But herein lies a difficulty. Internal defects can only be found by breaking the rail. A rail broken is past usefulness. Hence that form of inspection cannot be applied to every rail; and as we can only test a limited portion of each heat, some defective rails must inevitably be passed and get into track. Complete statistics of all rail failures on a large proportion of the railways of the United States have been collected by the American Railway Engineering Association for several years past. These reports have been collected and classified as to the several causes, the results being printed in the publications of the Association. They show that the rails which fail annually are less than one eighth of one per cent. of the rails laid. This indicates fairly successful inspection, and would be quite satisfactory were it not that a single failure may result in such horrible consequences.
Five years ago (1907) as the result of several conferences between a committee of the American Railway Association and the rail manufacturers, a systematic study of the subject was undertaken, with a view to ascertaining the cause, and if possible, the prevention of rail failures. This research work was placed in charge of the Rail Committee of the American Railway Engineering Association, who engaged the services of a competent expert, who devotes his whole time to the work, furnishing freely of their materials and facilities at the mills. The line of investigation includes studies of the effects of variations in composition; in time in the bath; in time in the ladle; in manner and rate of pouring; in size of ingot; in rate of reduction at each pass; in temperature of the metal when rolled; in the effect of different alloys, etc. The field of investigation is broad and complicated. Much progress has been made, but much remains to be done. It is hoped, however, that success will ultimately be reached, and the rail failures in service be reduced to the lowest possible minimum. Certainly the railway engineers and the manufacturers are making every effort to accomplish that result.
Of late the adoption of some form of automatic stop has been suggested, and more or less urgently advocated. But let us consider: Referring again to the list of causes of the twenty-six accidents, such a device would have been called into play only in one case, that of running by a signal when the light was out. It could have had no influence on any one of the other twenty-five cases. Furthermore, it has been the experience the world over that emergency devices, resting in “innocuous desuetude” for long intervals of time, usually fail to work when the emergency arises. It may be said that it should be some one’s duty to see that the apparatus is kept in working order. Very true. But therein is a reversion to ultimate dependence on the human factor with its attendant weakness and frailties.
The foregoing list of accidents embrace only a few of the more prominent “collisions” and “derailments.” But there are other forms of accident, as shown in the following statistical tables copied from the Interstate Commerce Commission Annual Report for 1909:
ACCIDENTS RESULTING FROM THE MOVEMENT OF TRAINS, LOCOMOTIVES, OR CARS.
Interstate Commerce Commission Annual Report, 1909.
| Employes. | ||||||||
| Switch Tenders, | ||||||||
| KIND OF ACCIDENT. | Trainmen. | Crossing Tenders | Station Men. | Shopmen. | ||||
| and Watchmen. | ||||||||
| Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | |
| Coupling or uncoupling | 137 | 2,271 | 4 | 35 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 17 |
| Collision | 205 | 1,973 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 23 | |
| Derailments | 184 | 1,186 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 6 | ||
| Parting of trains | 7 | 233 | 2 | 1 | ||||
| Locomotives or cars breaking down | 9 | 159 | 2 | 6 | ||||
| Falling from trains, locomotives, or cars | 295 | 4,433 | 1 | 56 | 30 | 2 | 65 | |
| Jumping on or off trains, locomotives or cars | 84 | 4,135 | 6 | 64 | 24 | 4 | 59 | |
| Struck by trains, locomotives or cars | 243 | 577 | 72 | 79 | 21 | 25 | 41 | 89 |
| Overhead obstructions | 47 | 775 | 6 | 4 | ||||
| Other causes | 133 | 13,376 | 9 | 243 | 2 | 121 | 14 | 465 |
| Total | 1,344 | 29,118 | 93 | 507 | 25 | 206 | 64 | 734 |
| Employes (Continued). | ||||||||
| KIND OF ACCIDENT. | Trackmen. | Telegraph | Other | Total. | ||||
| Employes. | ||||||||
| Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | |
| Coupling or uncoupling | 7 | 11 | 50 | 155 | 2,382 | |||
| Collisions | 18 | 132 | 7 | 27 | 163 | 252 | 2,309 | |
| Derailments | 13 | 64 | 10 | 117 | 208 | 1,385 | ||
| Parting of trains | 1 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 9 | 250 | ||
| Locomotives or cars breaking down | 2 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 178 | ||
| Falling from trains, locomotives, or cars | 13 | 159 | 7 | 36 | 234 | 347 | 4,983 | |
| Jumping on or off trains, locomotives or cars | 16 | 130 | 13 | 22 | 261 | 132 | 4,686 | |
| Struck by trains, locomotives or cars | 353 | 412 | 8 | 12 | 187 | 345 | 925 | 1,539 |
| Overhead obstructions | 4 | 5 | 20 | 52 | 809 | |||
| Other causes | 25 | 882 | 34 | 83 | 1,340 | 266 | 16,461 | |
| Total | 441 | 1,802 | 8 | 73 | 383 | 2,542 | 2,358 | 34,982 |
| Other Persons. | ||||||||
| KIND OF ACCIDENT. | Passengers. | Trespassing. | Not Trespassing. | Total. | ||||
| Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | Killed. | Injured. | |
| Collisions | 69 | 2,379 | 13 | 49 | 25 | 447 | 38 | 496 |
| Derailments | 17 | 2,426 | 32 | 69 | 6 | 287 | 38 | 356 |
| Parting of trains | 47 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 3 | 16 | ||
| Locomotives or cars breaking down | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 5 | ||
| Falling from trains, locomotives or cars | 37 | 425 | 413 | 732 | 13 | 72 | 426 | 804 |
| Jumping on or off trains locomotives or cars | 81 | 1,503 | 445 | 1,688 | 11 | 120 | 456 | 1,808 |
| Struck by trains, locomotives or cars; | ||||||||
| At highway crossings | 2 | 3 | 112 | 211 | 621 | 1,619 | 733 | 1,830 |
| At stations | 30 | 67 | 365 | 334 | 66 | 183 | 431 | 517 |
| At other points along track | 1 | 12 | 3,371 | 2,037 | 79 | 143 | 3,450 | 2,180 |
| Other causes | 12 | 2,715 | 190 | 635 | 47 | 1,030 | 237 | 1,665 |
| Total | 249 | 9,579 | 4,944 | 5,759 | 869 | 3,918 | 5,813 | 9,677 |
Referring to the column of totals under the head of “Employes” you will note the large number of killed and injured in coupling or uncoupling cars; this in spite of the fact that all the equipment is fitted with automatic couplers, intended to prevent just those accidents.