Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:26:03.681Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Running Out of Steam: Federal Inspection and Locomotive Safety, 1912–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2007

Mark Aldrich
Mark Aldrich*
Affiliation:
Mark Aldrich is Marilyn Carlson Nelson Professor of Economics Emeritus, Department of Economics, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Locomotive inspection was among the most important Progressive Era federal workplace regulations. Inspection rules were enforced by a new Bureau of Locomotive Inspection, which claimed credit for subsequent safety improvements. Relying on published and unpublished data this article assesses these claims. Literary sources suggest that the bureau achieved compliance by emphasizing regulatory benefits and that its activities sharply reduced locomotive defects through the 1920s, in part by reducing agency problems. A model for 1923–1932 reinforces this conclusion, but suggests that the safety gains came at high cost. After 1932 safety improvements stagnated, for inspection ran out of steam.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 884 - 916
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aldrich, Mark. Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1828–1965. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
An Unusual Locomotive Crown Sheet Accident. Railway Review 68 no. 15 (1921): 574–75.Google Scholar
Boiler Explosions—Bill to Provide for Locomotive Boiler Inspection. Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine 48, no. 2 (1910): 231.Google Scholar
Boiler Inspection Bill Becomes Law. Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine 50, no. 3 (1911): 359–60.Google Scholar
Boiler Inspection [1]. Locomotive Engineers' Monthly Journal 45, no. 4 (1911): 342–43.Google Scholar
Boiler Inspection [2]. Railway and Locomotive Engineering 25, no. 11 (1912): 406.Google Scholar
Can Boiler Explosions Due to Low Water Be Prevented? Railway Age 100, no. 12 (1936): 499–501.Google Scholar
Carpenter, Daniel. The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862–1928. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
The Cost of Contract vs. Railway Shop Repairs. Railway Age 71, no. 16 (1921): 729–31.Google Scholar
Curtiss, W. L. Water Treatment—What Saving in Fuel and Boiler Repairs? Railway Age 106, no. 20 (1939): 867–69.Google Scholar
Davis, Colin, Strategy for Success: The Pennsylvania Railroad and the 1922 National Railroad Shopmen's Strike. Business and Economic History 19 (1990): 271–78.Google Scholar
Federal Boiler Inspection. Railroad Gazette 48, no. 24 (1910): 1533–34.Google Scholar
Federal Boiler Inspection Rules. Railway Age 50 (1911): 1105–08.Google Scholar
Fishback, Price, and Kantor, Shawn. A Prelude to the Welfare State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank McManamy—Interstate Commerce Commission. Railway and Locomotive Engineering 36, no. 6 (1923): 194–96.Google Scholar
Going, Charles B. Methods of the Santa Fe. New York: Engineering News, 1909.Google Scholar
Gorman, Hugh. Redefining Efficiency: Pollution Concerns, Regulatory Mechanisms and Technological Change in the U.S. Petroleum Industry. Akron, OH: University of Akron, 2001.Google Scholar
Government Boiler Inspection. Railway Master Mechanic 37, no. 5 (1913): 173–74.Google Scholar
Gray, Wayne B., and Scholtz, John T.. Does Regulatory Enforcement Work? A Longitudinal Study of OSHA Enforcement. Law and Society Review 27, no. 1 (1993): 177–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Wayne B., and Mendeloff, John T.. The Declining Effects of OSHA Inspections on Manufacturing Injuries, 1979–1998. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 58, no. 4 (2005): 571–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
High, Jack, and Coppin, Clayton. Wiley and the Whiskey Industry: Strategic Behavior in the Passage of the Pure Food Act. Business History Review 62, no. 2 (Summer 1988): 286–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Indianapolis News, various dates.Google Scholar
Indianapolis Star, 15 January 1924.Google Scholar
Is the Average Railroad Shop as Efficient as the Average Industrial Plant? Railway Review 71, no. 21 (1922) 674–75.Google Scholar
Jacobs, H. W. Betterment Briefs. Easton, PA: Hive Publishing Co., 1909.Google Scholar
Kim, Seung-Wook, and Fishback, Price V.. Institutional Change, Compensating Differentials and Accident Risk in American Railroading, 1892–1945. This Journal 53, no. 4 (1993): 796–823.Google Scholar
Ladd, Dwight. Cost Data for the Management of Railroad Passenger Service Boston: Harvard University Press, 1957.Google Scholar
Law, Marc. Origins of State Pure Food Legislation. This Journal 63, no. 4 (2003): 1103–1130.Google Scholar
Law, Marc. How Do Regulators Regulate? Enforcement of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, 1907–38. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 22 no. 1 (2006): 459–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Libecap, Gary. The Rise of the Chicago Packers and the Origins of Meat Inspection and Antitrust. Economic Inquiry 30, no. 4 (1992): 242–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lleras-Muney, Adriana. Were Compulsory Attendance and Child Labor Laws Effective? An Analysis from 1915 to 1939. Journal of Law and Economics 45, no. 2 pt. 1 (2002): 401–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locomotive Inspection Rules Modified During War. The Boiler Maker 17, no. 11 (1917): 308–09.Google Scholar
McCucker, John. How Much is that in Real Money? Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 2001.Google Scholar
McManamy, Frank. Locomotive Boiler Inspection. Railway Master Mechanic 38, no. 1 (1914): 13–17.Google Scholar
McManamy, Frank. Results of the Locomotive Boiler Inspection Law [and discussion]. Western Railway Club Proceedings 27 (16 March 1915): 210–40.Google Scholar
McManamy, Frank. Locomotive Inspection Laws [and discussion]. Western Railway Club Proceedings 28 (21 March 1916): 163–88.Google Scholar
McSwain, James B. Urban Government and Environmental Policies: Regulating the Storage and Distribution of Fuel Oil in Houston, Texas, 1901–1915. Journal of Southern History 71, no. 2 (2005): 279–320.Google Scholar
Merkel, Philip. Going National: The Life Insurance Industry's Campaign for Federal Regulation after the Civil War. Business History Review 65, no. 3 (1991): 528–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Modern Locomotive Equipment. Railway Mechanical Engineer 111, no. 8 (1937): 348–51.Google Scholar
Mohun, John. Injuries From Locomotive Failures. Railway Mechanical Engineer 93, no. 8 (1919): 459–63.Google Scholar
Moss, David. Kindling a Flame under Federalism: Progressive Reformers, Corporate Elites and the Phosphorous Match Campaign of 1909–1912. Business History Review 68, no. 2 (1994): 244–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New Haven Inspection System Reduces Engine Repairs. Railway Mechanical Engineer 102, no. 1 (1928): 36–40.Google Scholar
Oi, Walter. On the Economics of Industrial Safety. Law and Contemporary Problems 38, no. 4 (1974): 669–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olmstead, Alan, and Rhode, Paul. The ‘Tuberculosis Cattle Trust’: Disease Contagion in an Era of Regulatory Uncertainty. This Journal 64, no. 4 (2004): 929–63.Google Scholar
Pack, A. G. The Elimination of Federal Defects. Railway Mechanical Engineer 102, no. 10 (1928): 580–83.Google Scholar
Pennsylvania Railroad Collections, Hagley Museum and Library.Google Scholar
Pennsylvania Railroad Collections, Pennsylvania State Archives.Google Scholar
Reduce Dynamic Augment for Heavy Locomotives. Railway Age 64, no. 8 (1918): 415–17.Google Scholar
Quigel, James P.The Business of Selling Efficiency: Harrington Emerson and the Emerson Efficiency Engineers. Ph.D. diss., Pennsylvania State University, 1992.Google Scholar
Schiffman, Daniel. Shattered Rails, Ruined Credit: Financial Fragility and Railroad Operations in the Great Depression. This Journal 63, no. 3 (2003): 802–25.Google Scholar
Seftel, Howard. Government Regulation and the Rise of the California Fruit Industry: The Entrepreneurial Attack on Fruit Pests, 1880–1920. Business History Review 59, no. 3 (Autumn 1985): 369–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, Hal. Safety and Productivity in Underground Coal Mining. Review of Economics and Statistics 65, no. 2 (1983): 225–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Special Committee on the Relations of Railway Operation to Legislation. Data Relating to Proposed Federal Locomotive Boiler Inspection. Bulletin 4. Chicago, 1910.Google Scholar
Statutes at Large of the United States of America, vol. 23, part 1. Washington, DC: GPO, 1911.Google Scholar
Steel Castings and the Railroad. Railway Age 104, no. 6 (1938): 267–71.Google Scholar
Stradling, David, and Tarr, Joel. Environmental Activism, Locomotive Smoke and the Corporate Response: The Case of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Chicago Smoke Control. Business History Review 73, no.4 (1999): 677–704.Google Scholar
Structural Merits of the Thermic Syphon. Railway Review 66, no. 2 (1920): 74–75.Google Scholar
Thompson, Gregory. Misused Product Costing in the American Railroad Industry: Southern Pacific Passenger Service Between the Wars. Business History Review 63, no. 3 (1989): 510–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Gregory. How Cost Ignorance Derailed the Pennsylvania Railroad's Efforts to Save its Passenger Service. Journal of Transport History 16, no. 2 (1995): 134–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United States House of Representatives. House Report 1974, Locomotive Boiler Inspection. 61st Cong., 3d sess. Washington, DC: GPO, 1911.Google Scholar
United States House of Representatives Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce Hearings on H.R. 5836 Additional Government Railroad Locomotive Inspectors. 68th Cong., 1st sess. Washington, DC: GPO, 1924.Google Scholar
United States Interstate Commerce Commission. Accident Bulletin. Washington, DC: GPO, various years.Google Scholar
United States Interstate Commerce Commission. Statistics of Railways in the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1922–1940.Google Scholar
United States Interstate Commerce Commission. Bureau of Locomotive Inspection. Annual Report of the Chief Inspector. Washington, DC: GPO, 1912–1940.Google Scholar
United States Interstate Commerce Commission. Division of Boiler Inspection. Rules and Instructions for Inspection and Testing of Locomotive Boilers and their Appurtenances. Washington, DC: GPO, 1912.Google Scholar
United States National Archives, Records of the Interstate Commerce Commission, RG 134, Locomotive Inspection Correspondence Files.Google Scholar
United States Office of Federal Coordinator of Transportation. Report on Consolidation or Joint Use of Railroad Major Repair Shops and Modernization of Repair Shop Facilities. Washington, DC: GPO, 1936.Google Scholar
United States Senate. Railroad Accidents, 1903–1908. 60th Cong., 2d sess., S.D. 682 Washington, DC: GPO, 1909.Google Scholar
United States Senate. Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Hearings on S236 and S6702 To Promote the Safety of Employees and Travelers Upon Railroads by Compelling Common Carriers Engaged in Interstate Commerce to Equip their Locomotives with Safe and Suitable Boilers and Appearances Thereto. 61st Cong., 2d sess. Washington, DC: GPO, 1910,Google Scholar
United States Senate. Committee on Interstate Commerce. Hearings on Inspection of Locomotives, H.R. 17894. 63d Cong., 3d sess. Washington, DC: GPO, 1915.Google Scholar
United States Senate. Cost of Railroad Employee Accidents. 74th Cong., 1st sess., S.D. 68. Washington, DC: GPO, 1935.Google Scholar
Untitled editorial. Railway Master Mechanic 37, no. 5 (1913): 173–74.Google Scholar
Usselman, Steven. Regulating Railroad Innovation: Business, Technology and Politics in America, 1840–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viscusi, W. Kip, and Hakes, John. Automobile Seatbelt Usage and the Value of Statistical Life. Southern Economic Journal 73, no. 3 (2007): 659–76.Google Scholar
Warren, Christian. Toxic Purity: The Progressive Era Origins of America's Lead Paint Poisoning Epidemic. Business History Review 73, no. 4 (1999): 705–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren John T. Study of Railroad Motive Power. Interstate Commerce Commission Bureau of Transport Economics and Statistics, Statement 5025. Washington, DC: 1950.Google Scholar
Water Gauges. Locomotive Engineering 33, no. 9 (1920): 270–71.Google Scholar
Welke, Barbara. Recasting American Liberty: Gender, Race, Law, and the Railroad Revolution, 1865–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
What's Wrong with Railroad Shops? American Machinist 58, no. 1 (1923): 48.Google Scholar
Wood, Donna J. Strategic Uses of Public Policy: Business and Government in the Progressive Era. Boston, MA: Pitman, 1985.Google Scholar
Wooldridge, Jeffrey. Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach. New York: South-Western, 2003.Google Scholar
Wright, Ronald F., and Huck, Paul. Counting Cases about Milk, our ‘Most Nearly Perfect Food,’ 1860–1940. Law & Society Review 36, no. 1 (2002): 51–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, James Harvey. Food and Drug Enforcers in the 1920s: Restraining and Educating Business. Business and Economic History 21 (1992): 119–28.Google Scholar