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States to select certain devices for coupling cars, is the shortest and best road to the desired end.

In quite an extended trip through some of these States, where the Commissioners have selected several kinds of drawbars which the railway companies may put upon their cars, a member of this board made it a special work to go into the yards at various places, and ask of the yard-masters and men under him how they liked the new drawbars. The answer invariably was: "We don't like them.”

Then they would immediately qualify that answer this way: "If the companies would all agree upon one style of draw-bar and put that on, it would do, but where there are a dozen kinds. we get confused sometimes when we are in a hurry, and we d―n all these new fangled affairs, and wish there was nothing but the old link and pin."

There is a good deal to this. Michigan has selected some five which are lawful for the railways to put on. New York has chosen six, Massachusetts five. Now, if other States should select different ones, it must be apparent to the most casual observer that the trouble and danger instead of being lessened might be increased.

The conviction is forced home upon us that the only competent parties to choose the coupler for general and universal use are the railway companies themselves, the only needed legislation upon that point being such as will compel a choice within a reasonable time. It may not be out of place to mention here what seems to us some of the prominent hindrances in the minds of railway managers to a speedy decision of this coupler question. We think there are well grounded reasons in the minds of all practical railway men for the almost universal preference for a vertical, plain hook coupler, after the fashion somewhat of the Miller coupler now so common on passenger cars, but there has been a fear that such couplers would not afford the required slack in order to enable the engine to start the train and help it over sharp grades.

The experiments made last July at Burlington in the freight car brake tests opened the eyes of a great many railway men. To a great extent, the need of so much slack was shown to be a myth, and it is difficult to tell what those tests there made decided most-the true character of the coming safety draw bar, or the best practical freight car brake.

This difficulty of slack eliminated from the draw-bar question, then another very serious one confronts the railway manager.

There are some half a dozen or more hook couplers that are so

nearly perfect and have so many points in common, no thinking man with the intelligence of the average railway manager, but fears if he decides upon any one, he is liable in buying and using it to buy a long, tedious and costly patent right suit, for no one of the owners of these half a dozen hook couplers that are so nearly alike will see his competitor putting his coupler into general use and his own left, but who would in all probability at once commence suit for infringement. Could the proprietors of these several hook couplers pool their issues and combine their interest and unite good points of all in one, there is but little doubt that the railway companies would at once adopt the consolidated draw-bar.

We are not uttering these thoughts at random. These conclusions are the result of quite extensive interviews with a large number of prominent railway men, as well as with coupler men.

"Whenever these coupler men agree among themselves where their couplers are so nearly alike and combine, we are ready to adopt some one of these hook couplers as a standard one, but we are not going to buy a lawsuit of any one of these inventors if we know ourselves," is the expression often heard from the lips of railway managers. Thus we are inclined to the opinion, that the safety coupler men themselves are to-day standing in the way of a speedy adoption of the very thing they, the railway companies and the public, want.

Our attention has been called to the following law passed by the Legislature of the State of New York, (Section 4, Chapter 39, of the laws of 1884), which we think more nearly meets the wants of the situation than anything in the way of legislation that we have seen :

"After July 1, 1886, no couplers shall be placed upon any new freight car to be built or purchased for use, in whole or in part, upon any steam railroad in this State, unless the same can be coupled and uncoupled automatically without the necessity of having a person guide the link, lift the pin by hand, or go between the cars. The corporation, person or persons operating said railroad, and violating the provisions of this section, shall be liable to a penalty of not exceeding one hundred dollars for each offense."

AUTOMATIC OR POWER BRAKES FOR FREIGHT CARS.

Since our last report there has been a long step taken toward a much needed and universally desired improvement in the equipment of freight cars. We refer to the remarkable tests of freight car brakes inaugurated and carried through most successfully by the

National Master Car Builders Association, at Burlington, this State, last July. That series of tests marks a period of time in the railway history of this nation second in importance to no other. It was in fact a new departure in railway practice, something entirely novel in this country, but at the same time of the highest importance. As an indicator of the times it showed very clearly that railway companies are keenly alive to public sentiment. They have seen that the public sentiment of this civilization was about to demand something better for brakemen than the common hand brake worked by men on top of freight cars.

They saw that public sentiment would eventually crystalize into laws compelling the use of some automatic or power brake, free from the dangers and exposure inseperably connected with those now in use, and it was of the utmost importance for them to know from actual and exhaustive tests which one of the several brakes pushed forward for favorable recognition was the best for all practical purposes. To us it does seem that the responsibility resting upon the committee of master car builders who have charge of the tests and who are to report on the same, is one of the most weighty that falls to the lot of man to discharge. The report of the committee must, of course, influence more or less every railway management in the United States in deciding what brake shall be used on its cars. It should also influence future legislation as it may be had in reference to safety appliances to cars. It should be well understood that the large expenditure of time and money to carry on these tests was not designed to be any mere child's play. It meant business through and through, no matter who went down or who went up. The interests at stake reached too far and too wide to allow of any swaying of judgment by any mere individual's interest in any particular brake. The final report of that committee after the concluding tests next spring will be looked forward to by every railway company and by train men, as well as by shippers with intense interest. It is to be sincerely hoped that that report will give no uncertain or double sound. It was chosen, and all this enormous expense has been incurred to let railway managers know and to inform legislators what is the best brake, and what should be adopted. If not for this end then surely it was indeed "child's play." Any action taken by any of the State legislatures in reference to an automatic or power brake after the report of that committee, could with reason be based on that report, and no railway man could complain. Any unnecessary

delay of action by the law making power after such report, would be open to censure by train men and the public; hence, the heavy responsibility attaching to that forthcoming report.

Yet this is the only correct way to reach the desired results. Too great commendation cannot be given to the master car builders who inaugurated; to the committee who had charge of, or the railway company that furnished the facilities for carrying through these important tests. As said above, a very important mile post is set up in the history of railway progress in this land.

Before leaving these points, we would respectfully ask of railway managers, master car builders and of inventors and owners of safety and automatic drawbars. Why not inaugurate a crucial test of automatic couplers, conducted by a competent committee, on something of the same plan and as exhaustive as that of the freight car brakes? Let this be done, and all agree to abide by the report of the committee. We see no other way to reach the desired end, unless it be the one suggested on another page in this report, viz.: By several of the vertical hook couplers combining and pooling their interests. Something should be done soon. The people will not allow legislatures to stand idly by and see the citizens of the State mangled and killed so unnecessarily as they now are by the use of coupling devices that have not been improved in the history of railway work in this nation.

THE RELATIONS OF RAILWAYS TO THE TERRITORY THEY WERE BUILT TO SERVE.

Perhaps we can in no better way illustrate the points we wish to make under this head than to compare a railway company to a farmer, and the territory from which it expects to draw its business and consequently its revenues, to a farm.

The higher the state of cultivation the farm is kept in, the greater will be the return. To constantly crop without returning to the soil some equivalent for that taken away, as was the practice in small grain raising in the early settlement of the west, was suicidal, as many of the pioneer farmers found out to their sorrow. Good farming not only will retain all the original fertility of the virgin soil, but will add to it, and the older the farm the more fertile and greater the income. Take now the railway lines traversing our State. Each has certain general defined territory to serve, and the general prosperity of that territory will be to that railway what the fertility of

the soil of the farm is to its owner. Suppose on the farm there are from one-fourth to one-half of its area utterly unproductive from the fact of low marshy sloughs; the whole has to be fenced, taxes have to be paid on every acre, but no revenue is had from the wet part. The farmer would be better off if his farm were made just so much smaller by the number of acres in that unproductive slough, but he holds on to the land, thinking that by and by when he gets able, he will tile drain that part of farm, and when drained he thinks, and rightly too, that which is now an eyesore to him will be the most productive part of the farm. Sometimes farmers who have these wet farms will run in debt for some adjoining drier land and build roadways to it, rather than incur the expense of properly draining the land they now have, and near by.

Now, applying this, there are along the lines of some of the railroads in this State a great deal of this unproductive land. The railroad is built; it incurs all the expense of running its trains; all its fixed charges have to be borne, but along its line are thousands on thousands of acres of these wet, unproductive lands that only need tile draining to make the best lands in its territory. Were these lands drained and brought into proper cultivation, it would add a very large per cent to the business of the road, with but a moiety of additional expense, and hence greatly increase its net earnings. Should any one of these main trunk lines see a good territory off one side, it will not hesitate to build ten or fifty miles of branch lines to secure the business of this adjacent territory, while at the same time there may be in the aggregate more acres of as would be valuable land lying right along side of its track, or within easy distance, if properly drained. We do not say that the railway should drain these lands for their owners, but we would suggest as it does appear to us, that there is so much of a partnership interest in the reclaiming of these wet lands that a mere nominal rate on drain tile to be used on its line, or a premium offered for acres reclaimed as an encouragement to farmers to drain these lands, would be not only good policy but a paying investment. We are very glad to say that as far as we have had opportunity to bring this matter personally to the attention of railway managers, a very favorable response has been given, and we hope for an early announcement from railway companies to this end.

Continuing the illustration, it is now well understood by the more advanced farmers and stock breeders that to get the best returns

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