27 SEPTEMBER 1845, Page 13

RAILWAY COERCION.

IT seems that the managers of railways are bent upon forcing Sir Robert Peel to redeem the pledge which he gave last session, -that if "moral responsibility" would not suffice to compel a better system on the adoption of companies and their directors, Government would interpose. The stream of disastrous accidents continues unbroken. Those reported this week, indeed, are not so fertile in bloodshed as some have been ; but they are of a kind more manifestly pregnant with danger to the public at large, and more obviously arising from sheer negligence than almost all the accidents recorded.

Prince George of Cambridge was almost converted to a useful purpose not common with personages of his order, by being made the victim of a collision, and thus becoming a royal example to hasten the promised interposition; and if so, a Prince of the Blood Royal would have been destroyed because the Midland Railway Company, instead of accurately adjusting the departure of its trains, has left their unimpeded course or clashing together in mid-career partly to chance! The Company, indeed, may have its rules on paper; but in practice, chance has done much more to save it from the manslaughter of a Prince of the Blood Royal.

On other lines we read of trains too large for the engines, engines too feeble for the trains, and delays varying from twenty minutes to half-a-dozen hours. A case recorded of the Birming- ham and Bristol line is instructive. A train was on its way, but its engine failed, and it crept along at a walking-pace ; an express- train was expected to overtake it ; with great exertion, a "down- side rail " was reached ; and the exclamation of the guard- " Thank God we are out of danget I " betrayed the peril to

which the passengers had been exposed—in a few minutes, the express did dash by ! There appears to be no difficulty in detectiog the causes of these terrible contingencies: they lie almost entirety in the category of deficiencies. The signals are defective : hands are not sufficient in numbers : a long but casual impunity has rendered railway ser- vants, of a class too ignorant to be spontaneously cautious and ex- act, habitually reckless and the recklessness is now bearing its fruits in multiplied accidents. Moreover, the engines, and even the very rails and their foundations, have probably become worn in many instances and unfit for their uses. Yet the grasping of railway companies at the largest amount of profits induces them to starve their service. And the public are at the mercy of these railway directors ; to whom, in most cases, the Legislature have obligingly transferred a monopoly of travelling. The traveller is the mere sport of their parsimonious tyranny. Now he is hur- ried along for immense distances, with barely time to allay the cravings of nature ; next he is doomed to waste an idle hour at some desert station, waiting for a " branch" train capriciously dislocated from its trunk ; the dilatory train arrives, and then there is so little time that his luggage is snatched from him, stowed away in some locker of the carriages in a class separate from his own, to be afterwards wrung from the heedless indif- ference of men with too much to do ; once again the train is de- layed, to add more and more carriages until, in defiance of all safety, the train is stretched to a huge length, with more than one engine ; delayed long behind its appointed time, it dashes forward to avoid the train that comes after it, possibly to flee destruction from behind only to rush into it before by being dragged off the line. To what railway does this de- scription not apply ? That was not the kind of management con- templated by the Legislature when it authorized private com- panies to make profit out of the iron highways. On the contrary, it meant that every outlay needful for the accommodation, and above all for the safety of the public, should be made before pro- fits should be touched. Something was left to the "moral re- sponsibility" of directors : they have answered that trust by devoting all their care to wringing the last drop of lucre out of the public pocket. Show them that a little liberality will increase their gains, and they are as generous as needs be ; but trust to their moral responsibility," and they will smash you in a col- lision, without eating a mouthful the less for supper. Some remedies for the enormous evils, that speak even in shrieks and blood, are obvious. A thorough inspection of the materiel of railways might be secured by the existing powers of the Board of Trade. At present, the inspection seems to consist simply in -sending down General Pasley as hard as an engine Can take him, to see if he be smashed ; and if he escape, the line is proclaimed open to the public. General Pasley does not, he says, mind being_ the established forlorn hope for the public : but the Pasley may go too often to the rail ; and it is poor consolation for a maimed cripple' a widow, or an orphan, to reflect that, some time before a fatal disaster, General Pasley ran as bad a risk without hurt. Nay, such a reflection might exasperate some minds not unduly sensitive. Again, when an accident occurs, General Pasley goes and looks at the place—and perhaps says how it happened, perhaps that he can't tell, as the case may be : and that is all that the Board do till the next accident ; when General Pasley goes again to "inspect." Surely, Government do not suppose that the duties of ' inspection" are fulfilled by that literal and etymological application of the term ; or that be- cause the gallant General confesses to an intrepid contempt for life, the public are bound to take their chance of a "gory bed" or " victory "—videlicit, safe arrival—with as cheerful a zeal as "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" ?

Next, a great extension and a much greater completeness oughtto be given to the system of signals, visual and sonorous. The sight-signals for the day-time are most wretched—dull bits of board, that challenge no sort of attention. The flags are better, but not the best. And the sound-signals are too few to convey any sufficient range of instructions. The use of the trumpet and bugle in military evolutions may show what varied orders can be conveyed by tune ; while the piercing sounds of those instru- ments are borne to great distances. Without making the signals so numerous or complicated as to baffle comprehension, they might be contrived to convey every instruction essential to the safe passage of trains. And the servants, we repeat, should undergo a regular and periodical drill in the exercise of the signals. Printed instruc- tions, which may or may not be delivered, may or may not be read, are not a trustworthy means for teaching duties of such vital importance. Every signal should be shown practically to every servant in the presence of his superior and of his fellows ; every act should be actually done by him before his teacher, until it become familiar. The danger of a fatal collision may occur only once a quarter; but the servant ought to be in the habit of going through those exercises which he should perform on such occasions, at least once a week. But the Legislature has an imperative duty to perform. It has been supposed, that if competition between different railways were encouraged, rival trains would race, and the dangers would be multiplied. The existing monopolies have shown that dangers can lurk in other motives, while the public is left without a free choice. From the want of more than single lines in some parts, there seems to be an excess of traffic on the existing lines : at least, that is a fair inference from the fact that the directors can- not arrange to despatch trains of moderate length with tolerable -punctuality; but seem to have no alternative between risking collision by despatching trains at intervals too short, or accumu- lating them to a dangerous length. Such excess of traffic—the oak excuse for such hazardous contrivances—had better be di- 'vided. It is also probable, that if there were rival lines, there would be competition in other things besides speed and price—in -accommodation for the public, and above all in safety. We be- lieve that if there were two lines side by side, one offering to con- vey passengers at a greater speed, the other guaranteeing them against such accidents as the collision on the Bristol and Exeter line with the chance of finding beds how they could during a night's delay, they would prefer the less rapid, but surer, more comfortable, and safer train. ,It would not yet be too late to ap- ply that kind of coercion to all companies that exhibit a want of the amoral responsibility" so hastily assumed for them.