The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-02-28
Explanation of Wireless Tele-
phOny on Union Pacific.
Official Electrician Tells Of
Strange Experiments.
CAN USE UMBRELLA.
Receiver of This Kind OF Mes
sages Are So Powerful.
other Items of General Inter-
est in Traffic World.

New York. Feb. 2S.-At the meeting
of the New York Railroad club DR.. j.
H. Millener, experimental electrician
of the Union Pacific, told the members
of the successful experiment that road
has been making for four years in the
line of wireless telephony from NOV
ing trains.
It is hoped by the Union Pacific to
put the telephones into active opera
ton this year. The step IS regarded
as unique IN the history of railroading.
The value of the talk was enhanced
greatly by the use of lantern slides.
ION a railroad an electrically-con-
trolIed, automatic block signal may
work at least 100000 times without a
failure" said DR.. MilIener- The hum
dred thousandth time, perhaps, it may
go wrong. The lighting of an arc
lamp or some atmospheric disturbance
may cause the signal arm to fly up and
the signal to be set at danger The
engineer of the train that it halts has
u wait until he gets orders to pro-
coed. On these rare occasions when
the signal goes wrong the track may
be clear, but the engineer does not
know anything about what is ahead of
him except what the signal tells him.
Therefore ne waits.
THE delay may be so long that traf-
fic may be delayed in an ever length
euing line from the point where the
signal has stopped the movement OF
more or less money. 1t means the loss
of the productive labor of a great many
employees and the idleness of a lot of
rolling stock, as well as annoyance to
travels and shippers.
Engineer to Train Dispatcher.
Now the Union Pacific has the finest
system of block signals of any rail-
road in America. Perfect as it is, how
ever there is this remote but possible
element of delay that must be eliminat-
ed. The Union Pacific decided that
the only way to do so was to devise
some means by which an engineer IN
his cab could call up the train dis
patchers office and find out what was
wrong. Therefore, about four years
ago, 1 was asked to devise means OF
overcoming this difficulty. The solu-
ton seemed to be in wireless comniun-
ication by telephone.
I'VE have been prosecuting these re-
searches ever since then. The con-
illusions we have reached have been
satisfactory. Wireless telephony from
a moving train is more than a practical
probability and within a year or SO
from now it will be a feature of the
daily operation of trains on the Union
Pacific If we save one fruit train
from freezing it will pay for the cost
of practically the whole installation
More than that, however it will make
travel by rail ever safer than it is
properly constructed wireless stations
there is no chance of failure. There
will DE no more trouble with the block
signals, no delays or annuyances be-
cause wires have been blown down by
storms, or anything of that sort.
1.-TWO of these wireless stations will
be established soon, one at Sidney,
Neb., and the other at Cheyenne, Wyo..
1O3 miles apart, where the line Is a
single track. We expect to keep up
with moving trains be
tween these stations and others that
are to be established. These wireless
stations will be close to the train dis
patchers' Offices, so that communities
ton may ne established whenever it is
Necessary. We have discovered, through
our experiments, that wireless waves
will follow the direction of the rails
farther than in any other direction
and more closely. 1t is well known
that they will FOLLOW a stream of water
or metallic conductors better than they
will pass over wooded country or even
a treeless plain, and that these waves
work better in stormy weather than
when the skies are clear