The roadway, tracks and rolling stock are so well maintained that those causes which lead to the worst derailments have been eliminated almost completely, and the record of serious collisions has been reduced nearly to zero by the universal use of the block system and by systematic precautions at junctions.
Its investigations justified the law making the block system compulsory, thus removing the worst danger of railway travel.
In items I and 4 the increase in safety is due in part, no doubt, to the extension of the use of the block system.
The best railways of the United States and Canada have, indeed; been greatly improved, and their main lines approach the high standards of safety which prevail in Great Britain, both as regards maintenance and care of roadway and vehicles (as a preventive of derailments) and the use of the block system (as a preventive of collisions); but when the inquirer looks at America as a whole - the total length of lines in the United States being over 230,000 m., ten times the total of the United Kingdom - he is considering a figure which includes an enormous mileage of railway lying in thinly settled regions where the high standards of safety maintained on the best railways have scarcely been thought of.
