As far as has yet been made out, both the
railway accidents which we noticed last week were due to insufficient supervision of the state of the rails. In relation to the accident near Lancaster, it has been shown that five of "the chairs "—that is, the fastenings of one of the rails on which the train had ran —were loose, so that the wheel, instead of being kept in its place, had half an inch of play, the first loose fastening being precisely at the point where the mishap began. In relation to the accident near Berwick to the "Flying Scotchmau," it has been given in evidence that at the place of the accident the sleepers which ought to have been fast were not fast; the " chairs " which should have fastened the rails had only one spike in them. If this be so, both of these serious acci- dents were due to much the same cause,—the defective condi- tion of the permanent way. With trains travelling at the rate of our express trains, the least looseness of the rails may give rise to the most fearful catastrophes. Inadequate fastenings are preparations for slaughter ; and fastenings which have been perfectly adequate, want constant and most careful testing, to prove that they remain so. A new accident, which happened on Thursday in a Yorkshire tunnel on the Midland line, was apparently due to an accidental stoppage, and the failure of the signalman at the opening of the tunnel to set the signal against the next train.
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