Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1828–1965

7. Safety Crisis and Safety First, 1900–1920

The first two decades of the twentieth century were a time of transition for the railroads. The expansion that had begun in 1828 continued up to about World War I.While track miles grew slowly, the period witnessed a massive reconstruction and upgrading of both roadbed and equipment, increase in traffic density, and rapid expansion of freight and passenger carriage. These developments reduced the social costs of railroad transport, for fatalities per unit of output continued to decline, as they had since the 1880s (Appendix 2). Still, the expansion carried accidents and casualties in the 1907–10 period to levels not seen for nearly two decades, sparking unprecedented public criticism of railroad safety. Congress responded with an avalanche of proposed legislation that increased federal oversight of safety and threatened more far-reaching controls. For a brief period from 1918 to 1920 the federal government ran the railroads, with important consequences for their safety. The carriers responded to this worsening safety and regulatory environment in both traditional and novel ways. The technical network continued to improve and diffuse safety technology, while the carriers made major investments in track and signaling that improved communication and control. They increasingly coordinated their public position on safety matters, employing the ARA and the newly formed Bureau of Railway Economics and Special Committee on Relations of Railways to Legislation to speak for them. Here as elsewhere centralization in government promoted centralization in the private sector. Of most importance, in a novel response to their agency problems, the carriers also inaugurated organized safety work about 1910. Together these developments resulted in a kind of informal safety compact. Except for especially high-profile dangers, Con7 SafetyCrisisandSafetyFirst,1900–1920 We do not try very hard to find out whether our trainmen obey their instructions. —Braman B. Adams, 1902 It is undeniable that collisions . . . could be reduced to an exceedingly small number by the efficient management of block signals. —Interstate Commerce Commission, 1907 181 182 DeathRodetheRails gress and the ICC would delegate safety matters to the carriers—but on the tacit condition that they would improve safety on their own. RailwaySlaughters,1900–1910 Despite the carriers’ investments in signals, brakes, couplers, and other safety equipment, the economic upswing that began in 1897 sharply increased accident rates. Worker fatality rates jumped one-third, from 0.67 in 1897 to as high as 0.92 per million manhours in 1907 while passenger fatalities shot up about 60 percent, from 14 to 22 per billion passenger miles (Figure 7.1). In 1901 Congress passed the Accident Reports Act, and under its authority the ICC required reports of all train accidents involving injury or loss of $150 or over. The new statistics were to exert a powerful influence on public perception of railroad safety. Derailments, which had steadily risen after 1897, more than doubled from 3,633 in 1902 to 7,432 in 1907, a disturbing number of them from broken rails. One, the Southern Fast Mail, which jumped the track and fell 75 feet from a trestle, killing nine crew on September 27, 1903, was immortalized as “The Wreck of the Old ’97.” In August 1904 a bridge collapse derailed a passenger train near Eden, Colorado, and drowned eighty-eight people, making it the worst American railroad disaster to date.1 Collisions also skyrocketed,from 5,042 in 1902 to 8,026 by 1907.While many were minor, between October 1901 and the end of June 1906, the ICC recorded 448 “Class A” collisions, which included all those that killed passengers or resulted in $10,000 in damages. Most of these reflected ancient causes. The New York Central’s Twentieth Century Limited was perhaps the crack passenger train in the country, and it ran on some of the best track. But on June 21, 1905, it wrecked when it ran through an open facing point switch that had no distant signal. Head-on collisions, as usual, reflected Passengers Workers 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Figure 7.1. Passenger and Worker Fatality Rates, 1890–1920 Source: Appendix 2. Per Billion Passenger Miles Per Million Manhours some sort of mistake with a train order. Thus Southern Train 12 heading east and Train 15 heading west normally met and passed at Hodges, Tennessee , but on September 24...