The British railways have earned for themselves an enviable reputation for safety in view of the high average speed of the passenger trains, a position which has been obtained largely through very heavy capital expenditure ever since their original construction in the form of signalling equipment (see Railway Sig nalling, p. 95o), very complete fencing of the track, raised plat forms at stations and close and detailed examination of all rolling stock and locomotives. Strict Government regulation of railway construction coupled with the medical examination of employees have also assisted in attaining a very high safety record. In recent years also much stress has been laid upon the "Safety First" campaigns universally employed, not only in Great Britain but on many railways elsewhere, notably in Canada, South Africa, the United States and Germany. Campaigns of this nature have done meritorious work in reducing the number of accidents amongst employees as well as passengers, while the attention given by the British lines to ambulance work receives witness from the numerous competitions on each railway for challenge shields given to the most efficient ambulance team.
It will be seen that collisions and derailments are the main causes of train accidents. Both are preventable but the former, with the highly intricate signal devices which have been installed, are usually a result of a human failure or of the coincident failures of more than one piece of mechanism. Derailments may be due to an error of judgment resulting, for instance, in ex cessive speed on curves or mechanical defect in the train itself or a failure in the track. The most serious British railway acci
dents during the last sixty years were the collision of the L.N.W.R. Irish mail train with some wagons of petroleum at Abergele on Aug. 20, 1867, when 33 persons were killed; on Dec. 28, 1879, a North British Railway train was blown off the Tay Bridge and 73 persons were drowned; on July 1, 1906, a L.S.W.R. ex press was derailed owing to excessive speed at Salisbury, 28 persons being killed ; and through a similar accident at Shrews bury the following year, 18 lives were lost. The most terrible British railway accident occurred on May 22, 1915, on the Caledonian Railway at Gretna, when 2 passenger trains and a troop train special collided, with a loss of 227 lives, nearly all soldiers in the troop train. On Jan. 26, 1921, a head-on collision occurred in a single line section of the Cambrian Rail way, 17 persons being killed, while later serious accidents are a collision at Hull in Feb. 1927 on the L.N.E.R., and another at Darlington on the same line in June 1928. In the former 12 lives were lost, and in the latter 25. There has been a steadily decreasing trend of accidents over the last 7o years, although for a time after the war failures of material due to delayed re pairs caused an increased number of breakages of couplings and similar parts. The Continental railways of Europe especially France and Germany suffered even more heavily in this respect owing to still greater arrears of maintenance, but this condition of affairs is being rapidly improved.