10 o'clock P. M. and 4 A. M., requiring thirty-six blasts of the whistle, so distributed as to greatly disturb the slumbers of people in that section, and that a whistle at Bridge street is practically a warning for both the others. The Board therefore decides upon said complaint and petition, that the statutory crossing whistle is not necessary at any cossing on the Portsmouth road west of the Mammoth road between the hours of 10 P. M. and 9 A. M., except at Pine and Massabesic streets, or at any crossing on the Concord road south of Amoskeag and north of Merrimack street between the hours of 10 P. M. and 6 A. M., except at Bridge street, and it is hereby recommended that crossing whistles on the roads named be confined during the times specified to the Pine and Massabesic street crossings on the Portsmouth road west of the Mammoth road, and to the Bridgestreet crossing on the Concord road between Amoskeag and Merrimack street. It is further recommended that the legal crossing whistle, which consists of two long and two short blasts, be so reduced in Manchester that it shall not exceed six seconds in length, and that engine-men be held to a strict observance of the rules of the road relating to whistling, it being our opinion that much of the complaint on the subject arises from whistling which is outside or in excess of the requirements of the regulations by which it should be governed. By the Board, E. B. S. SANBORN, Clerk. XIV. ACCIDENT AT ASHLAND. STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. IN BOARD OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS, CONCORD, January 31, 1887. January 5, as a freight train going north on the White Mountain division of the Boston & Lowell Railroad was leaving the highway bridge at "Green's cut," near Ashland, the fireman and conductor discovered the brakeman, George H. Straw, lying flat upon his face on the top of the forward car. They immediately went to his assistance, and found him unconscious. He was taken to Ashland, where physicians were summoned, and in the afternoon was carried to his home in Concord, where he died at 6 o'clock that evening, having never recovered his consciousness. It appeared from the testimony of all the trainmen that Mr. Straw, as was his usual custom, got upon the engine at Meredith and rode to the top of the hill near Ashland, when he left and went back to set the brake upon the forward end of the box-car nearest the tender; that the next seen of him was when he lay outstretched upon the snow that covered the top of that car. As the brake to which he was going was not set, as it was in broad daylight, and the tell-tales one hundred and fifty feet from the bridge were in place, and as he was familiar with the road, it is to be inferred that he climbed upon the car after it had passed the telltales and before it reached the bridge, and was struck in the back of the head by the timbers in the bridge, receiving a blow which fractured his skull and caused his death. The bridge at Green's cut is an overhead pass for a highway. The stringers in its roof are but fifteen feet three inches above the track, or four feet above the top of an ordinary Grand Trunk box-car, such as the one on which Straw was killed. It is similar to many others in the State which constantly threaten the lives of freight-train men, but it is no worse than the law tolerates by providing for the erection of tell-tales as warnings one hundred and fifty feet on either side of them. Nevertheless, it is for the interest, and it should be the aim, of both the roads and the towns, which appear to have a joint responsibility in the matter, to remove them whenever it can be done. By the Board, E. B. S. SANBORN, Clerk. XV. ACCIDENT AT CONCORD. STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. IN BOARD OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS, CONCORD, January 31, 1887. Darby Gannon, a man nearly seventy years old, who has been employed in the shops of the Northern Railroad for thirty-eight years, was run over at ten minutes past 10 o'clock on the forenoon of January 20 by an engine in the Concord yard, receiving internal in juries of which he died the next day. Mr. Gannon had been to the upper end of the yard and got a broken target, which he was taking to the shop to be repaired. As he passed down the track he was observed by an engineer to be intently studying a tag upon the target, which contained instructions as to repairing it. A few seconds later he was struck by the tender of a locomotive that was backing down from the turn-table, forced forward upon his face, run over and crushed. The locomotive carried but forty pounds of steam and was moving less than four miles an hour. Its engineer and fireman were both at its windows looking out for obstructions upon the track, but Mr. Gannon walked so close to the tender that their line of vision did not include him, and they were first made aware that any one was in danger by the shouts of a switchman after the accident occurred. The engine bell was ringing at the time, but Mr. Gannon was slightly deaf, and if he had not been it would probably not have attracted his attention, as there were several other engines moving near by. From a remark he made after he was injured, it would seem that he thought he was walking upon the main track, which he knew was the only safe one at that hour of the day. We find no evidence that any one was as fault, the accident being clearly due to the victim becoming so engrossed with the tag upon the target that he unconsciously stepped upon the side track and into a position where the greatest vigilance on the part of others could not have saved him. By the Board, E. B. S. SANBORN, Clerk. XVI. ACCIDENT AT SUNCOOK. STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. IN BOARD OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS, CONCORD, February 14, 1887. As the morning passenger train north was crossing the bridge between Suncook station and the China Mills, February 3, the engine struck and killed G. Petit, an employe in the mills, who was going from the yard to the freight-house across the river upon an errand. The engine had just passed the three crossings below the bridge, at which the whistle had been sounded, and when Petit was discovered upon the track some thirty feet ahead of the engine, the engineer reversed his engine, put on the brakes and blew the whistle, while the fireman rang the bell. But as Petit was quite deaf, the warning did not arrest his attention, and, although the train was stopped before going its length after he was first seen by the fireman, he was struck and instantly killed. This bridge is near a sharp curve in the road, and a coal-shed built close to the track by the China Mills so obstructs the view that an engineer cannot see the track upon the bridge until within about twenty feet of it, when going north. It is a deck bridge, high above the water, with no railing to prevent a person from falling over its sides. It would be a perilous footpath if no train ever ran over it, and a person who walks across it when a train is approaching, without exercising the greatest care, invites destruction. Yet the engine men testified at the investigation in this case that they have to whistle people from it nearly every trip, and there is other evidence showing that because it is the shortest cut from the China Mills to the village about the station, it is in almost constant use as a highway. That only one of the hundreds of trespassers upon it has recently been run over and killed cannot easily be explained, and furnishes no reason for supposing that they will be equally fortunate in future. In the case before us the trainmen did all they could to prevent the accident, and it was clearly due to the carelessness of the man who was killed. On the evening of January 8, Henry A. Bond, of Claremont, about twenty years of age, jumped from the passenger train while crossing the Windsor bridge of the Sullivan County Railroad, fell from the bridge to the ice below, about fifty feet, and was instantly killed. Bond and a companion named Fritz were at the Claremont Junction station on the evening of January 8, and as passenger train No. 23 approached the station Bond proposed to Fritz that they should get upon the rear platform of the train and ride to Windsor, and catch a ride back on a freight train that was due to leave soon after the arrival of train No. 23 at Windsor. They boarded the train as proposed by Bond, and were not discovered by the conductor, the night being quite dark. W. M. Mansfield, a brakeman, went to arrange the lanterns on the rear platform as they were approaching the bridge, and discovered them. Bond was standing on the steps and Fritz on the platform. The brakeman invited them to come inside the car, and did not wait to see if they did so, but passed back to the front of the train and told the conductor there were two passengers in the rear car. The conductor went to look after them, and found Fritz still standing on the platform, and was informed by Fritz that Bond appeared frightened at being discovered by the brakeman, and had jumped from the train and had fallen or was thrown over the side of the bridge. Search was made for him at once, and his remains were found on the ice below the bridge where he had fallen. By the Board, E. B. S. SANBORN, Clerk. XVIII. ACCIDENT AT CONCORD. STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. IN BOARD OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS, CONCORD, February 21, 1887. As the passenger train over the White Mountain division of the Boston & Lowell Railroad, which left Concord at 9.40 on the evening of February 15, was approaching a culvert about four hundred and seventy feet north of the point where the highway leading from Concord to East Concord crosses the track, the engineer discovered a sleigh standing squarely upon the track about thirty feet in front. He stopped his train as soon as possible, but not until it had struck the sleigh and hurled it, its contents, and the horse harnessed to it across the culvert, which was twenty feet wide, and carried them some distance beyond. The sleigh was smashed into fragments, the |