Taken as a whole, however, and under the most favorable showing, it would seem to be a matter of fair inference that the dangers incident to railroad traveling are materially greater in the United States than in any country of Europe. How much greater is a question wholly impossible to answer. So that when a statistical writer undertakes to show, as one eminent European authority has done, that in a given year on the American roads one passenger in every 286,179 was killed, and one in every 90,737 was injured, it is charitable to suppose that in regard to America only is he indebted to his imagination for his figures.
Neither is it possible to analyze with any satisfactory degree of precision the nature of the accidents in the two countries, with a view to drawing inferences from them. Without attempting to do so it maybe said that the English Board of Trade reports for the last five years, 1874-8, include inquiries into 755 out of 11,585 accidents, the total number of every description reported as having taken place. Meanwhile the Railroad Gazette contains mention of 4,846 reported train accidents which occurred in America during the same five years. Of these accidents, 1,310 in America and 81 in Great Britain were due to causes which were either unexplained or of a miscellaneous character, or are not common to the systems of the two countries. In so far as the remainder admitted of classification, it was somewhat as follows:—
| GREAT BRITAIN. | AMERICA. | |||||
| Accidents due to | ||||||
| Defects in permanent way | 13 | per | cent. | 24 | per | cent. |
| Defectsa in rolling-stock | 10 | " | " | 8 | " | " |
| Misplaced switches | 16 | " | " | 14 | " | " |
| Collisions | ||||||
| Between trains going in opposite directions | 3 | " | " | 18 | " | " |
| Between trains following each other | 5 | " | " | 30 | " | " |
| At railroad grade crossings[29] | 0.6 | " | " | 3 | " | " |
| At junctions | 11 | " | " | |||
| At stations or sidings within fixed stations | 40 | " | " | 6 | " | " |
| Unexplained | 2 | " | " | |||
The above record, though almost valueless for any purpose of exact comparison, reveals, it will be noticed, one salient fact. Out of 755 English accidents, no less than 406 came under the head of collisions—whether head collisions, rear collisions, or collisions on sidings or at junctions. In other words, to collisions of some sort between trains were due considerably more than half (54 per cent.) of the accidents which took place in Great Britain, while only 88, or less than 13 per cent. of the whole, were due to derailments from all causes. In America on the other hand, while of the 3,763 accidents recorded, 1,324, or but one-third part (35 per cent.) were due to collisions, no less than 586, or 24 per cent., were classed under the head of derailments, due to defects in the permanent way. During the the six years 1873-8 there were in all 1698 cases of collision of every description between trains reported as occurring in America to 1495 in the United Kingdom; but while in America the derailments amounted to no less than 4016, or more than twice the collisions, in the United Kingdom they were but 817, or a little more than half their number. It has already been noticed that the most disastrous accidents in America are apt to occur on bridges, and Ashtabula and Tariffville at once suggest themselves. This is not the case in Great Britain. Under the heading of "Failures of Tunnels, Bridges, Viaducts or Culverts," there were returned in that country during the six years 1873-8 only 29 accidents in all; while during the same time in America, under the heads of broken bridges or tressels and open draws, the Gazette recorded no less than 165. These figures curiously illustrate the different manner in which the railroads of the two countries have been constructed, and the different circumstances under which they are operated. The English collisions are distinctly traceable to constant overcrowding; the American derailments and bridge accidents to inferior construction of our road-beds.
Finally, what of late years has been done to diminish the dangers of the rail?—What more can be done?—Few persons realize what a tremendous pressure in this respect is constantly bearing down upon those whose business it is to operate railroads. A great accident is not only a terrible blow to the pride and prestige of a corporation, not only does it practically ruin the unfortunate officials involved in it, but it entails also portentous financial consequences. Juries proverbially have little mercy for railroad corporations, and, when a disaster comes, these have practically no choice but to follow the scriptural injunction to settle with their adversaries quickly. The Revere catastrophe, for instance, cost the railroad company liable on account of it over half a million of dollars; the Ashtabula accident over $600,000; the Wollaston over $300,000. A few years ago in England a jury awarded a sum of $65,000 for damages sustained through the death of a single individual. During the five years, 1867-71, the railroad corporations of Great Britain paid out over $11,000,000 in compensation for damages occasioned by accidents. In view, merely, of such money consequences of disaster, it would be most unnatural did not each new accident lead to the adoption of better appliances to prevent its recurrence.[30]
To return, however, to the subject of railroad accidents, and the final conclusion to be drawn from the statistics which have been presented. That conclusion briefly stated is that the charges of recklessness and indifference so generally and so widely advanced against those managing the railroads cannot for an instant be sustained. After all, as was said in the beginning of the present volume, it is not the danger but the safety of the railroad which should excite our special wonder. If any one doubts this, it is very easy to satisfy himself of the fact,—that is, if by nature he is gifted with the slightest spark of imagination. It is but necessary to stand once on the platform of a way-station and to look at an express train dashing by. There are few sights finer; few better calculated to quicken the pulse. It is most striking at night. The glare of the head-light, the rush and throb of the locomotive,—the connecting rod and driving-wheels of which seem instinct with nervous life,—the flashing lamps in the cars, and the final whirl of dust in which the red tail-lights vanish almost as soon as they are seen,—all this is well calculated to excite our admiration; but the special and unending cause for wonder is how, in case of accident, anything whatever is left of the train. As it plunges into the darkness it would seem to be inevitable that something must happen, and that, whatever happens, it must necessarily involve both the train and every one in it in utter and irremediable destruction. Here is a body weighing in the neighborhood of two hundred tons, moving over the face of the earth at a speed of sixty feet a second and held to its course only by two slender lines of iron rails;—and yet it is safe!—We have seen how when, half a century ago, the possibility of something remotely like this was first discussed, a writer in the British Quarterly earned for himself a lasting fame by using the expression that "We should as soon expect people to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as to trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate;"—while Lord Brougham exclaimed that "the folly of seven hundred people going fifteen miles an hour, in six trains, exceeds belief." At the time they wrote, the chances were ninety-nine in a hundred that both reviewer and correspondent were right; and yet, because reality, not for the first nor the last time, saw fit to outstrip the wildest flights of imagination, the former at least blundered, by being prudent, into an immortality of ridicule. The thing, however, is still none the less a miracle because it is with us matter of daily observation. That, indeed, is the most miraculous part of it. At all hours of the day and of the night, during every season of the year, this movement is going on. It never wholly stops. It depends for its even action on every conceivable contingency, from the disciplined vigilance of thousands of employés to the condition of the atmosphere, the heat of an axle, or the strength of a nail. The vast machine is in constant motion, and the derangement of a single one of a myriad of conditions may at any moment occasion one of those inequalities of movement which are known as accidents. Yet at the end of the year, of the hundreds of millions of passengers fewer have lost their lives through these accidents than have been murdered in cold blood. Not without reason, therefore, has it been asserted that, viewing at once the speed, the certainty, and the safety with which the intricate movement of modern life is carried on, there is no more creditable monument to human care, human skill, and human foresight than the statistics of railroad accidents.