Railroad Accidents, Their Cause and PreventionRichards, R. C. (Ralph Coffin)
History
Railroad Accidents, Their Cause and Prevention
Richards, R. C. (Ralph Coffin)
Railroad accidents
Charles West, aged eighteen months, struck and killed 1,000 feet
south of Savannah Station, June 16, by train. Child came on track
through a break in the right of way fence.
Margaret Kennedy, struck and killed on June 13, at 6:10 p.m.,
while walking on the tracks inside the city limits of Utopia, by
engine running about twenty-five miles an hour; although the
engineman saw her in time to have stopped, he did not realize that
she did not see or hear the train coming, and failed to do so.
Mrs. Helen Boston, eighty-four years old, struck and killed on a
bridge near Lenox, September 1, at 4:35 p.m., by engine. Track is
straight for about two miles and a half east of place of accident,
and the woman wore a bright pink dress skirt. No one on the engine
knew the accident had happened.
December 21, engine ran over G. P. Krauss, at 5:40 p.m., a quarter
of a mile south of Slazenger. Engineman says he saw something
lying on the track and thought it was a bough of evergreen. He did
not know until he reached the station that anybody had been struck.
As the traffic and population increase, cases of this kind grow in
number, and, for some unknown reason, the public think that, while
they must keep off the property of private individuals, where there is
no danger, they are privileged to go onto a railroad track where
everyone knows there is great danger, and after doing so a few times,
the courts say they have a license to do so, and that we must look out
for them and see that they don't get hurt. On the same theory I
suppose the courts would say after a man burglarizes your house six or
seven times that he has a license to try it again, and if he gets hurt
because too much force was used in throwing him out, that you must
respond in damages. So when you discover that people, old or young,
are making a custom of walking through the yards or on the track,
report it to your superintendent before, not after, someone is killed
or injured, and he will try to stop it. And if you find a child or a
drunken man on the track, drive him off, because if you don't they are
likely to get killed; and your company will not only back you up but
thank you for your thoughtfulness.
INJURIES TO OUTSIDERS
Rule 27 says that cars must be placed so as not to project over
highway crossings, and yet any one going over a railroad will see any
number of them so left, and the result is that about once in so often
a wagon strikes a car in an attempt to get across, a horse is
frightened, and a runaway results, someone is hurt, and money paid to
settle the claim.
A serious case of this kind occurred at Warburton, July 9, in
which Mrs. Jansen was fatally injured, caused by her horse being
frightened by a freight car which was left standing fifteen feet
in the highway, the end of the car being on the crossing plank.
Horse ran away and she was thrown out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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