Railroad Safety Appliance Act
Encyclopedia
Air brake (rail)
An air brake is a conveyance braking system actuated by compressed air. Modern trains rely upon a fail-safe air brake system that is based upon a design patented by George Westinghouse on March 5, 1872. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company was subsequently organized to manufacture and sell...
s and automatic coupler
Coupling (railway)
A coupling is a mechanism for connecting rolling stock in a train. The design of the coupler is standard, and is almost as important as the railway gauge, since flexibility and convenience are maximised if all rolling stock can be coupled together.The equipment that connects the couplings to the...
s mandatory on all train
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
s in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was enacted on March 2, 1893 and took effect in 1900, after a 7 year grace period. The act is credited with a sharp drop in accidents on American railroads in the early twentieth century.
Background
Following the end of the Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, railroads expanded rapidly thoughout the United States. The increased traffic was accompanied by an increase in accidents among railroad personnel, especially brakemen
Brakeman
A brakeman is a rail transport worker whose original job it was to assist the braking of a train by applying brakes on individual wagons. The advent of through brakes on trains made this role redundant, although the name lives on in the United States where brakemen carry out a variety of functions...
. Many accidents were associated with coupling and uncoupling
Coupling (railway)
A coupling is a mechanism for connecting rolling stock in a train. The design of the coupler is standard, and is almost as important as the railway gauge, since flexibility and convenience are maximised if all rolling stock can be coupled together.The equipment that connects the couplings to the...
of railroad cars, and particularly with the use of link-and-pin couplers, which were widely in use at the time. The operation of manually-operated brakes (hand brakes) was also very hazardous. The rise in accidents led to calls for safety legislation, as early as the 1870s. In the 1880s, the number of on-the-job fatalities of railroad workers was second only to those of coal miners. Through that decade, several state legislatures enacted safety laws. However, the specific requirements varied among the states, making implementation difficult for interstate rail carriers, and Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
passed the Safety Appliance Act in 1893 to provide a uniform standard.
1893 act
The original act was entitled, An Act to Promote the Safety of Employees and Travelers upon Railroads by Compelling Common Carriers Engaged in Interstate Commerce to Equip Their Cars with Automatic Couplers and Continuous Brakes and Their LocomotiveLocomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
s with Driving-wheel Brakes, and for Other Purposes. Its first section makes it unlawful, among other things, for a railroad company engaged in interstate commerce to run any train without having a sufficient number of the cars so equipped with train brakes (such as air brake
Air brake (rail)
An air brake is a conveyance braking system actuated by compressed air. Modern trains rely upon a fail-safe air brake system that is based upon a design patented by George Westinghouse on March 5, 1872. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company was subsequently organized to manufacture and sell...
s) that the engineer on the locomotive can control the speed of the train without requiring brakemen to use a hand brake for that purpose.
The second section prohibits such a carrier from hauling or using on its line in moving interstate traffic any car not equipped with couplers which can be coupled and uncoupled automatically "without the necessity of men going between the ends of the cars," and the fourth section forbids the use in interstate commerce of any car not provided with secure grab irons or hand holds on the ends and sides of the car "for greater security to men in coupling and uncoupling cars." The sixth section imposes for every violation of the act a penalty of $100.
Amendments
The original law was amended by a subsequent act in 1903, whose first section provides that the requirements of the original act respecting train brakes, automatic couplers, and grab irons shall be held to apply to all trains and cars used on any railroad engaged in interstate commerce, unless a minor exception were satisfied. By its second section this act requires that not less than 50 percent of the cars in a train shall have their train brakes used and operated by the engineer on the locomotive, and confers upon the Interstate Commerce CommissionInterstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including...
(ICC) the authority to increase this minimum percentage to the end that the objects intended may be more fully accomplished. By an order promulgated June 6, 1910, the Commission increased the minimum number of cars whose train brakes must be under the engineer's control to 85 percent.
A 1910 legislative amendment required additional equipment, including ladders, sill steps and hand brakes.