AN IMPROVED METHOD AND APPLIANCES FOR FACILITATING SIGNALLING ON RAILWAYS.
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Alexander McLaren and Henry
Manston Sherratt at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the
12th May 1882.
JOHN ALEXANDER MOLAREN and HENRY MANSTON SHERRATT both of No 119 Gt
Russell Street Bloomsbury in the County of Middlesex. AN IMPROVED METHOD
AND APPLIANCES FOR FACILITATING SIGNALLING ON RAILWAYS.
The object of this invention is an improved method of signalling on railways and
in appliances for carrying out such method by passing trains.
According to our invention we arrange within a suitable box or receptacle levers
and catch armatures and also magnets and arrange them in connection with
semaphore arms or other signalling indicators on the track that they may be acted
upon through an electric current put in circuit by the engine coming into contact
with levers, depression plates or equivalent, appliance fitted in the path at the side
of or between the metals. We also provide the engine with an indicator apparatus
which is put into operation by a current to inform the driver or other assistant
that the signals have operated it being left to the driver as part of his duty to
reset his engine signal ready for the next action of his indicator.
To carry the invention into practice we connect the rod of, say, a distant or a
home semaphore or both with an armature the semaphore being balanced by
weights that the current would have little to do. The armature is arranged
within circuit of a fixed magnet and is capable of being held in position by a catch
lever of a separate magnet after the "break" occurs from the first magnet so that
the semaphore could not be released until the current acts upon the second magnet
to attract and draw the catch away from the armature.
When the armature is acted upon a bell or gong can also be sounded by the
current appliances if desired.
The wires and depression plate of the first magnet are arranged (preferably)
close to the signal, say, the starting signal at a station so that the semaphore
signal is raised to the danger by the engine in passing this being also indicated on
the engine as a record. In this position the semaphore becomes locked by the
catch before referred to until the engine arrives at the distant signal (the driver in
he meantime having reset his indicator) when the engine comes into contact by a
CD
2

page_text: depression plate or other appliance which puts the catch lever magnet into circuit
and draws it off which releases the semaphore and puts it to "all right" position
for the next engine to pass on the first engine having acted upon a similar
semaphore at the station or point last passed to set it at danger until it has passed
on to the next signalling point and so on. Each engine setting the danger signal
against the next train within a certain distance and releasing said signal to
"all right" when passing a distant point.
The invention is applicable to junctions, loops and sidings as well as to main
lines and branches and by arranging the indicator on the engine near to the steam
pressure gauge and within sight of the driver and his assistant it would be
immaterial whether there be a fog, a mist or other like impediment