Show SAFETY OF BRITISH ROADS interesting statistics regarding the railways of great britain are furnished in a report of consul mahin of nottingham ting ham in which he says that a recent report shows that in the year 1904 only six passengers were killed by accidents on railways in the united kingdom and that were injured the danger in railway travel in great britain appears to be reduced to about the lowest possible minimum from statistics kept tor the past thirty years ending with it seems that an average of one passenger was hilled in every journeys and one injured in every journeys jour neya in 1904 the fatalities wore reduced to one in journeys and the injuries to one in the risk however is even less figures which do not take account of season ticket holders one of a total of em aloyes seven were killed and injured during 1904 the average for the preceding thirty ears was 14 and respectively this comparison shows an extraordinary improvement for the number of railway employed emp loyes ans much greater in 1904 ahcin the average number in the preceding thirty years improvements in rolling stock which tend to mitigate the severity of accidents in construction of roads and in methods of operating trains have steadily increased the safety of railway traveling in great britain but one of the chief causes of great britaina Brit ains low railway accident record ia the double tracking of lines A single track is very exceptional the rule is double triple or quadruple tracks this obviously reduces to a minimum the possibility lity of collisions and of accidents from open switches caused by shit ting trains on sidetracks to wait the passing of nonstop expresses at the end of i the total length of railway in the kingdom was miles mostly more than one track the total number of collisions and de rail ments in the year was thu vas the exact average of the preceding twenty tour years on the surface this shows no improvement but taking the increased railway mileage into account it that in 1904 there was but one accident tor every 1829 train miles run against an average of one for every miles in the preceding twenty four years |