New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1911-03-08
RAILWAY TO USE
WIRELESS PHONE
Expected to Insure Safety and
Cut Down Delay.
REINFORCE SIGNAL SYSTEM,

i Trains SISSu S10S0 0e0SeoSSy ~ o'OSs
by Inability to Communicate Will
/ Division Headquarters ~ Union Pa
cifie Finds Its Experiments With New
Scheme Successful.
| Frederick II. NIillener, an electrical
expert, who has been conducting test!
in wireless telephony from moving
trains for the Union Pacific railroad
discussed this subject recently before
the Railway Club of New York.
"On a railroad an electrically con
troled automatic block signal may
work at least 100000 times without &
failure" said DR.. Millener. ''The hun
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
to wait until he gets orders to proceed.
On these rare occasions when the sig
nails go wrong the track may be clear,
but the engineer does not know any
thing about what is ahead Of him eX-
cept what the signal tells him; there
fore he waits.
1.-The delay may be so long that traf-
fic may be held in an eyer frightening
line from the point where the signal
has stopped the movement Of the
trains. This costs the railroad more
or less money. 1t means the loss of
the productive labor Of a great many
employees and the idleness of lot of
rolling stock. as well as annoyance to
travellers and shippers.
Wireless Phone Tried.
'The Union Pacific has one Of the
finest systems of block signals Of any
railroad in America. Perfect as it is,
however. there is this remote but pos
sibe element Of delay-of loss in the
battle against time-that must be elimi.
mated. The Union Pacific decided that
the only way to do so was to devise
some means by which an engineer in
his cab, either while the train was in
ulOtloil VI IL II was oIOPpCO dAS w AClC
on the line by some ineXplicable dan
ger signal from the automatic devices,
could call up the train dispatcher's Of
fee and find out what was wrong
whether to stay where he was or to
go ahead. Therefore about four years
ago was asked to devise a means Of
overcoming this difficulty. The solu-
ton seemed to be in wireless commu-
by telephone.
1--WE have been prosecuting these re-
searches ever since then. The concfu-
sions we have reached have been salts
factory. We are not prepared to state
n detail the methods we have follow
ed, for the work is not yet absolutely
may say, however, that
wireless telephony from a moving |
ability and that within year or so
rom now it will be feature of the
laily opera ton of trains on the Union |
Pacific. ..a gt...
Travel to Be Safer.
IF we save one fruit train from
reezing it will pay for the cost of prac-
ically the whole installation More
han that, however, it will make travel
~ rail even safer than it is now on
he safest of railroads. With properly
constructed wireless stations there is
10 chance of failure. There will be no
more trouble with block signals, no
lelays or annoyances because wires
ave been blown down by storms or
nything Of that sort.
1.-TWO Of these wireless stations will
e established soon, one at Sidney.
,eb., and the other at Cheyenne, WyO..
o. miles apart. where the line is sin
lie track. We expect to keep up COM
with moving trains be-
ween these stations and others that .
re to be established. These wireless
tations will be close to the train dis
atchers' offices, 50 that communica-
on may be established quickly when
yer it is necessary.
I'VE have discovered through our ex-
eriments that wireless waves will fol-
w the direction of the rails farther
IAN in any other direction and more
osely 1t is we'll known that they
i'll fOllowI stream of water or metal
c conductors better than they will
ass over a wooded country or even
treeless plain and that these waves
Ork better in stormy weather than
hen the skies are clear"