Patent GB-190512953-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to Means for Electrically Operating and Locking Railway Points Signals and the like.
Inventor: KOTTMAIR LORENZ
Filed: 1905-06-22
Granted: 1906-08-22
Abstract: 12,953. Kottmair, L., and Zwack, R. June 22. Points and switches.-Relates to an electro-magnetic device for actuating, controlling, and locking railway points, signals, and the like. The essential feature of the invention consists in providing safety switches, which co-operate with the shifting-devices to be secured by them, in such a manner that the safety switches, after the shifting- devices to be secured have been properly adjusted, are reversed by the latter, whereby the circuits leading to the shifting-devices, by which an operation or movement entailing danger might be effected, are interrupted. Only when the safety switch is shifted back into its original position, which as a rule is effected by a contact, is the broken circuit or circuits closed and the point-operating device able to be again shifted. A device comprising a combined shifting-device and electric switch is' shown in Fig. 9. The shifting-piece 52, which is connected to a point, signal, or the like, is adapted to slide horizontally when either of the two solenoids m, l, the cores of which are mechanically connected to the sector 50, is energized. Upon the movement of the piece 52, the rods 53, 54 are caused to operate the switch-arms e,f dipping into the mercury cups shown and thus make and break corresponding electric circuits of the shifting- device. Generally there are two electric circuits by which the shifting and switch devices are moved in one direction or the other. The solenoids and contact cups of the different devices are connected with each other and with the main selector switch. The safety switches and the shifting-devices may be arranged in many ways, and the safety switches can in their turn be secured by additional switches. A number of the devices may be arranged to act upon each other in series so that one, having been completely shifted, shifts the next, or in multiple as in usual installations. Fig. 1 shows the application of a number of devices, connected in series, to a double track station with a turn-out III and a branch track IV. The system of working is of that kind in which, after a line selector switch has been closed by an operator, one device switches in the next one and so on in succession. In the Figure, the closing of the contacts 1 to 9 of the selector switch Sz serve for preparing track III. The track contacts m1, m2, &c. for reversing the safety switches of the point-operating devices are situated close behind the respective crossing points, but the contacts for the safety switch of the signaloperating switches are situated behind these, thus permitting the operating of separate devices or shunting behind the train in spite of the line being blocked. When trains pass in both directions over a track, two safety switches can be connected up to cover the track. The Specification also describes how interdependence may be created between the point-shifting and shunting through a connexion of the safety switches with the shifting-devices without endangering the safety of the trains, when the two functions are performed by different persons in different places. The arrangement of the safety switching-devices is also shown for lines with several branches leading into or out of them, each line only having one line selector switch. The safety switches may also be applied with locking- devices for signal and point-operating means.