Arizona republican., 1905-09-20
PROVING A SUCCESS
Automatic Device for Preventing
 Railroad Collisions.

w. A. Bondurant of Los Angeles. | who Is visiting friends and relatives | in this city, brings most flattering re- ports concerning the American switch | and Signal company, an enterprise he | has devoted a great deal of time to | the promotion of during the last two | years. He associated himself with II. | Mac Davenport, tae inventor of a de- | vice for the purpose of preventing train | wrecks. organized the company of l which he is the president. secured pat 1 ents in this country and Mexico and i has under way negotiations for patents in nearly all European countries. A large part of the company's stock has already been sold; so much of it in fact that MT. BonGurant does not care whether anybody buys or not, for there is ample money on hand to meet all requirements. He feels assured that the enterprise will be a success and that all who have stock will make money. He likes to talk about the success of the enterprise here, only be- cause quite number of his Phoenix friends placed their confidence in the enterprise when there was a risk about it and he is glad their judgment has | been Yindicated.
 The nature of this invention will not 1 was quite fully related in these col umns year ago. Briefly though, it is | a device working automatically by the 1 passing of trains over the track, de signed to prevent head on and rear | end collisions Signals are thrown up ! for a mile ahead and is kept in that | position for a mile in the rear of every | train, the signals being a fifth of | mile apart or as frequent as may be ! IL. aiVacr ffN ard | each other have a zone of q mile in which to come to a ssandstill. But de- | pendence is not alone on the engineer 1 seeing the signal and stopping the train. If he happened to be asleep the | first signal encountered, through the ! action of the valve causes the engine whistle to blow and continue to blow until the next fifth Of a mile signal is lceached unless the driver arouses Iim- self and stops it. If he does not, when the second signal is reached in sim narly automatic way the air brakes are operated by it and the train is stop ped It makes no difference then if the engineer never wakes up. And as mentioned before the system operates for mile, Or any other desired dis
 tance, in the rear of the train well.
 Asked abou. the result of expert | ments, or if it's successful operation
 
 Bondurant said it had to the satisfac
 ton of it's promoters. though the ex-
 periments are nO- yet concluded. He
 said the company has a mile of rail-
 road belonging to q branch of the Pa | cific Electric line in Los Angeles not
 now in active use, on which the eX
 periments are being conducted. This l mile iS fully equipped so far as the
 track and signals are concerned, and ] -.1-r fe-
 factory so far as the automatic oper-
 alton of the signals is concerned. But
 in respect of the valve that works on
 the air. no tests had been made yet,
 as the equipment was not ready when
 he left Los Angeles. Men who are
 well qualified to know however, as
 sure him that they have no fear of
 that for it is the simplest part of the
 invention and cannot fail to work
 MT. Bondurant says he does no want
 to be over-sanguine, or make any false
 claims, because it will either work or
 it will not. and if it doez not the whole
 thing will be a failure Btu he has
 no doubt whatever, and in a very short
 time there will Ee actual tests made
 by starting trains toward each other,
 head-on. on this mile of road.
 He says the company has ma
 chine shop tha,. has cost several thou
 sand dollars and that 1t Is perfectly
 equipped for turning out a limited
 number of the signal devices. But fl
 it should prove the success he feels as
 sured of the demand will exceed the . possibility of supply to such an extent { that some arrangement will naturally . have to be made with the larger rail - 1 roads whereby they will be permitted ] to manufacture their own equipment
 And with their large shops they can , 1 pay a good royalty and still do the
 work chcaper than the inventors can ] The inventors claim that the device = is far better than any electric or block P. system now in use, and is not affected
 materially by any climate O. weather
 And if it is all that is claimed for it . the world is surely anNOus for it's 3 adoption by the big railroads, nos par - ticularly that the promoters may be-
 come wealthy. but in the protection of
 life and property It is said that, aside 7 from the loss of life on the big rail- 2 roads in 1903, there was a financial [ expense to the railroad of the country
 in rrorarty loss and 6amage suits of | something lke> $27 100000, due to ac- cidants And that would equip sev- eral thousand miles of railroad with this device.
 Mr. Bondurant expects to go tc | Buckeye for a few days to look after ? some business matters. and, return ing. VIII leave for Los Angeles again N about Sunday.