The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-10-29
TELEPHONE on THE TRAIN.
Engineers in Constant COmmunica-
ton With Station Agents.

ton With Station Agents.
From the Philadelphia Record.
1t is not improbable that a locomotive
engineer will be able to keep his hand
on the throttle and talk by phone 10
station masters along the line while his
train is speeding over the rails Prof. Rus
so dAzar of Rome perfected an invention
for telephoning without wires between
ships at sea, about a month ago and now
comes the announcement that he has ac-
cOmplished the still more remarkable feat
of using the same method of communica-
ton between moving trains.
Prof. q Azar's experiments in this line
have been conducted on one of the rail-
reads running out of Rome toward the
north. For this purpose he put up mis-
telephone in three train dispatChers' sta
tons, covering ffty-mile stretch of
track. Half a dozen locomotives in this
suburban service were then equipped with
the wireless telephones.
A head piece was made for the engineer
such as central girls wear at the tele-
phone exchanges. This keeps the receiver
constantly at the engineers ear, so ne
is obliged to hear every sound that comes
TO the telephone. In this way he must
! hear the rumbling of a train coming to-
ward him from the front or the rear.
Every one has heard while waiting at
/ a railroad station the peculiar singing or
humming of the rails which indicates that
train is coming along the track. This
can be heard when a train is a quarter
or a half mile away.
Now, imagine a telephone, which IS far
/ more sensitive than the human ear with
the transmtter placed near those rails,
but without any metallic wire connection
with them. Let this transmitter be CON
{ tod nv bar xHriF. 10. al
ceiver held to the ear and it is easy to
understand how the sound of an approach
ing train could be heard not simply half
a mile off, but five, ten or twenty miles
away.
This is precisely what Prof dAzar's in
vention accomplishes.
A great difficulty which was a. first en-
countered was TO prevent The noise of The
engineers own train drowning the much
fainter sound of a distant train or the
stn more feeble sound of a human voice
from q station. This was overcome by
placing microphones, or sound magnifers.
on t. pilot at the front OF he locOmo i've
and al the rear Of the tr1in, and connect
ing them by wire with the engineers toe
phone. These microphones, which detect
the faintest sounds " hich vibrate along he
IaLs, are mufEled in a peculiar Way SO as
10 be DISTURBED as little as possible by
the rattle and roar of the train to which
they are attached.
In spite of this precaution. however.
there is a cons ant noise made in the tele-
phone at tn engineers head But his
trained ear easily distinguishes between
tho noise Of his own train and that of
oher trains and a voice at a distant sta
tion.
1t has been found that the engineer of a
locomotive can become accustomed to
wireless telephone in his cab 50 that he
can be listening to a trainmaster's or
ders coming over the phone while one
hand is resting on his throttle ever and
h ether hand is ties ing the waller gauges.
Win the roar and raft e of his loccmo-
! tive apparently drowning his own voice as
/ he speaks his ausw rs MO the nouth pie,e
OF the receiver, his words can be heard
twenty or more miles away in the train
/ dis atcEers office.
/ Although tbs system is wireless the
J rails take The place Of he wires to a GER
tain extent, the inst umcnts picking up The
sound from the track.