AUTHORIZED BLOODSHED ON RAILWAYS.
WE have awaited in vain the report of the "full investigation" that was to take place into the collision of the 4th instant at the Boxmoor station of the N oath-western Railway ; but the Coroner's inquest into the accident at the Pander's-end station of the Eastern Counties Railway fully shows that it must be classed among those which might have been foreseen:.
The guard of the special train which slaughtered Lodwick, the night-inspector at, Ponder's-end, has been committed to Newgate for heedless driving ; but the verdict of manslaughter against him was accompanied with an eipressiOn of censure on the imperfect arrangements and irregular practice of the Company. To us, in- deed, it appears that the " accident' is less fairly ascribable to reck- less driving than to the despatch of the special train without ade- quate precautions.
The evidence shows .that the arrangements at the station where the collision occurred were not sufficient to secure the safety which they professed to aim at, and that a rigid calculation would have demonstrated their inadequacy beforehand; that the arrangements at the station froni which the special train was sent were not suffi- cient to secure safety in the despatch of that special train ; and also that the -arrangements, inadequate as they were in their na- ture, were not completed even in form by the officer who sent the special train.
The arrangethents at the London station were not sufficient to guarantee safe despatch of the special train. A, Hertford goods- train had left London twenty minutes too late ; the night-inspector of the telegraph .department iii. Shoreditch telegraphed down the line to keep clear ; but it appears that the arrangements for draw- ing attention at the telegraph stations are so incomplete that there is frequently great delay in obtaining a, response, and 'frequently no' response at all. The telegraph-offices of some intermediate stations—Lea Bridge, Water Lane, Marsh Lane, and Cheshunt- " are supposed to- be, shut up after dark:" Here, then, we. find gross unpunctuality in the despatch of an ordinary train ; the de- layed train is a slow train preceding a fast train ; the telegraph means for clearing the line are imperfect in their nature and in re- gulanty, of attendance. Such as they were, the precautionary arrangements were not completed in form. The imperfect working of those means was manifest at the 'London station : whether the telegraph night- inspector knew it. or not, it must have been known to some- body that.thelfertford goods-train hid started late. The tele- graph-inspector ;received instructions "speak" with all the stations between London and Cambridge at only five minutes before six o'clock-
" Ifirst spoke with Tottenham ; ten minutes elapsol, however, before I could attract their attention. The next station I communicated with was Ponder's-end. It was thereabout four minutes past six o'clock: I continued calling for ten minutes, . and, finding.no attention was paid me, I called at Waltham ; and there also no reply was given for some tinie." The inspector was to announce -at these stations that a special train for. Cambridge had started : it had started at ten minutes before six o'clock. The precautions to secure the safe despatch of the fast train were not commenced. till. after the train had started ; and they were no sooner commenced than their total incompetency in the -working made.itself appear. The arrangenients at the station where the accident occurred were in their nature insufficient to secure safety. Now observe what' happened at this station. In reading the evidence, the fact firstin point of time is, that the Hertford goodsltrain reached Pon- der'svend about six o'clock;: stepped-to leave, a truck in the siding, (which would. take three minutes* and departed ."about five mi- nutes past six"—so • says the.gnarch but he had sant his: watchto London for repairs. The guard of the Norwich up goods-train states thathearrived at hisnsual time,.ten minutes past six o'clock : the Hertford train was ,then partlylowthe siding and partly. on; the main-down-line. As:aotri sitc,illob* LOODiPbted. its operation, the Men of the:Norwich 1-T4:rain:began theirs; ivliieli Was to' detach a I
truck and " shunt" it across the down-line on to the siding : it is said to take ten minutes thus to shunt a truck across the line : the Hertford train had departed about three minutes when the special train came up, dashed against the truck which had not yet got clear of the line, and inflicted those frightful gashes of which Lodwick
died. Lodwick evidently knew nothing of the special train ; and as the driver of the Hertford goods-train/anew nothing about it until he reached Waltham, it is very probable that if the truck of the Norwich train had escaped, the special train would have over- taken the Hertford train.
Such are the facts as they happened ; now what were the stand- ing arrangements at the station ? At four stations on the line there is a level crossing ; but of those four Ponder's-end is the only one where it is necessary to shunt from the up-line across the down- line to a siding : " it takes not more than ten minutes " to effect that particular sort of shunting. During the night there is only the night-inspector at the station ; but as soon as a train arrives the men belonging to it are under the orders of the night-inspector. It is his business to attend to the trains, their shunting, the sig- nals' the telegraph, and the gates of the level crossing. It is a rule that when there is an obstruction on the line, a man is to run back six hundred yards behind the obstruction, and to put down a per- cussion-signal ; but as that manoeuvre would take about twenty minutes, and as the stoppages at Ponder's-end are very short--- say five or ten minutes—it is the standing practice to disregard' that rule. The rule is said to be observed at other stations, but not at the Ponder's-end--the only station where there is a level crossing conjointly with the necessity for a tranverse shunting.
From the facts it appears, that while the telegraph-inspector at Shoreditch was engaged in trying to draw the attention of Lod- wick, Lodwiek was engaged in shunting the truck. It would al- so appear, that between the commencement of the telegraphing to Ponder's-end station and the actual arrival of the special train. at that station, no sufficient time was allowed for a man to be sent back six hundred yards along the line : therefore, even if Lodwick's attention had been attracted at the moment when the telegraphing began, it would have been too late to stop the special train.
The simple facts recorded in evidence irresistibly establish these conelusions,—that the precautions to prevent accidents at Ponder's- end were incomplete, and in their nature unworkable; that the precautions available at the Shoreditch station were in their na- ture imperfect ; that they were not taken before the special train started, which made it impossible to repair omissions ; and that they were begun absolutely too late to allow time for obeying or- ders at Ponder's-end, and therefore too late to prevent that very disaster which was confessedly foreseen when the precautions were eolourably begun. To state the case more simply,—the :Norwich goods-train arrived at Ponder's-end in the due course of duty, and its arrival about that time should have been foreseen; the shunt- ing was an operation in the regular course of duty, and should have been provided for; into the truck crossing the line the spe- cial train was sent to dash without forewarning; the simplest de- gree of correctness would have sufficed to prevent the disaster, by ascertaining that the line was not free, and keeping back the Spe- cial train until it had been made free,
We are justified therefore in reckoning the Por der's-end slaugh- ter among those which are performed by authority'.
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