Show f Jt A A k A A A It A A A A A Jt It A A It A A It It k k 1 It It Jt It Jt Jt It i k A Jt Tk i i DEA DEATH Tn RIDES WITH MAILS AILS N Ii I Dt E The Hazardous Postal Life Clerk of the Railway Ii k t daJ 1 L I UT of oC to postal cars carsIn carsIn OUT O In the United States railway servIce leo Ice last Jut year came deaths to clerks serious injuries hurts tbt were more or orless orless less slight Looking at th these figures tUtU it Js is not enough for tor the postal otal clerk to be reminded that In this fiscal year rear tile the cars of the service ron ran over 2 Hp rate rout routes aggregating mil miles aNI that virtually cJ clerks rk were in the service nice In the opinion ot of the National Asso elation of Railway Clerks Clera till this death and accident rate has been out but ot of nil all true and proportion even when it ft Iii i recognized that the hazard or of railroading In any dorm must he be ac accepted f President nt Kidwell ot of the na national II association In a recent speech echoed hoed the or of the association II When he said sald UIt It fa a no exaggeration when I say I that on fourth of oC these men Would have ve been alive today It if the cars were j required to be built or of steel or even with steel sills Ule rt ribs s and ana en ends The fact I that trunk lines JInes are running cars that have been In so lon long that the floors have bave worn out and new ones are area I a nece necessity and the slUg sills are so rotted that the new floor must be laid over fife o od d one In order tolled somethIng that nails will hold bold Ill in should convict with no further evIdence But without tl further than that cars haue 11 b n In constant service for years we believe We have haye made a Qa cat that will easily show that the lives 1178 of oC clerks derks are endangered dally daily while the I railroad d companies profit by it W S the second as assistant po postmaster general has made inquiry into the condition ot of the rail rall railway I Way mall service wIth reference to What hG tonne terms the large number of accidents ac which have occurred to trains carrying railway in the last fiscal year Investigations are under underway wa way to dIscover if there be a pos possibility ty of a perfected steel car that will be bea a better buffer in a train than are some of tb the cars referred to by President 1 Kidwell For as the as assistant postmaster I general says the posItion ot of the pos postal tal car cor In the train and the fact that our clerks are constant constantly engaged with least opportunity to protect themselves in th the event ot of a collision have justified just justi lied fied this In demanding ot of railroad companies th the strongest construction as ag well az as the most convenient ar arrangement arrangement that it Is possible to she give to these cars As to the po position or of the postal car carn carin in n the train the department will make explanations enough It has been round found that with the ordInary train the station platforms are not long enough to admit elf If the mall mati bags falling KS as they should to the hand of the receiving men It if these cars were to be attached to the rear of the trains As to why a baggage car with one man In It should not be coupled next the engine however how howver ever ver Instead ot of a postal car with per hape live tIve or six men In It is not so easy oC explanation and especially as the having baIng so little to do doand I and so 00 many more chances to escape I by jumping probably would enter no I selfish objections to tG the change For In most cases It Is the engine ahead that is the men menace c to the clerks In the PG postal tal cr car coupled close up to the tender Whether hether from a headon from leavIng the track or from th the application of the emergency brakes or of the newe newest t pattern the postal ar next the engine is Ie the chief sut sur ferr ferer Two wrecks In the last year ear stand out our wIth strikIng dl distinctness The tired was s that or of Feb 33 3 when in a hf headon collision between two Big Four trains at Berea 0 four postal clerks i Were killed and the bodies or of three or of them burned to whole crew being annihilated The other awful disaster was 88 at Dan mE Va when hen the fast mall on the Southern road plunged from a 8 high fr Trestle tle at a sharp barp curve falling forty five feet and nd continuing for tor feet teet in the line at which It left the rails Four of oC the eleven clerks Otto on the traIn were instantly killed and every otheman other othe r man of them was aw Injured The loco lace m motive was Wall reduced to scrape Fast running downgrade against t all warn warning ing signals was Willi given as 88 the cause of o othis f this accident the locomotive strIking t the h nine degrees trestle curve at th the e rate or of ninety mUes an hour speed h has come to be the bugbear of the th service A J slight accident at sixtY sixt y or 01 seventy enty miles an hour means more mor e than an collision ot of twenty Sh five mils At eighty eight miles an hour the e application of a modern emergency brake J is to make the pl postal Jerk in a modern car car wInce when regarding re garding It u as a possibility This brake brak brakis e is to bring brig the car wheels wheel es s to the verge or of sliding eliding In the tb fraction or ora o oa f a second and this without any an warn warning rn Ing or of a lookout for the postal po tal clerks clerkin In a rut fast mail train on a modern rail rall railroad road is 18 only Ii a little short abort of the hoc hor horrors roes or of the collision that it may be b e caned cabled upon to avert The man who ordinarily makes his t s trips by rail In a sleeping ear car or parlor parlo r t ar has batt lIttle Idea ot of the sensations or o rf f speed In apo a postal train under Pas fast t schedule which with ith po l of delays and the hardships of o f making tip p time may force running at a t J timES to tn ninety miles an hour P The care can making up Xo No 15 had b bee n I under the sheds beds or of the Northwester n nn ID fa Wells reU treet since 10 k the night before TM The were a letter let car one ODe paper car and a storage car which were scheduled to make the mils Innes into lIto Cedar Rapids IL Ia in 26 Z minutes the seven stops MOpe two for water and one for a change chanse of o f d and train crew leek Clerk H S ann II in char charge e with wit h i Clerks Clerk Frank A M H E H Kolbe 1 E B W Fry Fre Freand e and H 11 C Settle had bad been toiling wit with mail pouches hea heaps K ot of letters tied In f n bunches piles pUe or boxes an and d nd wrappers overflowing the tables and the th e aisles of the cars ever eer since G 6 k In the evening and It was 30 k In the morning when the writer pa eQ into the car Ith the heaping gra r mounds ot of the newspaper o oit ot f it from the ea eastern tern trains and mount moun tame or of It a little later from the Chloe go newspaper For nine hours bours In the and dust duet of DC the letter lotter and paper cars the th o po ere crew had been slashing mall mail In Inthe i ithe n the endeavor to have It worked b be before fore the newspaper m mall U at the last l would swamp them With the paper papa r wagons came the conductor of oC th e train Arthur E P Bassett and out ot o othe et t the gloom ab ahead loomed the black out outlines linN lines of oC John Aliens locomotive N No o 1691 Into which Fireman Dr Dysart art ahoy clod coal through Its double furnace e doors Beyond Wells street and the brIdge e ti cross eroes streets south and north or of the river might have been thoroughfares for the dead save as an newspaper r wagon rumbled through h them waking the silences Wells VeIls t station was asleep save for the th watch watchman man for Cor one to buy a tI ticket fro m j the behind his clo cl ed window necessitated d a a t tIlt glass and that was Y out or of keeping wi surrounding s Outside It lets hns n driving sno r until the whose whole earth is K white The Th e wind Is rising rl and the oM it keens keener r and nor mon penetrating A e im k I has struck 3 f tur Bats BaM sett i k walking UT up anti ind dOn clown n the plat I foal in come orne nt wh n sud ud dc denla I z 1 Bated wagon wagn US ui h hc c x a dozen sacks sacks or of paper PAlter mall ore are 1 thrown to the platform and almost I Without striking are shot lute into th the I open door or of Ute the car There js is a sit nab nal to the engineer and the fast mall Is movIng OUt of the hoch and over Oer the north branch or of tire the river with an and ease that would be ne new to the tho passengers on a day train 1 These cars aro feet long lOlls an anor and or of the mule end ond la with without out platforms Close up to the eni en gl glue e tender with Us its mIghty weight j or of steel and coal and water Is th l letter car and in th the bUnd blind forward end of aC thIs forward car are the rackS and pigeonholes and taffies for tor the th sorting and sacking pf or the Rrt elan mall mail matter ot of the I rear real portion of oC the ar given gIve n Over Oer t to the racks for the bogs in into o which the paper mall mail Is sho shot ready for the tha unfastening the tying and at s the I proper station statton for th the s open j 1 ot of a jammed door the careful sight Sighting J Ing into the dark for the station an and Its platform and then with the train moving sixty to seventy miles a an hour hout for the clerk cleric to swing the bag out Into the night trusting that ho he has st struck uk ukI at least beast With within In the corporation n bo ot of the village I A postal car from an Interior point ot of view Is not reassuring With a across cross continental portion of t the e mall I from the east cast that has to be worked in miles together wi with h night grist or of the local and I of the th Chicago pp a postal I car such suh as is coupled l dose close up to I 1 I No 1091 on the borderline of ing hig at the slightest collision is ia breast high with pouches and bags at the I side doors For halt half an hour pr probably b bably ably not a 1 single door could be slid back because ot of the jam of at the Thai At least one end ot of the car Is IK as blind as a rat trap and down of I It are little railed windows out of whIch It would he be impossible for Cor a full grown man to squeeze in case of J I accident I There are bottles ot of fire Ing liquids the ax saw and hammers J or of the regulation railWay emergency box and overhead on each side o of t the e ecar car just under the ventilators are swung the life rods h enough fora for n clerk whose hose car Is making ser enty ent miles an hour to jump jowls and seize one of them hanging banging suspended tm till file crash he has any knowledge or of the crash before its does come Heads of departments inthe In tile railway mall mail servIce wm will tell YOU of the time when they worked In stuffY cars only forty feet long heated b by dangerous stoves and using coal oil lamps that smoked and sputtered high up I under the car roof coat Now they speak of the team steam s heat the Pintsch gaslights and the ears cars built I tion sixty feet in length It Is well enough to bear In mInd that the average postal clerk clork II iq the ervice s Is un unduly dub pessimistic was the comment of one of these d department heads who had grown In the servIce His work makes him so soOn On the other hand llana however admit ting the equipment of years ago the postal clerk toda today will ask you ou In reply if any an of these old time men in the servIce ever tossed mall mail in n a car making seventy miles an hour If you ou suggest to him that there Is a lessened danger from tIre fire to In case ot accident yOU get the an answer answer that to be scalded to death by steam stearn is hardly to be chosen before Core death b by lire fire while as a matter of fact was a fast mail train leavIng the track or colliding head on with an another another other train theirs Is little elSe left heft for or eIther ither e steam or fire to do You may even remark that the type typewriter writer Titer must have made the work ot of reading addresses much easier casler but even here you wIll meet the Inevitable reply that while it has done so It has made ten times as many addresses to read Looking about the train for the caUses for pessimIsm in the work they are easU easily to be guessed To have worked nIne hours before the train starts is something toward the end at 3 tn in the morning to be I whirled out into the teeth ot of a bliz blizzard zard at a rate that scarcely allows the clerk to keep his feet wIthout an effort and there for another four hours and a half hair to toll toil harder than ever to diminIsh the heaps o of bags and pouches that Piled hasher and hIgher at the last moment of oC start Ingo ing and In fn every moment ot of these dark and ot 01 the I cars to now that n a snapped cd rail a turned switch a crippled train ahead an any one or of n a dozen mistakes may mean eternity in a moment Is it strange it if the railway ralla postal i i clerk cIerI at times is disposed to brood Save for the sWing and sway of oC the car there are slight indications of the th e I speed to be marked by the he n The wIndows endows Into the dark are arc be beyond ond the t po possibility of an outlook Only Onh by us may one get an intimation of o othe f toe the rate at whIch the th train Is 1 OV ingo ing The ordinary river bridge Is a short harsh hollow hollo note of sound that tha thatIs Is bol t In the fraction of a second a culvert seems n a discordant blo blow struck k as 1 if by A hammer passing another r train under run full head on the other othe r track lea leaves es a trail and an anthe d the shriek of the contending suctions da a sleeping village In the track is a 0 mere echo that Is gone in a second One ma may look for the reassurIng con confidences conin in the air brakes These The bleary beavy postal cars are fitted with trill a ne w type of brake whIch under application closes upon the wheel at t pressure of the square squar e Inch This Is tile the first grIp as the UT e speed slackens from it the pressure re reduces daces duces automatically until the normal 1 sixty pounds Is reached y anything above sixty pounds will witt slide slid a wheel and flatten it but with theme r I brake applied to wheels running a It t sixty slaty miles and over oer Its ILc tension re relaxes lazes before the sliding point and from fro m the these hIgh speeds It relAxes as a s the they are reduced until movIng at sixty mlle miles an hour our on a level leel track trac k I ma may be brought to a standstill in 4 tOO 0 0 I 1 cars Jar s But practically tb the matt malt clerk Is al almost most as much afraid or of the n of the emergency air as he h its afraid d nd oC at a ahead beadon on coUl collision lon Mite bocci causal by b the emergent oil 1 throw a heavy man half the length of o f the postal tar car J if he be working In the th e rear end ot of It It If his letter racks b be e In the front end ot of the ear car ho may not no t be if he goes gooi through the tit e mute mule en end a of the vehicle rocks racks and andall an I all Working rapidly blind as a l mob molo o aa to aU all indications of danger that first ma y be ahead conscious that a collision n means a tele telescoped coped traIn his Is feet col cold d from the Ic icy floor of oC the car citro slid and th the e dust In clouds at times making the car ca r perspectives Is that postal poste 1 clerk on board a fast majl out ot of ChI on a winters morning Six days on and six days aft of are the th e measures ot of the postal time At A I Chicago one day begins it I the evening and ends at Cedar Rapid s at 36 the next mornIng th there re reut ut after r a hasty bre breakfast the crow get geta getto o to led bed as soon a as possible and to sleep shoop to be awakened at r In the sit and r report port ot at tb Jt at t otlo k to work the western malls mat buck arriving at V veils lIa street I |