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This accident resulted in the death of twenty-nine persons, and in more or less severe injuries to fifty-seven others. No person, not in the last car of the accommodation train was killed, and one only was seriously injured. Of those in the last car more than half lost their lives; many instantly by crushing, others by inhaling the scalding steam which poured forth from the locomotive boiler into the wreck, and which, where it did not kill, inflicted frightful injuries. Indeed, for the severity of injuries and for the protractedness of agony involved in it, this accident has rarely, if ever, been exceeded. Crushing, scalding and burning did their work together.

It may with perfect truth be said that the disaster at Revere marked an epoch in the history of railroad development in New England. At the moment it called forth the deepest expression of horror and indignation, which, as usual in such cases, was more noticeable for its force than for its wisdom. An utter absence of all spirit of justice is, indeed, a usual characteristic of the more immediate utterances, both from the press and on the platform, upon occasions of this character. Writers and orators seem always to forget that, next to the immediate sufferers and their families, the unfortunate officials concerned are the greatest losers by railroad accidents. For them, not only reputation but bread is involved. A railroad employé implicated in the occurrence of an accident lives under a stigma. And yet, from the tenor of public comment it might fairly be supposed that these officials are in the custom of plotting to bring disasters about, and take a fiendish delight in them. Nowhere was this ever illustrated more perfectly than in Massachusetts during the last days of August and the early days of September, 1871. Grave men – men who ought to have known better – indulged in language which would have been simply ludicrous save for the horror of the event which occasioned but could not justify it. A public meeting, for instance, was held at the town of Swampscott on the evening of the Monday succeeding the catastrophe. The gentleman who presided over it very discreetly, in his preliminary remarks, urged those who proposed to join in the discussion to control their feelings. Hardly had he ceased speaking, however, when Mr. Wendell Phillips was noticed among the audience, and immediately called to the platform. His remarks were a most singular commentary on the chairman's injunction to calmness. He began by announcing that the first requisite to the formation of a healthy public opinion in regard to railroad accidents, as other things, was absolute frankness of speech, and he then proceeded as follows: – "So I begin by saying that to my mind this terrible disaster, which has made the last thirty-six hours so sad to us all, is a deliberate murder. I think we should try to get rid in the public mind of any real distinction between the individual who, in a moment of passion or in a moment of heedlessness, takes the life of one fellow-man, and the corporation that in a moment of greed, of little trouble, of little expense, of little care, of little diligence, takes lives by wholesale. I think the first requisite of the public mind is to say that there is no accident in the case, properly speaking. It is a murder; the guilt of murder rests somewhere."

Mr. Phillip's definition of the crime of "deliberate murder" would apparently somewhat unsettle the criminal law as at present understood, but he was not at all alone in this bathos of extravagance. Prominent gentlemen seemed to vie with each other in their display of ignorance. Mr. B. F. Butler, for instance, suggested his view of the disaster and the measure best calculated to prevent a repetition of it; which last was certainly original, inasmuch as he urged the immediate raising of the pay of all engine-men until a sufficiently high order of ability and education should be brought into the occupation to render impossible the recurrence of an accident which was primarily caused by the negligence, not of an engineer, but of a conductor. Another gentleman described with much feeling his observations during a recent tour in Europe, and declared that such a catastrophe as that at Revere would have been impossible there. As a matter of fact the official reports not only showed that the accident was one of a class of most frequent occurrence, but also that sixty-one cases of it had occurred in Great Britain alone during the very year the gentleman in question was journeying in Europe, and had occasioned over six hundred cases of death or personal injury. Perhaps, in order to illustrate how very reckless in statement a responsible gentleman talking under excitement may become, it is worth while to quote in his own language Captain Tyler's brief description of one of those sixty-one accidents which "could not possibly," but yet did, occur. As miscellaneous reading it is amusing.

"As four London & North-Western excursion trains on September 2, 1870, were returning from a volunteer review at Penrith, the fourth came into collision at Penruddock with the third of those trains. An hundred and ten passengers and three servants of the company were injured. These trains were partly in charge of acting guards, some of whom were entirely inexperienced, as well in the line as in their duties; and of engine-drivers and firemen, of whom one, at all events, was very much the worse for liquor. The side-lamps on the hind van of the third train were obscured by a horse-box, which was wider than the van. There were no special means of protection to meet the exceptional contingency of three such trains all stopping on their way from the eastward, to cross two others from the westward, at this station. And the regulations for telegraphing the trains were altogether neglected."

CHAPTER XV.
REAR END COLLISIONS

The annals of railroad accidents are full of cases of "rear-end collision," as it is termed.¹¹ Their frequency may almost be accepted as a very accurate gauge of the pressure of traffic on any given system of lines, and because of them the companies are continually compelled to adopt new and more intricate systems of operation. At first, on almost all roads, trains follow each other at such great intervals that no precaution at all, other than flags and lanterns, are found necessary. Then comes a succeeding period when an interval of time between following trains is provided for, through a system of signals which at given points indicate danger during a certain number of minutes after the passage of every train. Then, presently, the alarming frequency of rear collisions demonstrates the inadequacy of this system, and a new one has to be devised, which, through the aid of electricity, secures between the trains an interval of space as well as of time. This last is known as the "block-system," of which so much has of late years been heard.

The block-system is so important a feature in the modern operation of railroads, and in its present stage of development it illustrates so strikingly the difference between the European and the American methods, that more particular reference will have presently to be made to it.¹² For the present it is enough to say that rear-end collisions occur notwithstanding all the precautions implied in a thoroughly perfected "block-system." There was such a case on the Metropolitan road, in the very heart of London, on the 29th of August, 1873. It happened in a tunnel. A train was stalled there, and an unfortunate signal officer in a moment of flurry gave "line clear" and sent another train directly into it.

A much more impressive disaster, both in its dramatic features and as illustrating the inadequacy of every precaution depending on human agency to avert accident under certain conditions, was afforded in the case of a collision which occurred on the London & Brighton Railway on August 25, 1861; ten years almost to a day before that at Revere. Like the Eastern railroad, the London & Brighton enjoyed an enormous passenger traffic, which became peculiarly heavy during the vacation season towards the close of August; and it was to the presence of the excursion trains made necessary to accomodate this traffic that the catastrophes were in both cases due. In the case of the London & Brighton road it occurred on a Sunday. An excursion train from Portsmouth on that day was to leave Brighton at five minutes after eight A. M., and was to be followed by a regular Sunday excursion train at 8.15 or ten minutes later, and that again, after the lapse of a quarter of an hour, by a regular parliamentary train at 8.30. These trains were certainly timed to run sufficiently near to each other; but, owing to existing pressure of traffic on the line, they started almost simultaneously. The Portsmouth excursion, which consisted of sixteen carriages, was much behind its time, and did not leave the Brighton station until 8.28; when, after a lapse of three minutes, it was followed by the regular excursion train at 8.31, and that again by the parliamentary train at 8.35. Three passenger trains had thus left the station on one track in seven minutes! The London and Brighton Railway traverses the chalky downs, for which that portion of England is noted, through numerous tunnels, the first of which after leaving Brighton is known as the Patcham Tunnel, about five hundred yards in length, while two and a half miles farther on is the Croydon Tunnel, rather more than a mile and a quarter in length.

The line between these tunnels was so crooked and obscured that the managers had adopted extraordinary precautions against accident. At each end of the Croydon Tunnel a signal-man was stationed, with a telegraphic apparatus, a clock and a telegraph bell in his station. The rule was absolute that when any train entered the tunnel the signal-man at the point of entry was to telegraph "train in," and no other train could follow until the return signal of "train out" came from the other side. In face of such a regulation it was difficult to see how any collision in the tunnel was possible. When the Portsmouth excursion train arrived, it at once entered the tunnel and the fact was properly signaled to the opposite outlet. Before the return signal that this train was out was received, the regular excursion train came in sight. It should have been stopped by a self-acting signal which was placed about a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the tunnel, and which each passing locomotive set at "danger," where it remained until shifted to "safety," by the signal-man, on receipt of the message, "train out." Through some unexplained cause, the Portsmouth excursion train had failed to act on this signal, which consequently still indicated safety when the Brighton excursion train came up. Accordingly the engine-driver at once passed it, and went on to the tunnel. As he did so, the signal-man, perceiving some mistake and knowing that he had not yet got his return signal that the preceding train was out, tried to stop him by waving his red flag. It was too late, however, and the train passed in. A moment later the parliamentary train also came in sight, and stopped at the signal of danger. Now ensued a most singular misapprehension between the signal-men, resulting in a terrible disaster. The second train had run into the tunnel and was supposed by the signal-man to be on its way to the other end of it, when he received the return message that the first train was out. To this he instantly responded by again telegraphing "train in," referring now to the second train. This dispatch the signal-man at the opposite end conceived to be a repetition of the message referring to the first train, and he accordingly again replied that the train was out. This reply, however, the other operator mistook as referring to the second train, and accordingly he signaled "safety," and the third train at once got under way and passed into the tunnel. Unfortunately the engineer of the second train had seen the red flag waved by the signal-man, and, in obedience to it, stopped his locomotive as soon as possible in the tunnel and began to back out of it. In doing so, he drove his train into the locomotive of the third train advancing into it. The tunnel was twenty-four feet in height. The engine of the parliamentary train struck the rear carriage of the excursion train and mounted upon its fragments, and then on those of the carriage in front of it, until its smoke-stack came in contact with the roof of the tunnel. It rested finally in a nearly upright position. The collision had taken place so far within the tunnel as to be beyond the reach of daylight, and the wreck of the trains had quite blocked up the arch, while the steam and smoke from the engines poured forth with loud sound and in heavy volumes, filling the empty space with stifling and scalding vapors. When at last assistance came and the trains could be separated, twenty-three corpses were taken from the ruins, while one hundred and seventy-six other persons had sustained more or less severe injuries.

A not less extraordinary accident of the same description, unaccompanied, however, by an equal loss of life, occured on the Great Northern Railway upon the 10th of June, 1866. In this case the tube of a locomotive of a freight train burst at about the centre of the Welwyn Tunnel, some five miles north of Hatfield, bringing the train to a stand-still. The guard in charge of the rear of the train failed from some cause to go back and give the signal for an obstruction, and speedily another freight train from the Midland road entered and dashed into the rear of the train already there. Apparently those in charge of these two trains were in such consternation that they did not think to provide against a further disaster; at any rate, before measures to that end had been taken, an additional freight train, this time belonging to the Great Northern road, came up and plowed into the ruins which already blocked the tunnel. One of the trains had contained wagons laden with casks of oil, which speedily became ignited from contact with the coals scattered from the fire-boxes, and there then ensued one of the most extraordinary spectacles ever witnessed on a railroad. The tunnel was filled to the summit of its arch and completely blocked with the wrecked locomotives and wagons. These had ignited, and the whole cavity, more than a half a mile in length, was converted into one huge furnace, belching forth smoke and flame with a loud roaring sound through its several air shafts. So fierce was the fire that no attempt was made to subdue it, and eighteen hours elapsed before any steps could be taken towards clearing the track. Strange to say, in this disaster the lives of but two persons were lost.

Rear-end collisions have been less frequent in this country than in England, for the simple reason that the volume of traffic has pressed less heavily on the capacity of the lines. Yet here, also, they have been by no means unknown. In 1865 two occurred, both of which were accompanied with a considerable loss of life; though, coming as they did during the exciting scenes which marked the close of the war of the Rebellion, they attracted much less public notice than they otherwise would. The first of these took place in New Jersey on the 7th of March, 1865, just three days after the second inauguration of President Lincoln. As the express train from Washington to New York over the Camden & Amboy road was passing through Bristol, about thirty miles from Philadelphia, at half-past-two o'clock in the morning, it dashed into the rear of the twelve o'clock "owl train," from Kensington to New York, which had been delayed by meeting an oil train on the track before it. The case appears to have been one of very culpable negligence, for, though the owl train was some two hours late, those in charge of it seem to have been so deeply engrossed in what was going on before them that they wholly neglected to guard their rear. The express train accordingly, approaching around a curve, plunged at a high rate of speed into the last car, shattering it to pieces; the engine is even said to have passed completely through that car and to have imbedded itself in the one before it. It so happened that most of the sufferers by this accident, numbering about fifty, were soldiers on their way home from the army upon furlough.

The second of the two disasters referred to, occurred on the 16th of August, 1865, upon the Housatonic road of Connecticut. A new engine was out upon an experimental trip, and in rounding a curve it ran into the rear of a passenger train, which, having encountered a disabled freight train, had coupled on to it and was then backing down with it to a siding in order to get by. In this case the impetus was so great that the colliding locomotive utterly destroyed the rear car of the passenger train and penetrated some distance into the car preceding it, where its boiler burst. Fortunately the train was by no means full of passengers; but, even as it was, eleven persons were killed and some seventeen badly injured.

CHAPTER XVI.
NOVEL APPLIANCES

The great peculiarity of the Revere accident, and that which gave a permanent interest to it, lay in the revelation it afforded of the degree in which a system had outgrown its appliances. At every point a deficiency was apparent. The railroads of New England had long been living on their early reputation, and now, when a sudden test was applied, it was found that they were years behind the time. In August, 1871, the Eastern railroad was run as if it were a line of stage-coaches in the days before the telegraph. Not in one point alone, but in everything, it broke down under the test. The disaster was due not to any single cause but to a combination of causes implicating not only the machinery and appliances in use by the company, but its discipline and efficiency from the highest official down to the meanest subordinate. In the first place the capacity of the road was taxed to the utmost; it was vital, almost, that every wheel should be kept in motion. Yet, under that very exigency, the wheels stopped almost as a matter of necessity. How could it be otherwise? – Here was a crowded line, more than half of which was equipped with but a single track, in operating which no reliance was placed upon the telegraph. With trains running out of their schedule time and out of their schedule place, engineers and conductors were left to grope their way along as best they could in the light of rules, the essence of which was that when in doubt they were to stand stock still. Then, in the absence of the telegraph, a block occurred almost at the mouth of the terminal station; and there the trains stood for hours in stupid obedience to a stupid rule, because the one man who, with a simple regard to the dictates of common sense, was habitually accustomed to violate it happened to be sick. Trains commonly left a station out of time and out of place; and the engineer of an express train was sent out to run a gauntlet the whole length of the road with a simple verbal injunction to look out for some one before him. Then, at last, when this express train through all this chaos got to chasing an accommodation train, much as a hound might course a hare, there was not a pretence of a signal to indicate the time which had elapsed between the passage of the two, and employés, lanterns in hand, gaped on in bewilderment at the awful race, concluding that they could not at any rate do anything to help matters, but on the whole they were inclined to think that those most immediately concerned must know what they were about. Finally, even when the disaster was imminent, when deficiency in organization and discipline had done its worst, its consequences might yet have been averted through the use of better appliances; had the one train been equipped with the Westinghouse brake, already largely in use in other sections of the country, it might and would have been stopped; or had the other train been provided with reflecting tail-lights in place of the dim hand-lanterns which glimmered on its rear platform, it could hardly have failed to make its proximity known. Any one of a dozen things, every one of which should have been but was not, ought to have averted the disaster. Obviously its immediate cause was not far to seek. It lay in the carelessness of a conductor who failed to consult his watch, and never knew until the crash came that his train was leisurely moving along on the time of another. Nevertheless, what can be said in extenuation of a system under which, at this late day, a railroad is operated on the principle that each employé under all circumstances can and will take care of himself and of those whose lives and limbs are entrusted to his care?

There is, however, another and far more attractive side to the picture. The lives sacrificed at Revere were not lost in vain. Seven complete railroad years passed by between that and the Wollaston Heights accident of 1878. During that time not less than two hundred and thirty millions of persons were carried by rail within the limits of Massachusetts. Of this vast number while only 50, or about one in each four and a half millions, sustained any injury from causes beyond their own power to control, the killed were just two. This certainly was a record with which no community could well find fault; and it was due more than anything else to the great disaster of August 26, 1871. More than once, and on more than one road, accidents occurred which, but for the improved appliances introduced in consequence of the experience at Revere, could hardly have failed of fatal results. Not that these appliances were in all cases very cheerfully or very eagerly accepted. Neither the Miller platform nor the Westinghouse brake won its way into general use unchallenged. Indeed, the earnestness and even the indignation with which presidents and superintendents then protested that their car construction was better and stronger than Miller's; that their antiquated handbrakes were the most improved brakes, – better, much better, than the Westinghouse; that their crude old semaphores and targets afforded a protection to trains which no block-system would ever equal, – all this certainly was comical enough, even in the very shadow of the great tragedy. Men of a certain type always have protested and will always continue to protest that they have nothing to learn; yet, under the heavy burden of responsibility, learn they still do. They dare not but learn. On this point the figures of the Massachusetts annual returns between the year 1871 and the year 1878 speak volumes. At the time of the Revere disaster, with one single honorable exception, – that of the Boston & Providence road, – both the atmospheric train-brake and the Miller platform, the two greatest modern improvements in American car construction, were practically unrecognized on the railroads of Massachusetts. Even a year later, but 93 locomotives and 415 cars had been equipped even with the train-brake. In September, 1873, the number had, however, risen to 194 locomotives and 709 cars; and another twelve months carried these numbers up to 313 locomotives and 997 cars. Finally in 1877 the state commissioners in their report for that year spoke of the train-brake as having been then generally adopted, and at the same time called attention to the very noticeable fact "that the only railroad accident resulting in the death of a passenger from causes beyond his control within the state during a period of two years and eight months, was caused by the failure of a company to adopt this improvement on all its passenger rolling-stock." The adoption of Miller's method of car construction had meanwhile been hardly less rapid. Almost unknown at the time of the Revere catastrophe in September, 1871, in October, 1873, when returns on the subject were first called for by the state commissioners, eleven companies had already adopted it on 778 cars out of a total number of 1548 reported. In 1878 it had been adopted by twenty-two companies, and applied to 1685 cars out of a total of 1792. In other words it had been brought into general use.