Telegraphing En Route

Telegraphing from a train in motion lias for Borne yeurs been practiced in thia country, but in this as in many ether electrical applications America is ahead of European practice. All Europe stood horror-stricken not long ago at the awfulness of a railway accident on the Riviera. The stationmaster dispatched a train on the wrong1 line to its doom of rushing into another train and crashing over the precipice. liells were rung and people shouted, but there was no means of stopping the train wrongly started, and the stationmaster shot himself as he heard the crash. This and other accidents more or less similar, says the Pittsburgh Dispatch, have appealed so strongly to railway directors for the necessity of establishing a means of communication from trains in motion that European engineers are now engaged in testing varirious systems whereby this can be effected. Some recent trials at Algeria are said to have been most successi ui. The tests included the exchange of telegrams between a train in motion and the station; between two trains in motion; the telegraphic stoppage of a train; started and out of sight. it was ordered to stop, start again. and retorn to the station; two trains started on the same track, and approacl each other at an expres;; speed of nearly one and one-quarter miles a minuto, avoided collision by mutually and automatically warning each other by an indication of their direction, and the position, accovding to kilometer posts, which they had attained. The signaling arrangements are carried out by M. Etienne, the well-known inventor. The fact was established that every train can be kept within cali of the station at any point in its route, and thus one of the most fertile causes of frightful accidents may now be removed.