are not provided with rollers but slide with metallic contact on the abbreviated Z-bar at the top of the door opening, which also extends to the first post. The door is thus secured at each corner, both top and bottom, no matter what its position may be. It is entirely smooth on the inner surface and is set out sufficient to clear the side posts and braces. The floor is carried out to meet the door in the opening, the extension being supported by the bulb angle. The sides of the opening are filled by bulb angles of the proper width which are secured to the top and bottom members of the door frame by corner irons, and are also riveted to the sill and side plate. These members form the door posts and are backed up by 2 in. hard wood strips. The Z-bars at either side of the door are flanged from steel plates, and the one at the back of the door is carried around the edge of the sheet to form a lip and seal the opening. The door stop is another Z-bar flanged from plate and secured on the outside of the door post. It extends out a sufficient distance to form a stop for the full height of the door. The handle is riveted directly to the sheet and does not increase the side clearance of the car. STOCK CAR The adaptation of this framing to a stock car is shown in one of the illustrations. The only changes are in the method of securing the lining or slats and the arrangement of the door. The underframe, side framing and roof structure are practically identical with the box car. Since the slats run horizontally there is no necessity for the horizontal struts between the posts and braces. The hard wood strips forming the slats are 14 in. x 6 in. and are secured directly to the framing by 3% in. bolts with the nuts on the outside. An end door is desired in this car, and it will be seen that there was sufficient room between the end post and the diagonal brace in the upper part of the car. This door is arranged to slide toward the side of the car. There is a small 2 in. x 24 in. x 3/16 in. angle on the inside of the corners to hold the end of the wooden slats. The doors on this car are of the flush sliding type that has been standard for this type of equipment on the Pennsylvania. REFRIGERATOR CARS. The framing of the refrigerator car does not differ from the box or stock car except at the door posts, where on account of the smaller door opening, the regular pressed steel post has been included and the doors are carried on separate wooden posts bolted to the sills at the top and bottom and forming part of the lining. The type of insulation and the method of applying it is shown in one of the illustrations. It will be noted that the cork sheets are carried for nearly one foot above the floor level on the sides and ends, thus preventing the capillary attraction of the hair felt from carrying up any moisture that might pos --90 sibly leak through at the floor level. The insulation at the floor is of cork and is laid in two 1 in. layers with a 1⁄2 in. between; there are also three layers of two-ply felt waterproof paper. The door is of the type customarily used on refrigerator cars, and the Miner door operating fixtures have been applied. The joints around the door are sealed by heavy canvas and hair arranged as a cushion. The car has an inside clear length between ice tanks of 32 ft. 111⁄2 in., a width of 8 ft. 41⁄2 in. and a clear height of 7 ft. 4 13/16 in. None of these cars have been completed, and it is impossible to obtain the actual weights; it is estimated that in each case the cars will weigh considerable less than the steel underframe and wooden superstructure car of the same size. LEGISLATION CONCERNING STEEL PAS SENGER EQUIPMENT." Six bills are pending in Congress requiring existing wooden passenger equipment to be replaced by steel. The periods suggested during which this is to be done vary from June 1, 1915, to January 1, 1918. In order to ascertain the progress of the building of steel and steel underframe passenger equipment and to develop the cost of the construction in steel of the present wooden passenger equipment in the country, circular No. 28 was issued to the railways on January 15, 1912, by the Special Committee on Relations of Railway Operation to Legislation. Replies to that circular have been received by the committee from 225 companies, operating 219,089 miles in the United States, and 55,872 passenger equipment vehicles, with 1,211 under construction on January 1, 1912; and from seven companies, operating 20,815 miles in Canada, and 3,892 passenger equipment vehicles, with 312 under construction on the same date. Tabulations *Taken from Bulletin No. 40 of the Special Committee on Relations of Railway Operation to Legislation. STATUS OF PASSENGER EQUIPMENT ON 225 RAILWAYS IN UNITED STATES AND 7 RAILWAYS IN CANADA. A Review of What the Interstate Commerce Commission Has BY C. C. M'CHORD, Member of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Railway accidents, their causes, and the means for their prevention is a subject which has caused general discussion in this country for many years past; and not without reason. When we learn that during the twenty-four years covered by the statistics of the Interstate Commerce Commission 188,037 persons have been killed and 1,395,618 persons injured on the railways of the United States, we are appalled at the magnitude of the slaughter. This is an average of 7,835 persons killed and 58,150 injured each year, or an annual total of nearly 66,000 persons killed and injured. This means that for every day during the past twenty-four years 181 persons have been killed or injured-nearly eight every hour, or one every seven minutes, with the regularity of clockwork. The ravages of war pale into insignificance before these silent indications of the destruction of human life accompanying the peaceful operation of our railways. It is pertinent to inquire how much of this fearful record of slaughter is due to the unavoidable risk of the industry, and how much to causes that can be eliminated, as means for the prevention of accidents must obviously be directed to the latter causes. TRESPASSERS. Upon analysis of the above totals one cannot fail to be impressed by the surprisingly large number of trespassers they include. No figures pertaining to trespassers appear in the commission's statistics previous to 1890, and as no returns of accidents to "other persons" were received by the commission for the year 1910, owing to a change in the law requiring reports of accidents, we have a complete record of accidents to trespassers for only the twenty-year period, 1890 to 1909, inclusive. This record is sufficiently startling. There were 163,171 persons killed and 1,190,125 injured during this twenty-year period. Of the number killed, 101,629, or more than 62 per cent. of the total, are classified as "other persons," that is, they were neither passengers nor employees, and of these 101,629 "other persons," 86,733, or more than 85 per cent., were killed while trespassing. The trespassers killed during this twenty-year period were more than 53 per cent. of the whole number of persons killed on railways. Of the 1,190,125 persons injured during this period, 142,040 or more than 11 per cent., were "other persons," and of this number 94,646, or more than 66 per cent., were trespassers. The trespassers injured constitute less than 8 per cent. of the whole number of persons injured. The following is a tabular presentation of these facts: at "other points along the track." Of the 26,291 deaths to trespassers during this five-year period, 17,469 were due to this cause. The extremely fatal nature of this class of accidents is indicated by the fact that while more than 17,000 persons were killed, less than 10,000 were injured, the deaths exceeding the injuries in a ratio of 1.76 to 1. It may also be noted that while more than 53 per cent. of all the persons killed during the twenty-year period, from 1890 to 1909, were trespassers, less than 8 per cent. of the total persons injured were trespassers. GRADE CROSSINGS. Public attention for many years has been centered upon the question of abolishing grade crossings. While it is of course desirable that all possible precaution should be taken for the prevention of accidents at highway crossings, it is nevertheless true that the highway crossing casualties are extremely few as compared with those occurring at other points along the track. In the five-year period above shown, 4,261 persons were killed at highway crossings, as compared with 17,861 persons killed at other points along the track; 8,830 persons were injured at highway crossings, as compared with 10,686 injured at other points along the track. The casualties to non-trespassers at other points along the track are so comparatively few in number that they may safely be left out of consideration. It is probable that practically all of them occur to persons engaged in loading or unloading cars in railway yards, and it is doubtful whether persons engaged in such work can be surrounded with additional safeguards. When it is considered, however, that more than half of the fatal accidents on railways in this country occur to persons who have no right upon railway premises, it becomes apparent that there is a fertile field for reform in the method of dealing with trespassers. In England and on the continent of Europe walking on railway tracks is forbidden by law, and it should be here; furthermore, vigorous measures should be undertaken to make people understand that railway tracks cannot be used as footwalks with impunity. Coming now to accidents to employees and passengers, we enter a field in which the federal government has displayed considerable activity, the result of which can be measured with a fair degree of accuracy. There are certain accidents which occur with more or less regularity and frequency on railways that may properly be called unavoidable. Such are accidents due to exceptional elemental disturbances, entirely unexpected landslides or washouts, want of ordinary precaution on the part of passengers or employees, malicious tampering with roadway or equipment, etc. Such accidents are accepted as among the ordinary hazards of railroading and may be dismissed from our reckoning. There are accidents, however, which are fairly preventable, and against the occurrence of which travelers and employees on railways have a right to demand protection. It is important, therefore, to determine the causes of these preventable accidents in order that proper measures for their prevention may be undertaken. SAFETY APPLIANCE LAW. The safety appliance act of 1893 was the first attempt of the federal government to deal with railway accidents. This law dealt with a class of accidents the cause of which was plainly apparent. The killing and maiming of employees through the use of link-and-pin couplers and drawbars of uneven height had been a crying evil for many years. Railway journals had advocated reforms; state railway commissions had discussed the question, and in some states laws had been enacted requiring the use of automatic couplers. But these state laws had made the situation worse rather than better, as they led to the adoption of different types of couplers for the different states, thus destroying the uniformity that is essential to safety where cars are universally interchanged, as is the practice on the railways of this country. What have been the results of this legislation? To secure its enforcement the commission in 1899 appointed an inspector to examine railway equipment. Aided by congressional appropriation, this practice has been extended until the inspection force now numbers 31 men. The year 1904 is the first one for which we have a complete record of the results of inspection. In that year the number of cars found defective in every 1,000 cars inspected was 311.87. In 1911, however, only seven years later, the situation had so much improved that of every 1,000 cars inspected only 44.63 were found defective, a reduction of 267.24 in the number of defective cars per 1,000 inspected, or more than 85 per cent., in this comparatively short period. This improvement in the condition of safety appliance equipment quite naturally brought about a corresponding decrease in the number of those accidents to employees which the use of the appliances was designed to prevent. In the year 1893, for instance, the number of employees killed in coupling accidents was 433, and the number injured was 11,277. The number per million equipment then was 333 employees killed and 8,675 injured in coupling accidents. The total equipment in the year 1893 was 1.3 millions, but .3 million of which was equipped with automatic couplers. In 1911, with 2.4 millions of equipment, all of which had automatic couplers, 209 employees were killed and 2,966 injured in coupling accidents, an average of but 87 killed and 1,236 injured per million equipment, thus showing a reduction from 11,710 to 3,175 in the total of deaths and injuries from this cause, or a decrease of nearly 73 per cent. The showing per million equipment, as might be expected, is even better, the deaths and injuries on this basis being reduced from a total of 9,008 in 1893 to 1,325 in 1911, or more than 85 per cent. This decrease in coupling accidents is even more favorable than at first appears, for it has taken place coincidently with an expansion of business which has resulted in the crowding of tracks and terminals, and the use of heavier equipment and longer trains, thus introducing additional elements of risk. In the light of the record it may safely be asserted that, considering the accidents to employees which the coupler and air brake laws were designed to prevent, the greatest part of those which now occur are due to the ordinary hazards of the railroading industry. It is also proper to observe that the use of these appliances, in addition to so greatly reducing accidents to employees, has brought abundant returns to the railways in economies of operation. COLLISIONS AND DERAILMENTS. Leaving those accidents the causes of which are plain and against the occurrence of which the law seems to have provided efficient safeguards, we come to a class of train accidents upon which public attention has been centered for many years, but which continue to occur with distressing frequency in spite of all measures thus far taken to prevent them. Collisions and derailments were responsible for 4,163 deaths, 63,002 injuries, and a property loss of $50,025,303 during the five-year period, 1907 to 1911, inclusive. The number of collisions and derailments during this period, as reported by the Interstate Commerce Commission, was 61,806. No road can claim immunity from these accidents, as they occur on the best equipped and best managed roads quite as frequently as on roads less well managed or equipped. Moreover, there is a dreary monotony in the sameness of the reported causes of these accidents. Year after year derailments and collisions due to identical causes are reported. For the purpose of obtaining reliable data regarding the causes of these accidents, Congress enacted a law in 1901 requiring interstate railways to make monthly reports under oath to the Interstate Commerce Commission of all collisions and derailments, giving the nature and cause of the accidents and the circumstances connected therewith. It was expected that through the reports required by this law the causes of the accidents reported upon would be revealed and proper remedies. for their prevention clearly indicated. Under the law the commission has published a series of quarterly bulletins based upon the monthly reports received from the railways. The publication of these bulletins quickly brought into prominence the weakness of the personal equation in railroading, showing that by far the greater number of these harrowing train accidents were due to human error. The bulletins show that errors in the operation of the train order system are frequent and fatal. Such errors are all of a kind. Despatchers. give wrong orders, or fail to give orders where they are required; operators fail to copy orders correctly, or do not deliver orders that should be delivered; conductors and enginemen misread, misinterpret, overlook or forget orders. This weakness of the train order system of operating trains, as disclosed by the commission's accident bulletins, gave impetus to agitation for the compulsory use of the block system. In its annual report for the year 1903 the commission recommended such legislation and submitted a draft of a tentative bill requiring the use of the block system on all interstate lines within a certain period. A bill following the suggestions of the commission was introduced in Congress in the winter of 1905, and has been reintroduced at every subsequent session, but has not yet been enacted into law. In the meantime, the block system has been considerably extended, the block signal mileage reported for the year 1911 being 76,409.7 miles, as against 48,743.2 miles in 1906. However, notwithstanding the theoretical merits of the block system as a means of safety, it by no means insures immunity from collisions. Some of the worst collisions noted in the accident bulletins have occurred on block signaled roads. Obviously, the block system can only afford protection when its danger warnings are observed and obeyed. The intensity of attention and quickness of perception required of enginemen on our modern, high-speed trains lead to the result that they sometimes fail to observe or obey signal indications, and when this happens, disastrous consequences are almost sure to follow. In the operation of the manual block system also, block operators sometimes make mistakes which lead to fatal results. AUTOMATIC STOPS, Noting these disasters due to human error. under the most highly approved system of train operation, the question naturally suggested itself: "Is it not possible to employ mechanical means that will automatically assume control of a train and bring it to a stop whenever a danger signal is for any reason disregarded?" Automatic stops had been in successful operation for several years on underground and elevated lines, but their general use on roads in the open country was not considered practicable. To determine the general practicability of such devices, therefore, Congress. in 1906, directed the commission to conduct an investigation, accompanied by experimental tests, of appliances for the automatic control of trains. To comply with the direction of Congress, the commission appointed a board of experts which conducted an investigation extending over a period of nearly five years. Reports stating the results of the board's investigations were issued annually. The last of these reports, issued December 26, 1911, states that "the information obtained from tests, together with knowledge of the general state of development of the art of automatic train control, leads the board to conclude that there are several types of apparatus and methods of application which, if put into use by railways, would quickly develop to a degree of efficiency adequate to meet all reasonable |