IMPROVEMENTS IN AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC SIGNALLING APPARATUS FOR RAILWAYS, ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Herbert John Haddan at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 23rd December 1882. A communi-
cation to him from abroad by Pierre Henri Fortin, and Jacques Joseph
Langlet, persons resident at Paris, France,
HERBERT JOHN HADDAN, of Kensington, Middlesex, " IMPROVEMENTS IN
AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC SIGNALLING APPARATUS FOR RAILWAYS, ALSO APPLICABLE TO
OTHER PURPOSES," a communication to me from abroad by Pierre Henri Fortin,
and Jacques Joseph Langlet, persons resident at Paris, France,
This invention relates to automatic electric signalling apparatus for establishing
communication between different stations of a railway; it is also applicable to
mines and other industrial establishments. For railways and analogous places the
improved apparatus comprises a pedal placed parallel to the rail and consisting
essentially of an equilibrated contact-lever adapted to be set in oscillating motion
by the tyres of the wheels passing over the rails; a multiplying lever receiving its
motion from the contact lever and forming part of the signalling apparatus proper;
a commutator-lever connected to the multiplying lever by a link and having at
each end an extension situated over a mercury cup and adapted to dip into the
latter during its down-motion. The multiplying lever has a lug or projection by
which it and the organs depending from the same, may be held in the required
position. This locking takes place when the armature of an electro-magnet is
placed under (or in proximity of) the said projection or lug by the attraction of
the electro-magnet, at the moment when the contact with the wheel, and the
passage of a current takes place, the closing of the current being effected by one or
other of the extensions of the commutator-lever dipping into the mercury cup.
The pedal may be omitted, and the web of the rail perforated in the centre
between two sleepers, to receive the extremity of the multiplying lever, which may
however be placed tangentially under the base or the head of the rail, so as to be
moved by the deflection of the rail. In other applications the multiplying lever
may be set in motion automatically by the rise or fall of a cage in a pit or an
analogous organ. The present signalling system is complete when two apparatus
or several couples of them are put in communication with each other. When the
multiplying lever of the first apparatus goes down it is immediately locked by the
Pion 11

page_text: armature of the electro-magnet, while the lever of the second apparatus remains
raised until the contact with the rolling wheel (or the cage) imparts it an
oscillating motion and causes the same to be locked in its turn. Simultaneously
and owing to this locking the armature of the electro-magnet of the first apparatus
is withdrawn, and the latter unlocked, so as to resume its normal position. In this
way each of the two apparatus gives the same indication when their levers occupy
a different alternative position. The magnet-armature of one of the two apparatus
carries at the upper portion an insulating piece to which is connected one pole of a
local battery intended to set in motion an optic or acoustic signal. The other
pole of this battery is connected with a spring placed opposito the armature so as
to close the current when the armature is attracted. A similar but contrary
arrangement is provided at the second apparatus.