A Serious Charge

The statement, made by Nikola Tesla, that the system of signals installed in the New York Subway is antiquated and represents the art as it existed ten years ago, has not passed unchallenged, and the New York Times takes the technical expert to task somewhat severely.

The text of the Times’s sermon is found in this startling statement, which it attributes to Tesla and which will attract widespread attention: “The quickness of travel, the safety of the public and of the adjacent property, were the dominating requirements. These have not been properly met. A mistake was made in not asking the electric companies to furnish the best instead of the cheapest equipment.”

It has been much the fashion, for three or four years past, to treat lightly the utterances of the celebrated Hungarian physicist. By reason of several fortunate inventions, Tesla acquired competence, which gave him abundant leisure to make excursions in the line of speculative research, which apparently took him beyond the zone of practical work. To use a homely analogy, Tesla has cried “wolf,” when there was no wolf, so often that his exceedingly exact and definite statement regarding the safety signaling apparatus in the tunnel, upon which the safety of so many lives depends, is lightly regarded.

The Times has apparently forgotten that, not two weeks ago, the accidental operation of a signal lever caused the stoppage of a Subway train. The signal expert of the Times has certainly not forgotten that a railway signal which does the right work, automatically, at the wrong time, has not only been out of date for ten years, but never should be placed in a railway system.

Fortunately, the integrity of the signal system in the great Subway does not depend upon the opinion of Mr. Tesla, or of the men who are responsible for its character. The system is subject, with all of its accessories, to inspection by the practical experts of the State Railroad Commission. If such inspection has not already been begun, it certainly will not be long delayed, after the serious charges made by Mr. Tesla.