THE CHARFIELD CRASH
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—While it would be doing a gross injustice to our railway companies to suggest that the several recent accidents were the result of neglect or inefficient working, it is perhaps worth considering whether the cause might. not indirectly be due to a prevailing tendency to develop things mechanical on out-of-date lines.
It seems probable that the high death-rate in the Charfield crash was caused b;' the burning of the gas-lit coaches, which were built ehiefly of wood. Replying to Sir John Pringle at the Ministry of Transport inquiry, the Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the L.M.S. said that . experiments ,with steel-framed coaches were in progress, but .that these were 10 per cent. heavier and 50 per cent. more costly. The plain man who accepts these figures will want to know how it has been possible for the vast majority of ships launched in the present century to have been built of steel. The conditions of structural' and local strength required cannot be much more severe in railway coaches than in ships. He may also ask how it is that so many motor cars are built of steel, body and all.
When asked what he thought would have happened had the carriages in the collision been steel-framed, the Super- intendent is reported to have said that he thought the conse- quences would have been worse. My own opinion, based on the knowledge that a match-stick will burn in a gas fire while a steel bolt (say) will not, is that there would have been less of a conflagration, and as a probable consequence, a smaller death roll.
It seems permissible to ask whether there is not some stagnation of technical thought in railway practice. The young and thriving motor industry has used ball bearings and roller bearings since its birth. Do the wheels of railway carriages run on roller bearings ? I think not ; but I want to know why not ? Marine engineers have long recognized the superior efficiency, cleanliness, and economy of operation of oil fuel, water-tube boilers and turbines. Locomotive engineers still cling to coal, fire-tube boilers and reciprocating engines.
It would be ridiculous to suppose that the policy they pursue herein exposes their passengers to risk of life and limb ; but might it not be a wasteful policy ? Is it possible that our railway companies are, so to speak, burning money that might be applied more profitably to increasing the wages of their employees, on the discharge of whose 'duties our lives so often depend ?—I am, Sir, &e.,
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