Confessions of a Railroad Signalman

by James O. Fagan

There is practically no out-on-the-road supervision on American railroads.

Railroad managers depend upon the reports of employees for information in regard to violations of rules. But employees do not, and cannot be compelled to, report their associates; consequently negligence of all kinds is practically unchecked.

Finally: unchecked negligence can be shown to be the root and direct cause of nearly all preventable accidents, and loss of life therefrom, on American railroads.

Here we have a conclusion worth looking into. At a glance we perceive that negligence is the prime and fundamental fact. It is the direct cause of the trouble. The fact that the negligence is unchecked is important, yet secondary. It should be treated as a separate issue, and it must stand or fall on its own merits.

But our conclusion that accidents result in almost all cases from unchecked negligence should be supported by evidence and proof. For examples in support of it, let us take two of the most disastrous wrecks in the history of New England railroads.

On November 26, 1905, at Baker Bridge in Lincoln, Mass., seventeen people were killed and thirty injured. An express passenger train was following an accommodation train, which was somewhat late. Cautionary signals calling for reduced speed and careful running were passed at intervals by the express train, but, according to the evidence, the engineman paid no attention to them; hence the accident. Now the habitual negligence in regard to these cautionary signals was a matter of common knowledge. In fact, attention was called to the matter both before and after the accident by the writer. The unchecked negligence in this particular case was therefore directly responsible for the accident and the loss of life.

Again, on September 15, 1907, at West Canaan, N. H., twenty-five people were killed and forty injured. The unchecked negligence in this case is by no means so striking as in the previous example, and yet the evidence pointing in that direction is quite as significant. A mistake occurred in the transmission of an important train order. This mistake was the direct cause of the accident. For various reasons it was impossible to say by whom the mistake was made.

Now let us turn to our book of rules and take note of the following instructions to train dispatchers and operators: “In transmitting messages write slowly and firmly,” etc.

With all proper consideration for hard-worked and conscientious train dispatchers, I am compelled to confess that train orders are seldom if ever sent “slowly and firmly.” Operators will bear me out in the statement that orders are transmitted by dispatchers as fast as the men can handle them. That is to say, between veterans in the business they are rattled off at the highest limit of speed. The men concerned in the accident at West Canaan were veterans. Had the man at West Canaan been a “plug,” that is, a green hand, in all probability the accident would not have occurred. While, of course, this is merely a supposition, yet the fact remains that the men would have been transmitting slowly and firmly, and the chances for a mistake would have been reduced to a minimum.

I thoroughly understand and appreciate the difficulties with which the train dispatcher has to contend. I am quite aware that he is called upon to handle trains with the utmost dispatch; nevertheless, I insist that, in order to reduce chances of accident to a minimum, train orders should in all cases be transmitted slowly and firmly. I stand by the rules. The issue is between speed and safety, and in all cases the latter should be given the right of way.