Omaha daily bee., 1902-08-10

that In case Of accident the line could be
cut and the news wired promptly. This
plan worked admirably, but 1t had the draw
back that cutting the wire interrupted the
regular transmission OF messages, thus de-
ranging the business of the railroad and
stopping all commercial teiegraphing, II
there were but one wire, until linemen
could be sent for and the wire mended.
Sometimes this might not be possible. es-
pecially in the early days, for hours, and
the resulting loss, confusion and delay from
intercepted messages became a serious
matter.
The Circuit breaker" which young Laying
invented to overcome all this is as simple
as his double orders" It is merely a
sort Of double clamp, not larger than a
pocket knife, which is fastened to the wire
that Is to be cut in such a way that II
may be severed between the two ends Of
the clamp. BY this device the wire may
be tapped without interrupting the regular
flow Of kilograms at all. except for the
brief time required to wire news Of the
accident to the super" BY a simple de-
vice on the side the clamp itself. which
holds the severed wire ends together and
prevents them from falling to the ground,
furnishes the path over which the electric
fluid travels past the point Of cutting after
the message for which the wire was cut
has been sent.
Mr.. Laying might have Increased his
wealth a lot through this device had he
wished. since it is now in universal use by
the railroads. but he took out no patent
and has been quite content with the knowl-
edge that his ingenuity has made railroad
operation simpler.
Infringing Time Tables"
The third simpllhcation Of railroad opera
tion due TO Mr.. Laying is the use Of threads.
pegs and a big board. representing a rail-
road line. or division thereof. In time table
making.
In the early days. when there were only
two OF three trains a day each way to be
got over any railroad, the making Of the
time table was simplicity itself. but as
railroad business grew the practical men
who had to blaze the way In all executive
railroad matters were much puzzled for a
simple time table making scheme. No one
knows who thought OF the use OF cross
section paper" the vertical lines standing
for hours and minutes and the horizontal
ones for the stations and sidings on the
read, while the trains were represented by
lines running dlagonally. At all events.
this method was In use IN the sos. and
George W. Fulton, superintendent OF the
steubenvtlle q Indiana railroad. now a part
OF the Panhandle system. taught It's mys-
teries TO young Laying. To him the sys-
TEN seemed the simplest that could be de-
Vised, but the method was slow and cum
bersome. the diagonal lines for the trains
having TO be drawn IN. Often. these lines
had 70 be drawn. erased and redrawn re-
p~satedly before they were got In perfect
shape. and thus the making OF q time table
was an exceedingly slow job. One day the
young mar had a bright idea. which he at
once carried into execution by having q big,
smooth board made. which he fastened upon
the wall. Then be divided the board
vertically with horizontal lines, each line
representing one mile and the whole Of
them the total length Of the road. Then
be divided the road horizontally with
Itwenty-four vertical lines, each representing
an hour. Each hour space was subdivided
BY twelve smaller lines. each representing
nve minutes. Then he stretched silk
threads diagonally across the board to rep
resent the trains. fastening the threads at
the points where they cross the station
lines with needles.
On the nrst experiment this method was
found far superior to the old one, and to-
day Il Is used by every railroad IN the
world that runs trains enough to make the
preparation Of its time table a complicated
task The stringing Of the threads is gem
orally undertaken on each road b. oGcials