Improvements in Railway and Tramway Crossings.
Year: 1894

page_text: Date of Application, 25th Jan., 1894-Accepted, 24th Mar., 1894
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Railway and Tramway Crossings.
I, WILLIAM HOWELL, of Burry Port, in the County of Carmarthen, Metal
Broker, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the
same is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :-
The present invention relates to improvements in the points of railway and
tramway crossings and in the method of manufacturing them, and the principal
object of it is to provide for their resisting the effect of the repeated impact of the
wheels better than it is possible for the points made in the ordinary way to do.
Hitherto crossing points have been made by mitreing two pieces of rail and
rivetting or bolting them together. Such a method of manufacture makes the
point present a vertical junction down its nose. The present invention provides
for a crossing point being made by bending a rail according to a particular process
and further for possessing and presenting to the traffic a solid nose, such nose being
part of the surface of the web of the rail out of which the point is made.
In order that the invention and the means by which it is to be carried into
practical effect may be thoroughly understood, I will describe it and them in
detail, referring in so doing to the accompanying drawings which are to be taken
as part of this Specification and read therewith.
Fig. 1 is a plan shewing how to find by the use of a special template, how much
the rail is to be bent at the first bending.
Fig. 2 is a plan shewing the bent rail after its sides have been cut away
preparatory to the second bending. The dotted lines shew the point produced by
the second bending.
Fig. 3 is a plan of a point made according to the present invention, and its
frog.
Fig. 4 is a side elevation of a point made according to the present invention.
I have selected the manufacture of a point out of a piece of flanged rail for
Specification, but it must be understood that my invention is equally as applicable
to double headed as to flanged rails.
The dotted lines of Figure 1 shew the piece of rail straight. It is not drawn
full length, but as my invention deals only with the central portion, the omission of
the two ends of the rail does not matter.
a is a template. It is made out of a flat bar of the same width as the head of
the rail, by cutting off one side bc from one end diagonally at an angle with the
other side c d equal to half the angle of the point. The apex of the angle must
be removed leaving the nose c, c' about one eighth of an inch wide or rather less.
The reason for doing this will appear later on. The template is then laid upon
the rail with its nose midway of the two ends of the latter, and the angle c¹ exactly
over the side e of the web of the rail. The latter is then bent inwards until
the outer edge of the head of the rail coincides with angle b. The lines c b
and c d are then marked upon the rail. A repetition of the above described use
of the template a upon the other half of the rail gives the lines c'f and c
The
9.
lines c b and g are continued diagonally across the flange h of the rail to its edge
producing i and j.
The middle of the rail is then made hot, and as much of the head of the rail
as is enclosed within the triangle fc' d, is cut away. As much also of the head
and flange on the opposite side of the web as lies within the triangle cji, is cut
away. These two cuttings, it will be noticed, do not cut through the web from one
side to the other, but leave the reduced thickness c c which will produce the nose

page_text: of the point. The middle portion of the rail then presents the appearance illustrated
by the full lines of Figure 2.
The next step in the process is the second bending which consists in bending the
rail at the transverse line c c¹ until the faces cgj and c bi touch. The dash and
dot lines of the figure indicate the courses of the points j, g, b and i during this
step. When the faces cgj and ebi touch each other, the point is produced, as
indicated by the dotted lines of Figure 2 and in Figures 3 and 4.
The nose of the improved point is vertical from flange upwards. I prefer
that it should be strengthened by rivetting the two portions together as shewn at k
in Figures 2, 3 and 4.
When the rail is double headed, as much of the bottom head as is included
within the two triangles, is cut away.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is
1. The herein before described process of making a point, consisting in setting
out two triangles upon the rail having their apex angles upon a transverse line and
their bases coincident with the outer edges of the rail, cutting away from the head
all included within one triangle and from the rail all included with the opposite
triangle and bending the rail till the faces produced by the cutting away of the last
mentioned triangle touch, as set forth.
2. A single piece point made as set forth.
Dated his
1
PHILLIPS & LEIGH,
22, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, London, W.C.,
Agents for the Applicant.