IMPROVE- MENTS IN APPARATUS FOR RETARDING AND STOPPING RAILWAY CARRIAGES
Year: 1863

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Michael Henry at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 20th January
1863. A communication from abroad by Charles Fray Vincent Paul
Amédée, Varenne Louis Casimir Descouleur, and Sabin Joseph Cazier,
all of 33, Boulevard Saint Martin, Paris, France.
MICHAEL HENRY, of 84, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN APPARATUS FOR RETARDING AND STOPPING RAILWAY CARRIAGES," com-
municated to me from abroad by Charles Fray Vincent Paul Amédée,
Varenne Louis Casimir Descouleur, and Sabin Joseph Cazier, all of 88,
Boulevard Saint Martin, Paris, France, to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the mode of stopping or retarding carriages on
railways, and 'consists of improved apparatus for the purpose, in which appa-
ratus for working tho breaks is so combined with apparatus for connecting
or coupling the carriages that the breaks are applied and caused to stop or
retard the carriages by the action of uncoupling or disconnecting the carriages
from each other. This may be done in one arrangement by a chain or like.agent
extending to within easy reach of the driver or other attendant of the train, and
connected under each carriage to a bar, rod, or shaft, which I hereinafter call
the disconnecting shaft. Each coupling hook is held to the carriage by a 'bar,
rod, or piece, herein called a key, kept in place by a moveable notched or
hooked piece connected to the disconnecting shaft by a crank, link, or
jointed lever. When the chain is pulled or drawn the disconnecting shaft is

page_text: turned partially round or oscillated, so as to move the notched or hooked
piece and release the key therefrom, whereupon the key will be forced
upward (or in the required direction) by a spring, and will liberate the
coupling hook from the carriage, the momentum of the latter facilitating the
action. Now the same acțion of the disconnecting shaft that disconnects
the carriage also works the breaks. For this purpose the disconnecting shaft
may be connected by a chain or otherwise to a hooked or forked piece, in
which is an arm or projection on or a portion of a shaft, rod, or bar connected
by springs, chains, or other attachments to a clutch, lever, or fork. When
the disconnecting shaft is moved by the first-mentioned chain it works the
hooked or forked piece so as to drop the arm and work the clutch shaft in
such manner as to cause clutch boxes or collars on the carriage axle to bo
connected or engaged. One of these boxes or collars carries a pinion or wheel,
which is thereby caused to revolve and transmit motion through pinions,
chains, and endless screw or other gearing to a pinion on a threaded axis ;
this axis' is by these means worked upward, and moves with it an arm or link
working a bell crank, connected by a series of cranks and arms or links to the
breaks, that is to say; it is connected to a bar or rod to which the breaks are
attached by links, cranks, or arms, and these breaks are by the action of
the bell cranks applied against the wheel. The disconnecting shaft may
however act on the clutch boxes otherwise than by the hooked piece before
described.
I
Sometimes the break shaft carries two breaks for one wheel to be applied
on opposite sides of it, one being a friction break or block, and the other a
biting or clutch break, that is, a hollow, block, which may act as a shoe or
skid and embrace half the wheel's periphery. The wheel may thus be simul-
taneously locked and skidded. The breaks may be restored to position by
springs. The breaks may be suspended from a point above the wheel, the
break shaft being supported in blocks or bearings capable of sliding up and
down in slots or ways in the axle guards, so that the breaks may follow or
accommodate themselves to the movement or position of the wheel to suit the
lading of the carriage.
Instead of working the break blocks by the disconnecting action, the
threaded shaft may, when necessary, be worked by a hand wheel or equivalent
contrivance, and thereby caused to actuate the breaks.