Those who were not seriously injured struggled to their feet, but others remained prostrate, unable to move, shrieking or groaning with pain, and several more were rendered insensible. Assistance was speedily forthcoming, and the sufferers were removed to the Royal Naval Hospital, which is within a stone’s-throw of the scene of the accident.
In September of the same year a remarkable accident took place at Glasgow, also with fatal results. About half-past nine one Saturday night, when the streets were at their busiest, a Possilpark car got out of the driver’s control, and began to move down a slope of Renfield Street, which is the main car artery of Glasgow. Where Renfield Street cuts Sauchiehall Street, the principal thoroughfare of the city, the vehicle dashed into a Pollokshields car, standing at the junction. Both cars left the rails, and the runaway, without perceptible interruption, continued on its career, driving the other before it, the conductors’ platforms being interlocked. A few yards further on a Dennistown car was encountered. The two locked cars swept down, and, driving the third in front of them, continued their course down to Argyle Street, a distance of about six hundred yards. A long succession of cars was moving upwards, and with the momentum the three heavy cars had then attained a disaster seemed imminent. However, where the Dennistown line, coming out of St. Vincent Place, joins Renfield Street, the foremost of the three runaways took the branch points, swerved with such speed that it failed to keep the rails, and plunged headlong across the street, being eventually brought up by the wall of a shop. The second and third cars, still locked together, followed the former, striking the shop almost at the same point.
At Devonport another accident, resulting in death, occurred the same month. About nine o’clock in the morning, a car containing eight passengers, six of whom were on the top, got beyond the control of the driver on the incline leading to the South-Western Railway Station. The powerful brakes were promptly applied, but failed to check the progress of the car, which rapidly gathered momentum, although the reversing gear was also applied at full pressure.
At the foot of the slope, where the line takes a sharp curve into one of the main roads to Devonport, the vehicle, which had by this time attained a terrific pace, jumped the rails, crossed the road, and dashed into a wall enclosing the carriage entrance to the station. The force of the impact broke the wall, and caused the car itself partly to topple over. Some of the terrified passengers on the top jumped into the roadway, and others were thrown off. One young man, in jumping off, succeeded in clearing the car and the wall, but as he alighted in the roadway, which slopes down to the entrance of the station, a piece of granite coping, weighing several hundredweight, dislodged by the force of the collision, fell on his head, death being instantaneous. Other injured persons were lying in the roadway some distance from the wrecked car, the upper part of which was a shapeless mass of broken seats and twisted rails. The position of the car enabled it to be seen that the brakes were gripping the wheels lightly, while the wooden brakes, which act on the lines, appeared to be down to the utmost extent.
In this case the verdict of the coroner’s court coincided with the Board of Trade’s subsequent report, to the effect that the accident was brought about by the negligence and incapacity of the driver of the car, the Board of Trade adding that the cause was excessive speed on a steep gradient and sharp curve, that the driver was responsible for the accident in failing to use the brake-power, and in disobeying the company’s orders by leaving the stopping-place without a signal.
These runnings away of electric trams called for increased attention to the question of brakes, which, though they will always hold a car on a stiff incline on dry rails, yet when the track is greasy they introduce an element of danger by reason of their very power. They skid the wheels, which is always a source of great danger. In such cases safety lies in relaxing the pressure, but it needs a wary brain and firm nerves to ease off the brake at all when the car has already bolted.
Then there are collisions, which luckily seldom occur. In October last one took place between two electric tramcars between Middleton and Rhodes, near Manchester. The cars were carrying workmen, and the accident occurred near what is known as the Parkfield loop. The vehicles were travelling in opposite directions, and owing to some cause, at present unexplained, they both got on the same line, instead of one waiting on the loop. About twelve of the passengers were more or less hurt by broken glass, and one of the drivers was injured about the leg.
Cars can be completely overturned, as was proved by an incident that happened in December last year to one of the London County Council trams. It left the metals at St. George’s Circus, and after jolting along for a few yards slowly toppled over into a ditch three feet deep, which had been dug on the near side for the purpose of laying the electrical connections. There were about ten passengers on the top and twelve inside, and the tram was already overturning before they had fully realised their danger. Fortunately they retained their presence of mind, and those on the top, by clinging to the rails, prevented themselves from being hurled into the roadway. Two small boys, who were unable to retain their grip of the rail when the side of the car struck the ground, were thrown off into the gutter, but escaped with little more than a few cuts and a severe shaking. The cause was difficult to discover, but probably as the lines were being rearranged some piece of iron or other hard substance eluded the observation of those put to watch, got into the groove of the metals, and caused the car to jump the rail at a spot where excavations were being made.
In our climate tramway traffic is not exposed to any very inclement weather, so that electric traction is not likely to prove a failure by reason of heavy snowfalls, as in New York last winter during a blizzard.