The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-04 00:00:00

POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION.
An ingenious contrivance for preventing accidents on
railways, and one that appears well worthy of notice,
has been exhibited lately at this establishment. It
differs from most arrangements of the kind in one im-
portant point, viz., that it is to prevent collision instead
of lessening the check when collision has taken place:
this appears to be a move in the right direction. It is
perhaps pretty well known that by the existing arrange-
ments the services of the guard are required in stopping
a train, the engine-driver not having the power of apply-
ing the breaks to the carriages, so that "in case of
eieergency, if either of these officers is off his guard
much valuable time is lost, and also the guard indi-
vidually has no control over the train whilst the motive
power is acting, and although he is the one most likely
to observe danger first, yet he can do nothing more than
make signals to the engineer, so that he may understand
that danger is at hand and act accordingly; hence the
many contrivances that have been put forth from time to
time for enabling the guard to communicate with the
engineer by signals. And, again, if they are both on
the alert and act the moment they observe danger, still
the means at their command for stopping the train
appear inadequate, and in opposition to their exertions
the train runs on for a considerable distance. Let us
take the accident at the Shrivenham station on the
Great Western line as an example. The distance the
train ran in that case from the time danger was observed
till it came in contact with the carriages on the line was
more than enough to enable the offie,ers in charge of the
train to stop it in perfect safety, if they had but the
means at their command. This Net was proved by Sir
George Caley, Bart., some years since experimentally;
he showed that a train proceeding with a velocity of
twenty-two miles per hour could be stopped within the
space of twenty feet in perfect safety, and for any in-
crease of velocity in the same ratio, and yet, strange as
it may appear, no plan has yet been put in practice to
take advantage of this fact.
A gentleman, of the name of Bishop, however, has
recently taken out a patent for a contrivance of the
kind, which appears, by experiments with the models,
to answer the purpose admirably. Perhaps the follow •
ing brief explanation will give some idea of the advan-
tages of the contrivance. Let it be understood, in the
first case, that every carriage has the breaks attached
to it, and that by means of a bar, placed under the car-
riages, the breaks may be thrown in or out of action at
pleasure; and that when the train is made up these bars
would be connected from carriage to carriage, so that
the engineer, by acting upon this bar at one end of the
train, has the power of applying the breaks to every
carriage simultaneously, converting, as it were, the
whole train into a sledge, and also the guard has the
same power over these breaks as the engineer, rendering
the one independent of the other; but what is still more
important, it gives the guard as well as the engineer full
and efficient power to stop it altogether ; for it can be
shown that the breaks being applied to every wheel in a
train, the power of any locomotive engine would not be
sufficient to move it forward, and that when the steam
has been shut off and the breaks applied, the train may
be stopped within an incredibly short space. All these
matters are fully demonstrated by the models that are
exhibited, and it is to be hoped that ere long we shall
find some such efficient contrivance upon every railway
in the kingdom.