Trouble on the Rails

Groaning under record loads of passengers and freight, short of men, shy of equipment, U.S. railroads have chugged along by dint of many a huff, puff and prayer, and some luck. Now their luck seemed to be running out.

Across the nation, wrecks occurred. Most were minor. None was as costly as in the preceding eight days, when 109 people were killed in three Eastern railway disasters. But they came with a shuddering frequency that showed the increasing strain of the railroads' job. The locomotive and four cars of the Milwaukee Road's crack Olympian were derailed by a buckled rail south of Seattle (five injured). Two Nickel Plate engines collided head-on at Brocton, N.Y. (none seriously hurt).

Unluckiest of all was mighty Pennsylvania Railroad. A Pennsy resort train was derailed near Howard City, Mich. (two killed). At Altoona, Pa. two freight trains and a train of empty passenger cars were derailed (one killed). The 80th victim of the wreck of the P.R.R.'s swift Congressional (TIME, Sept. 13) died in a Philadelphia hospital. Then, same day, an eight-alarm, $250,000 blaze swept through Philadelphia's old Broad Street station. Six empty passenger cars were burned to charcoal and scrap iron.

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