means. With regard to the effect upon passengers of any sudden stoppages by means of these continuous brakes, it is satisfactory to know that 'by none of the systems used in the trials could the brakes be applied too powerfully or too suddenly for the safety of the passengers.'

As the result of these Newark trials, the Royal Commissioners recommend that it should be made obligatory upon railway companies to provide every train with sufficient brake-power to bring it, at the highest speed at which it may be travelling and upon any gradients, to an absolute stop within five hundred yards. They also advise that a large proportion of the brake-power should be in the hands of the engine-driver. He is usually the man who first espies danger; and as when a train is travelling at the rate of sixty miles an hour, it passes over eighty-eight feet per second, it will easily be seen, that however slight may be the interval necessary for the driver to attract the attention of the guard, and for that official to apply his brakes, it may be sufficiently long to cause a serious accident.

Every newspaper reader must have remarked the frequent accidents which occur through passengers (whilst entering or leaving railway carriages) falling between the steps and the platform. This being so, it is satisfactory to remark that the Royal Commissioners have resolved to recommend that the adoption by railway companies of continuous foot-boards of sufficient width should be made compulsory wherever, in the opinion of the officials of the Board of Trade, 'the circumstances of the traffic are such as to render them necessary for the safety of passengers.'

As regards the important subject of the compensation which the railway companies are at present obliged to make whenever a passenger is – through no fault of his own – killed or injured whilst travelling upon their lines, the Royal Commissioners have not thought it necessary to make any special recommendations. They appear indeed to think that the principle of self-interest will be sufficient to make the companies introduce all reasonable improvements and take all possible means to secure the safety of their passengers. Mr Galt, however, one of the Royal Commissioners, dissents from this view of his colleagues, and we think with reason. He asks in connection with this subject the following very pertinent question: 'Does the sum paid in compensation by the companies exceed the expenditure that would necessarily be incurred for the avoidance of preventable accidents?' This question Mr Galt proceeds to regard from two points of view. First, the effect of accidents on the market value of railway shares; and second, the cost which the companies would have to incur in order to introduce various well-known means for the prevention of accidents, which have often been pressed upon their attention by Captain Tyler and other officials of the Board of Trade. The effect of an accident upon the market value of railway shares, even when it is one of exceptional severity, Mr Galt shews is only temporarily and never permanently to lower the value of the shares in the particular railway company upon whose system it occurred. The first cost, moreover, of introducing improvements upon their lines, Mr Galt points out, is felt very severely by railway companies; whereas the compensation which they pay for personal injuries does not at present amount to one per cent. of their total expenditure. Mr Galt indeed asserts that the saving which the companies would effect by the use of every available means for the prevention of accidents would 'scarcely amount to a shilling in the hundred pounds.' Hence he arrives at the very disagreeable conclusion, that so far as the pecuniary principle – apart from all higher considerations – is concerned, the railway companies' interests and those of the general public are diametrically opposed to each other!

We shall conclude this article by giving a brief epitome of the principal points upon which the Royal Commissioners have made formal 'recommendations' either for the consideration of parliament or of the railway companies. 1. They have recommended that discretionary powers should be conferred upon the Board of Trade to enforce the extension of stations and sidings wherever the accommodation provided for the traffic is so inadequate as to endanger safety. 2. To enforce the adoption of the block and interlocking systems on all lines or portions of lines where the introduction of these improvements is necessary for the safety of the traffic. 3. To restrict the speed of trains upon any line or section of a line which is in a condition to render a high rate of speed unsafe. 4. To require companies to provide their passenger carriages with continuous foot-boards. 5. To impose conditions upon companies in certain cases in sanctioning the opening of new lines. 6. To require companies to provide foot-bridges or subways at stations where the absence of such accommodation is proved to be a source of danger. 7. To require a lodge to be maintained at public crossings for foot-passengers wherever circumstances render it necessary for safety. 8. That railway companies shall be required by law, under adequate penalties, to supply all trains with sufficient brake-power to stop them within five hundred yards under all circumstances. 9. That in order to produce greater punctuality in the conduct of the traffic on railways, additional facilities be afforded to the public for obtaining compensation when trains are late. 10. That the 31st and 32d Vict. c. 119, s. 22, relating to intercommunication in trains, be amended in the manner which we have indicated above. 11. That the civil liability of railway companies for accidents to their servants, and of the criminal liability of persons in railway employment for acts of negligence endangering life, be extended.

Some at least of these proposals of the Royal Commissioners will doubtless be adopted by Her Majesty's government, and will be proposed to parliament, with all the weight of their authority, during the next (1878) session of parliament. That the government measure which will embody these 'selected' recommendations of the Royal Commissioners will satisfy all parties – directors of railways, railway servants, and the general public alike – would of course be too much to hope. But this may at least be confidently predicted – that if the chief recommendations of the Royal Commissioners be adopted by parliament, and be loyally carried out in practice by the railway companies, they will tend in no inconsiderable degree to render railway travelling in Great Britain in the future both much safer and much pleasanter than it has been in the past.