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Show Railroad Accidents and Problems. They ha'O been veiy frequent and generally very fatal during tho past year, and in every State mon are asking "What is tho matter?" There aro many causes. Tho men In authority and tho mon responsible for running trains have been overworked. It is hard to keep tracks on soft ground, in repair under tho awfully heavy trains and locomotives that aro being run over thorn. The rails made now a days are not all as good as they formerly wore. Worn-out rails, crystallized by the Incessant pounding of uneven wheels are re-molted and rolled into new rails, though half their first strength is gone. The storms have been unprecedented, snow, floods, washout, land-slides have delayed trains and congested con-gested business. It has been impossible to got new rails and rolling-stock as fast as needed, so that often, instead of men running tho business of the roads, the business has run the men. Then there havo been unaccountable accidents. Trains have jumped the tracks with no apparent reason. rea-son. And when trains do that they always jump to the right, specially on north and south roads. I It would be foolish of course to say that atmospheric at-mospheric or electrical conditions had their influence in-fluence on railroad trains. But who knows? A railroad train is not so big as an earthquake or a cyclone. The above are some of the causes, but what is the remedy? One would naturally say, double the tracks, run the trains slower and run more trains. That was doubtless the thought in Jim Hill's mind when he said that $8,000,000,000 would be needed in the next Ave years to keep the trunk lines up to the efficiency needed to handle the accumulating business. Indeed, they can handle only eighty per cent of the business busi-ness that is upon them now. In the meantime such a scare has been precipitated upon the country; railroad managers have been painted so black by an ignorant and unscrupulous press that capital will not accept ordinary railroad securities. securi-ties. When is the burden of all this to fall? It jlpokS' to us as though it would be upon the people peo-ple at large. Miners and manufacturers will not be able to get machinery; farmers will not be able to move their crops or their live stock; If there were not cars enough to prevent coal famines, three months ago. What will be the condition next winter? The west can stand it better than the east; for the masses of eastern people who live in eastern cities have not a week's food on hand. We mean not only the people, but the men who deal in food-stuffs, in very many necessities have not a week's stock for thir customers on -hand. The progress of the country is linked inseparably with its transportation facilities, I with every branch road that is built there are more supplies for the trunk lines to carry in, more products for them to bring out. It seems to us that the situation is most critical, for in the past year we have had the first object terror of what the handling of the transportation of a growing continent means. |