New-York tribune., 1901-06-09
HIS LIFE WORK FUTILE.
INVENTOR COULD NOT GET RAILROADS
TOaDOPT HIS BLOCK SIGNAL SYSTEM
OK ACCOUNT OF ITS COMPLENITY.

Behind the few lines which appeared in the
newspapers this week. telling of the finding of the
body of John Chanler, inventor floating in the
Gowanus Bay in Brooklyn, lies an extremely sad
story Of blighted ambition.
There is but little doubt that ChanIcr com
-nitted suicide because great invention on whlch
he spent nearly lifetime was rejected by the
railroad capitalists as too complex for general USE
This contrivance an absolute BLOCK slsh"i
system for stopping railroad trains. and also de-
vice for preventing the trains from running into
open drawbridges and distractions on the uachs
Years ago. when Chanler, then young man. De-
gan his experiments, he said that they "ouiu
either make him wealthy that he would die
poor man The latter alternative proved true, for
although he was at time offered as much as
$4,000 for his working model by the Eden Musee
he rejected 1t and died in poverty, leaving VIE
and two children with barely means OF support
Mr. Chanler was an Englishman by birth and
came to this country about thirty years ago as
ship carpenter It is said that the pulleys and
clutches which hold the big wire cables on the
Brooklyn Bridge his inventions. before
coming to the United States Chanler had visited
nearly every country the globe. AS a sailor he
had seen the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. Thirty
FIVE years he sailed through the Strait of
Magellan and left q Bible with the Patagonan
II was while Chanler was in Australia that he
conceived the idea OF the block signal system He
was injured there IN a railroad collision and re
covered S'"'3 IN damases- ne aeciaenI W is mace
such deep impression on MN that ne resolved
10 invent means 10 make similar occurrences
the electrical and transportation shows. in Madi,
square Garden, the Grand Central Palace and
other places in this country and Europe.
1t WAS about ten feet long. 1t consisted of rail
road tracks with block signals and friction tracks
The rails led into switch at the side OF the
track where the train sent when the draw
S tr5c o He also had four cars fuiiy equipped with
electric motors. This train alone cost the in
ventor many days and nights of hard toll and sew
eral thousand dollars. To emphasize the great
possibilities Of his invention Chanler went 10 every
railroad accident of any consequence within
hundred miles Of this city, and took photographs
and up his apparatus where railroad officials
could examine H. Several years Cornelius
Vanderbilt went To the Grand Central Palace and
gave the system careful inspection. but, much
the inventors disappointment, he did not COM
init himself. The inventor succeeded also in get
ting several tests railroads. and while the
theoretical success of the system was admitted
the officials thought that il would cost more money
to operate such system than their companies
would care 10 invest.
The apparatus Is in Bridgeport at present in the
public lbrary-the last place its inventor exhibited
il, and lectured 10 audience Of railroad men.
II is reported that the relatives will now take 1t
and endeayOr TO put il Oh The market