IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MODE OF LOCKING OR SECURING THE LEVERS USED TO WORK RAILWAY SIGNALS AND POINTS
Year: 1864

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Richard Holiday, of No. 1, Cobden Street, Bromley,
Middlesex, Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MODE
OF LOCKING OR SECURING THE LEVERS USED TO WORK RAILWAY SIGNALS
AND POINTS."
Sealed the 5th May 1865, and dated the 16th November 1864.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Richard Holiday at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
16th November 1864.
I, RICHARD HOLIDAY, of No. 1, Cobden Street, Bromley, Middlesex,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE MODE OF LOCKING OR SECURING THE LEVERS USED TO WORK
RAILWAY SIGNALS AND POINTS," to be as follows:-
Instead of the rocking shafts and cranks now used to move the notched
sliding plates into the position required to secure or lock the hand levers of
railway signals and points not in use in giving any required signal or changing
the corresponding points, I use for such point lever a bar or plate provided
with an oblique slot, in which slot the lever in use works backwards and for-
wards freely, and which by virtue of the inclined plane of such slot causes the
locking plate to slide horizontally, and so brings all the notches or projections
on the edge of the plate opposite to all the levers out of use, and so fixes them
that none of the levers except those in connection with the points and signals
to be changed can be moved. Each lever used to move any particular point

page_text: is provided with one of the sliding plates, each such plate having an oblique
or inclined slot for the lever to work in freely, and projections or teeth on its
edge to lock or secure each lever out of use, so that no point can be moved
nor signal be given inconsistent with that in action by the lever working in
such slot.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said Richard Holiday in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
15th May 1865.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, RICHARD
HOLIDAY, of No. 1, Cobden Street, Bromley, Middlesex, Engineer, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Sixteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, in the twenty-eighth year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto
me, the said Richard Holiday, Her special licence that I, the said Richard
Holiday, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I,
the said Richard Holiday, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should
at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all
times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MODE OF LOCKING OR SECURING THE LEVERS USED TO
WORK RAILWAY SIGNALS AND POINTS," upon the condition (amongst others) that
I, the said Richard Holiday, my executors or administrators, by an instru-
ment in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in
what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed
in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Richard Holiday, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:
My Invention of "Improvements in the Mode of Locking or Securing the
Levers used to Work Railway Signals and Points," is as follows :-

page_text: Instead of the rocking shafts and cranks now commonly used on the Brighton
and other railways, and described in Saxby's Patent, No. 1754, dated 19th July
1860, and Chambers's Patent, No. 31, dated 5th January 1860, to move the
notched locking or sliding plates into the position required to secure or lock the
hand levers of railway signals and points not in use in giving any required signal
or changing the corresponding points, I use for each point lever a bar or plate
provided with an oblique slot, in which slot the lever in use works backwards
and forwards freely, and which by virtue of the inclined plane of such slot
causes the locking plate to slide horizontally, and so brings all the notches or
projections on the edge of the plate opposite to all the levers out of use, and
so fixes them that none of the levers except those in connexion with the points
and signals to be changed can be moved. Each lever used to move any par-
ticular point is provided with one of these locking or sliding plates, each such
plate having an oblique or inclined slot for the lever to work in freely, and
projections or teeth on its edge to lock or secure each lever out of use, so that
no point can be moved nor signal be given inconsistent with that in action by
the lever working in such slot. Where distance signals are used the locking
or sliding plates can be made longer, and be furnished with proper teeth or
projections to include them, so that the distance signals shall be kept con-
sistent with the signals on the main line, the oblique slot may be formed in the
sliding plate or on the edge thereof.
Having thus described my Invention, and the manner in which it is to be
performed, I wish it to be understood that I do not claim the exclusive use of
sliding plates with notches or teeth formed on the edge or in the surface of
such plates, such having been used before as stated by Saxby, Chambers, and
others, but what I do claim is the moving of such locking or sliding plates
horizontally or otherwise by means of an oblique slot formed in such plate, and
in which the lever to be moved works so as to bring the notches or teeth
formed on the edge or in the plate into the proper position to lock all the
levers out of use.
RICHARD HOLIDAY. (L.B.)