The Long Struggle for Train Safety
After a decade of agitation, new federal law mandates automatic couplers and air brakes to end the slaughter of railroad brakemen.
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Among the last of President Harrison's official acts was his signing of the bill providing that after July 1, 1898, automatic couplers and continuous brakes shall be used on all freight trains engaged in interstate commerce. It has taken ten years of steady agitation to cast this reform into a Federal statute. The experience of the Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen shows that a brakeman has only one chance in five of dying a natural death. In 1890, 369 trainmen were killed and 7,841 injured while coupling cars, a slaughter and maiming which the automatic coupler and standard draw bar will save.
“The experience of the Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen shows that a brakeman has only one chance in five of dying a natural death.”
Railroad safety regulation was one of the first major tests of federal power over private industry. Today, similar debates over worker safety in logistics and warehousing remind us that the cost of doing business is often written in blood, and only federal intervention has historically checked the most dangerous practices.
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