NO MORE RAILROAD WRECKS will be caused by disregard of block signals after July 1, 1924, if an order just issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission in accordance with permission given to it by the Esch-Cummins Act of 1920, becomes of effect in March, and works out as intended. Trains that run into a closed block of track will come to a stop whether the engineer is willing or not—stopt by an automatic control device outside the train. It is the opinion of the Commission that devices of this kind, which have now been in operation experimentally for many years, are no longer to be considered doubtful, but will do just what they are intended to do. They are, in fact, in a better stage of perfection than were such devices as the air-brake, the automatic coupler and the block-signal, when first adopted. These were all opposed on the ground of the cost involved in installing and operating them, and this has also been the basis of opposition to the new control devices; but the Commission is not of opinion that such arguments have weight when the public safety is in question. Says The Railway Age (New York) in an article describing the order:
” The Interstate Commerce Commission on January 10 served upon 49 railroads an order to show cause by March 15 why it should not adopt a report and enter an order requiring them to install by July 1, 1924, between designated points in their main lines, automatic train-stop or train-control devices complying with specifications and requirements sot forth in the order which the Commission has determined upon as the result of its investigation conducted pursuant to section 26 of the Interstate Commerce Act.
“The device, acc6rding to the proposed order, is to be applicable to or operated in connection with all road engines running on or over at least,one full passenger locomotive division included in the part of the main line between the points named.
It further provides that each carrier named shall submit to the Commission complete and detailed plans and specifications prior to the installation, and that by July 1, 1922, they shall file complete and detailed plans of the signal systems in use, and a report of the number and type of locomotives assigned to or engaged in road service on the designated portions of line, and shall proceed diligently and without unnecessary delay to select and install the devices as specified. They are also to file with the Commission on or before July 1, and each three months thereafter, full and complete reports of the progress made with the preparation for and the installation of the devices, which together with the manner and details of the installation shall be subject to the approval of the Commission or the division of the Commission to which the matter may be referred.”
Another railway paper, The Railway Review (Chicago), commends the order. It says:
“No complaint can be made that the Interstate Commerce Commission has been hasty in issuing this order to the railroads to comply with the law. From the date of the passage of the law until the time when the installation of train control, as now ordered, is required to be made complete, the time elapsed will have been four years and four months. Considering all that has transpired during the fifteen years since the act of Congress authorizing investigations of automatic train control, leading to the organization of the Block Signal and Train Control Board, which made a final and favorable report ten years ago, it must be said that the Commission has dealt leniently with this subject. Should any railroad managers be disposed to claim that they are not sufficiently satisfied with the state of the art to begin installation, they now have but little ground for complaint, having allowed two years to pass since the passage of the law without beginning actual installation. As a matter of truth at least a half dozen systems of automatic train control have been tried in practical operation and developed to the point where installation of the same could be taken in hand within reasonable time, and there are at least half a dozen more designed on such well recognized and acceptable principles that they can be developed for practical service within a comparatively short time.
” There can be no honest doubt about the need of automatic train control. The Commission has fortified its ground by calling attention to the disastrous wrecks of the past year in a period when traffic was quiet, which could have been avoided by installations of automatic train stops or train control. Any one who may be of the opinion that the development of automatic train control has not been sufficient to justify enforcement of such a law at this time is simply behind the times. Neither air brakes nor automatic couplers nor automatic block signals, at the time when general installation of the same was taken up by the railroads, were nearly as completely developed toward the point of 100 per cent. efficiency as automatic train control, as now developed, has proven to be.”
The Chief of the Bureau of Safety remarks in his report on the Ivanhoe wreck:
” It has been shown that the best signal systems, installed according to the latest engineering knowledge on the subject and maintained to a very high standard, will not prevent accidents. Employees of the highest class, with long records for faithful performance of their every duty, have failed at the critical time. It must be apparent, therefore, that with such a list of accidents, all occurring on roads where modern signaling is in use, the lesson of the urgent need of some further safeguard can not be overlooked. It is for this purpose that the automatic stop has been devised.”
Source: The Literary Digest for February 18, 1922