REPORT OF ACCIDENTS A detailed report of accidents has not been included in this report, for the reason that not all of the carriers have complied with section 27 of the act and furnished report of accidents to the Commission. Owing to litigation, the Commission has not pressed the enforcement of this section as it would have done had the question of its constitutionality been settled. Since the question has been decided, the Commission will take vigorous steps to enforce this important section of the law. As all of the reports have not been filed, the Commission did not deem it wise to publish the report of some and not of others, as the publishing of the reports of those roads that have obeyed the law would be putting a premium on disobedience of the orders of the Commission. The past two years have been fortunate in that very few large wrecks have occurred. The most important accidents were the derailment of Denver & Rio Grande Train No. 1, near Rex, Colorado, May 10, 1911; the accident to the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Train No. 6, on the Denver & Rio Grande tracks at Pueblo, July 30, 1912; and the Tramway accident at Fourteenth and York Streets, Denver, September 19, 1912; all of which were investigated by the Commission, and recommendations made, which were followed by the railroad companies. Following will be found the report of the investigations made: REPORT OF ACCIDENT TO D. & R. G. TRAIN No. 1, NEAR REX, COLORADO, ON THE EVENING OF MAY 10, 1911 Denver, Colorado, May 15, 1911. Report of S. S. Kendall, Commissioner, To the State Railroad Commission of Colorado: Denver & Rio Grande Passenger Train No. 1, which left Denver at 8 o'clock a. m., May 10, was derailed at a point just . east of Rex, about 298 miles from Denver, at 8:12 o'clock p. m. of May 10, which accident resulted in the death of one person and the injury of twenty-seven other people. The train consisted of an engine and eight cars, made up as follows: baggage, smoker, day coach, tourist, diner, and three Pullman sleepers. The men in charge were Conductor D. H. Killen, Engineer E. A. Hatch, Fireman G. A. Shirk, and Brakemen J. E. Kessel and Ed Button. I was informed of this wreck about 9 o'clock a. m. of May 11, and took the first train afterwards to the scene, leaving Denver at 5:45 p. m. of May 11 and arriving at Red Cliff at 6 o'clock the following morning. I drove to the scene of the wreck with Dr. J. D. Gilpin, coroner of Eagle County, arriving at about 10 a. m. of May 12, being about thirty-eight hours after the derailment occurred. Most of the wreckage had been cleared away by that time and the track put in shape. While I made a thorough examination of the track and conditions as I found them at that time, owing to the time that had elapsed since the accident had occurred, I am unable to arrive at a conclusion as to the cause of the wreck from my own personal observation entirely, and necessarily depended somewhat upon the statements of parties who were on the ground, as well as being present at the coroner's inquest held at Red Cliff on May 13. The accident was occasioned by the outside rail on the point of a nine-degree curve spreading, allowing the engine to drop to the ties between the rails, followed by all the cars in the train, except the last two sleepers. The train ran on the ties for a distance of something like 400 feet, spreading the outside rail in front of the engine as it advanced. At this point the bolts in the plates which held two of the outside rails together broke. When the engine reached this broken joint in the rail, it turned to the left and ran at right angles to the track for a distance of forty or fifty feet, where it met with a solid embankment and stopped, fortunately remaining upright. The sudden stopping caused the day coach and tourist cars, which were on the middle of the curve, to buckle out, and the rear end of the coach and the front of the tourist sleeper fell down the embankment into the river, which is about fifteen or twenty feet below the track, leaving them standing at an angle of about thirty-five degrees, with the lower end of each car submerged in about five or six feet of water. The train crew immediately commenced the work of rescuing the passengers, and succeeded in getting them all out alive, except Miss Katherine J. Martin, of Albany, New York. She evidently was killed outright. At the coroner's inquest, held at Red Cliff on May 13, Engineer E. A. Hatch testified that his train was on time when the accident occurred; that the running time between Tennessee Pass and Minturn, a distance of 20.97 miles, is one hour flat, and that special instructions were issued in the employes' time-table not to exceed this speed between these points. He considered this speed perfectly safe. He testified, however, that he always slowed up a little when approaching this curve, and was not running to exceed eighteen miles per hour when the accident occurred. He testified that the brakes and train equipment were in good condition at the time, and that in his judgment this particular curve ought to stand up under a speed of thirty-five or forty miles per hour. He considered the track safe, not having had any advice to the contrary. He stated that there were many curves between Salida and Minturn much worse than this one, over which they ran thirty and thirty-five miles per hour, and even forty miles per hour. He gave it as his best judgment that this accident was caused by the rails spreading, occasioned by poor ties. This testimony was in the main corroborated by the conductor, fireman and Brakeman Kessel (the other brakeman, Ed Button, not being present at the coroner's inquest). Frank Lombardy, foreman of Section No. 7, testified that ne was over this particular part of the track about a week ago, but had done no work there since May 2. He festified that there were some rotten ties, but most of them were good; that he reached the scene of the accident about 11 p. m.; that none of the rails were broken, but the ties were so badly torn up that he couldn't tell much about them. He stated that he had a track-walker go over this track every night, and on this particular night had been over the track ahead of No. 1, and saw nothing wrong with the track. This evidence was substantiated by Tony Lombardy, his track-walker, who also said he saw the train when it left the rails, as he was near the opposite track at the time; but he didn't have any idea how fast the train was moving. The section foreman could not express an opinion as to the probable cause of the accident, other than to say that it might have been occasioned by excessive speed. From my own observation and the testimony of witnesses at the coroner's inquest, as well as what I could learn from parties at the scene of the accident, I am of the opinion that the road-bed and rails were in good condition, the rails being eighty-five pound steel; that the speed of the train was not excessive; and that the direct cause of the accident was due entirely to poor ties at this particular point. Respectfully submitted, [Signed] S. S. KENDALL, Commissioner. REPORT OF ACCIDENT OF C. R. I. & P. TRAIN No. 6 ON THE D. & R. G. TRACKS AT PUEBLO, COLORADO, ON JULY 30, 1912. Denver, Colorado, August 7, 1912. Report of S. S. Kendall, Commissioner, To the State Railroad Commission of Colorado: Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Train No. 6 left Pueblo at 10:25 p. m., July 30, and was wrecked at or near Twentieth Street, in the city of Pueblo, about one and one-half miles from |