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Conclusion ThePoliticalEconomyofRailroadSafety, 1830–1965 In 1935 Joseph Eastman delivered a speech claiming that the carriers’ safety improvements had nearly always been forced down their throats by government pressures.“Practically every safety device required by government . . . and bitterly resisted [by the carriers] . . . has ultimately [benefited them],” Eastman pronounced. This was too much for the editor of the Railway Age. “It may be worthwhile to recall that the initiative in inventing, developing and promoting every . . . [safety device] has been taken by private enterprise,” he sputtered. In fact, as previous chapters have demonstrated, railroad safety was the outcome of a political economy more complex than either of these combatants wished to admit, and its complexity yields insights into why the modern world has become so much safer. Down to perhaps the 1870s, the Age was essentially correct: safety was largely an affair of private parties, as mediated by the common law of liability. The regime of private enterprise had built what were by European standards extremely unsafe railroads, but it was continually in the process of making them safer.1 As I have argued, more productive and safer railroading was the outcome of a technological network that helped to innovate, evaluate, and diffuse improvements in both “things” such as track and equipment, and institutions and organizations, and that responded to market incentives. All forms of train accident were expensive and passenger injuries made them more so, but better technology and business organization reduced worker and passenger risks from the 1840s on. The political scientist Aaron Wildavsky summarized such a dynamic, noting that danger begets safety and that “richer is safer.” Railroad history suggests some explanations for why this is so; it is in good part because market forces press the development of technology, organizations, and institutions that not only enhance wealth but respond to risks as well.2 In a few instances the new technology raised productivity but wors303 304 DeathRodetheRails ened safety—the link and pin coupler probably increased worker risks and the spread of freight car interchange after the Civil War may have done so as well—but most were both labor- and accident-saving. Examples include automatic grade crossing gates, heavier rail, remote sensors, and mechanized track equipment. Alfred Chandler has argued that capital and human capital were complements in the large corporation, and in railroads at least, technological change was embodied not only in capital but also in institutions and organizations that enhanced safety. Internal labor markets , track inspection contests, surprise checking, the Bureau of Explosives, rail inspection, company health and benefit plans, and Safety First were among the new institutions and organizations that bettered safety. Most of these improvements were, in economists’ terminology, “induced.” That is, they were a response to the economic and political context of railroading . Sometimes the mechanism was rising labor costs, as with the mechanization of maintenance and the diffusion of automatic signals. But accident costs as well as broader labor market concerns and—as Eastman claimed—political pressures shaped this evolution as well. Most new technology worked by increasing corporate control over man, nature, and organizations. Washouts, snowstorms, track subsidence, fire, and fog were all natural hazards, and railroading became steadily safer as it became less “natural.” Control over human behavior was even more important; block signals and later CTC reduced train accidents while the diffusion of the Standard Code of train rules, materials testing, surprise checking, and training in use of hand brakes also diminished risks. Institutional innovations such as the Bureau of Explosives or MCB standards dealt with the need for a system-wide approach to agency problems and technology. In some instances, the accident-reducing effects of these investments were all but inevitable—car retarders provide an example—but in most cases the full impact on safety was contingent upon follow-on improvements in organizations and institutions, and sometimes upon business decisions on where to allocate the new technology. Companies had to develop new rules and training to obtain the full benefit of air brakes and automatic couplers, and for years block signals were a great disappointment until companies instructed train crews and developed surprise checking to institutionalize obedience. Mechanization of track work sometimes improved safety, but without proper organizational and institutional adaptations it could worsen risks. The impact of better roadbed, steel rails, steam heat for cars, block signals, crossing guards, and many other investments was contingent upon their effective allocation, and as demonstrated, economic forces pressed their deployment so as to maximize safety. A broader...

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