w:Supreme Court of the United States

“ Q. What do you tell your switch engine men about your rules, about running under control in yard limits?
A. Don't tell them anything, not in regard to running under control in the yards.
The plaintiffs took the position that the rules, if regarded as devolving upon one in the intestate's situation the measure of responsibility indicated, and permitting the switching crew to run their engine through the cut, not under control, but at high speed, when they knew that they might meet the other engine, were unreasonable in that respect. ”

“ There was no express rule as to the speed allowed to the switch engine. Of course, the law requires that such engine should not be run at an unreasonable rate of speed under the circumstances. The engineer of the switch engine must have had a clear view of the approaching engine for at least 420 feet, and it was run at least 370 feet of this distance before the collision occurred. It could have been stopped within a distance of 60 feet unless running at a greater speed than 20 miles an hour ”

“ One of the locomotives was a switch engine returning to the city from an adjacent transfer track, and the other a road engine on the way to a distant repair shop. The former was in charge of a switching crew, and the latter of an engine crew in which the intestate was the engineer. At the place of the collision the track is in a deep and curved cut which shortens the view along the track. The causal negligence set up in the petition included allegations that the defendant negligently failed to provide a suitable rule regulating the speed and movement of switch engines through the cut ”