Accidents Happen - Workplace Safety Through The Years

 
It was accepted that there were dangers in a railway job. The development of rail transportation was part of the much larger industrial revolution that began with the invention of the steam engine. These new machines brought new dangers to the workplace, and developing safety procedures that took this new technology into account were some time coming.

The process of building railways, bridges and other large-scale infrastructure often brought workplace accidents. Using and maintaining that infrastructure involved complex machinery and time pressure; two things that can get one into trouble.

Rivers, being a busy railway centre, saw its share of train wrecks, mishaps and close calls.

The first accident on record happened in 1908 when twenty-two year old Samuel White had one leg severed by a locomotive and later died. The throttle had been defective according to a coroner's inquest, which also noted that no ashpit was provided in the Rivers yard for the safety of those who cleaned out locomotive ashpans. The railway company was found guilty of gross negligence.

In 1913 a yard engine and two cars crashed over the end of the coal dock after the locomotive throttle refused to function, causing serious injuries to brakeman George Hile and forcing engineer Joe Rymal and D.J.D. Ellis to jump for safety.

 

Brandon Sun, August 30, 1913

In 1919 C. W. Angel suffered painful injuries when an electric magnet capsized in the railway yards and fell upon him.
The deepening depression saw the railways used as free transportation as men moved across the land seeking work. They often disembarked from freight trains at this point; hurried calls on local households for handouts were followed by a dash to catch the next outgoing transport. On New Year's Day, 1931, one such traveller, a woman travelling with her son, while trying to board a moving box-car, slipped and fell beneath the wheels.
In 1951 a head on crash of two freights occurred on the outskirts of Rivers, no one was hurt, but the damage was dramatic.


 

 
 
A dramatic collision in 1951.